Swartzentrover.com | Brookes - Life Through the Living One

Life Through the Living One

By James H. Brookes

Chapter 3

The Death of Christ.

“MOREOVER, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand.”¹ The importance of this verse cannot be overstated, because the inspired Apostle announces his purpose to define the gospel, the glad tidings, the joyful message, which he preached. “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that Herose again the third day according to the scriptures."² This he delivered unto them first of all, not simply in reference to time, but as the principal thing, or, in the words of Dr. Candlish, as “always in the van and forefront of all his teaching."

Such is the gospel according to the Holy Spirit's own explanation, and the articles of the creed He presents are so few and simple a child may readily understand and re member them. Christ died for our sins; He was buried; He rose again. But few and simple as they are, they constitute the gospel, the good news to be proclaimed to a lost world. Without these there may be beautiful diction, impressive elocution, profound discussion; but no gospel is preached unless the preacher makes it known that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried under their weight, that He rose again, leaving them behind Him, as it were, in His open grave. Those who substitute anything in place of this gospel are bringing upon them selves a terrible doom. Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”³

The reason for this stern denunciation of false preachers will become apparent, when it is seen that apart from the death of Christ for our sins, salvation is impossible. Most clearly and fully is it taught in the Sacred Scriptures that He endured the penalty of sin on the cross; and never until the sinner accepts this as true, trusting in Him as the only Saviour, does he pass out of death into life. “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man [or rather, the good man] some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us [He places it in a striking point of view], in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”⁴ If dying for a righteous man and " the good one,” as Rotherham renders it, means, as it obviously does, dying in their place, in their room, in their stead, so as to keep thein from dying, it is equally obvious that the death of Christ was in the place, in the room, in the stead of the ungodly and sinners, to keep those who believe on Him from eternal death.

It is further said, He “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.”⁵ Professor Smeaton well remarks, “The expression means, that He gave Himself on account of sin; that His death stood in the same relation to sin as death uniformly does,—that is, that death was in His case, too, the wages of sin. And the consequence is as follows: If the Lord died for our sins, they whom He represented do not require to die for their own sins. If, in the moral government of God, our sins were the cause of Christ's death, there can be no second exaction of the penal consequences from us personally.” Of course it was only as our substitute He could pay the wages of sin, declared to be “death,”⁶ for it is everywhere affirmed of Him that He “knew no sin,”⁷ that He was without sin,”, “⁸that He “did no sin,”⁹ that “in Him is no sin.”¹⁰ But it is the testimony of God's word from first to last, in type, in prophecy, in psalm, in narrative, in plain doctrinal teaching, that the Sinless One took our place, and endured the punishment of sin in our stead, leaving the happy believer to sing—

Complete atonement Thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid,
Whate'er Thy people owed;
How, then, can wrath on me take place,
Now standing in God's righteousness,
And sprinkled by Thy blood?
“Since Thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my place endured The whole of wrath divine,
Payment God will not twice demand,
First at my bleeding Surety's hand,
And then again at mine."

“Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, without sin [apart from sin), unto salvation.”¹¹ “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”¹² “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”¹³ If the mind and heart are subject to the authority of the Bible, but one conclusion can be drawn from such passages as these. It is, that the sufferings of Christ were vicarious, or borne as our substitute, and that His death was atoning or sacrificial in its character. Nor must the dignity of His person be forgotten in seeking to give to this great fact its proper value. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He

hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”¹⁴

We are not surprised, therefore, to find that when "holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,”¹⁵ they were constant witnesses of Him,
“who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation (emptied Himself ], and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and be came obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”¹⁶ These men uttered their messages in little groups, or at intervals through a period of about sixteen hundred years, but there is the most perfect agreement in their testimony concerning the coming, the character, and the work of a divine Deliverer, as there is concerning the unity of the Godhead, although surrounded all the time by the poly theism of heathen nations, and nearly all the time by the base idolatry of their own countrymen.

From the day the seed of the woman was mentioned in the garden of Eden, redemption through His blood was announced with an unvarying uniformity, not less remark able than it is conclusive of the superhuman origin of the Sacred Scriptures. It is seen in the first recorded act of worship, when the bloody offering of Abel was “a more excellent sacrifice” than the fragrant flowers and fruits of Cain, being presented " by faith," and “God testifying of his gifts,” not of his person.¹⁷ It is seen in the blood of the burnt-offerings that stained the altar after the deluge, and that stayed the curse from smiting the ground any more for man's sake.¹⁸ It is seen in the ransom of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage through the sprinkled blood of a lamb without blemish, God saying to His people, “When I see the blood I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.”¹⁹ He did not say, When I see the blood and something else, the blood and your feelings, the blood and your repentance, the blood and your sincere efforts, the blood and your good works; nor did He say, When you see the blood, but When I see the blood; for the blood alone in its perfect efficacy stood between them and destruction; and the timid mother and little child were as safe, sheltered behind the blood, as were Moses and Aaron. There was not a Jewish festival, nor the beginning of a month, nor a sabbath, nor a morning, nor an evening, nor burnt-offering, nor a peace-offering, nor a sin-offering, nor a trespass-offering, that did not remind Jehovah's redeemed nation of the absolute necessity of blood as the only way of access into His presence, and of accept ance in His sight. Especially was this essential truth deeply impressed upon their attention on the great day of atonement. Blood was taken by the high priest into the most holy place, and sprinkled upon the mercy seat eastward, and seven times before the mercy-seat; and then, coming forth, he laid both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confessed over him “all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat,”²⁰ so that they were borne entirely away. This significant ceremony is followed in the next chapter by the central truth of revelation, “It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”²¹ No wonder the Psalmist exclaimed, “How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts;” for the blood which everywhere met his eye showed that sin was put away.

It would be easy to multiply quotations from various books of the Old Testament, but this would be needless after reading the testimony of the evangelical prophet concerning the suffering Messiah. “He was wounded [margin, tormented] for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes [margin, bruise] we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. . . . For the transgression of my people was He stricken. And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, [margin, deaths]; because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His know ledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities;” or, as the last verse maybe a little more strictly rendered, “By the knowledge of Him self shall One that is righteous, my servant, bring righteous ness unto many: and their iniquities He shall bear.”²²

His introduction to the expectant multitude by John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan was in strict harmony with all that had been revealed about Him by the prophets: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away [margin, beareth] the sin of the world;”²³ not of the Jew only but also of the Gentile. It will be admitted by all that He knew the design of His mission, the purpose of His death; and we hear Him saying just before He went to the cross, “This is my blood of the new testament (or covenant] which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”²⁴ The opinions of men with regard to that singular death are of little consequence, when He Himself declares it was intended to secure the remission of sins through His blood.

So the Holy Ghost declares He purchased the Church “with His own blood;”²⁵ “whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood;”²⁶ “being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him;”²⁷ “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins;”²⁸ “Now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ;”²⁹ “having made peace through the blood of His cross;”³⁰ “neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption;”³¹ “without shedding of blood is no remission;”³² “having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus;”³³ “the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel;”³⁴ “ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot;”³⁵ “God is light, . . . . and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin;”³⁶ “this is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood;”³⁷ “unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.”³⁸

Surely those who are in heaven know how they got there, and through the opened door which John saw there floats down to us the echo of the song, “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”³⁹ There is no voice in the glory that does not join in that song; and although redemption by blood has been stigmatized with profane and impious jest as the theology of the shambles," it will be found that the rejected cross of Christ is the heaviest burden the lost soul shall carry in hell for ever. Of all who escape the clutches of the devil, never a more dangerous devil than when transformed into an angel of light, it will be said, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.”⁴⁰