How Our Sins Are Taken Away By The Blood of Jesus

HERE IS EVERY REASON why you should now intelligently and believingly behold the Lamb of God, "which taketh away the sin of the world," (John 1:29). You are not directed in this passage to a Saviour who has already " taken away the sin of the world," but to Him who "taketh away the sin of the world." The meaning plainly is, that Jesus is the God appointed Taker-away of sin for the world. We find him asserting this, when He says, The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins" (Matt: 9:6); "All power" (or authority) "is given me in heaven and on earth," (Matt. 28:18). Jesus is the only and the all-sufficient, as He is the authorised Taker-away of sin, for the world at large. The whole world is brought in guilty before God, "for all have sinned," (Rom. 3:23); and the true gospel of God is, that when any one belonging to our sinful world feels his sin to be oppressive, and comes straight to "the Lamb of God" with it, and frankly acknowledges it, and tells out his anxieties regarding it, and his desire to get rid of it, he will find that Jesus has both the power and the will to take it away; and on seeing it removed from him by "the blood of His cross," (Col. 1:20), "as far as the east is from the west," (Ps. 103:12), be will be enabled to sing with a grateful heart and "joyful lips:"

You can never make an atonement for your past sins, nor by personal obedience procure a title to the inheritance of glory; but Jesus is willing to take away all your sins, and to give you His own title to the glorious kingdom, if you will only consent to intrust Him alone with your salvation.

"Well," you may perhaps resolve, "I will go to Him, and cast myself upon His mercy, and if I perish, I perish." Ah, but you need not go to Him in that spirit, for it throws a doubt upon the all-sufficiency of His completed atonement for sin, and His perfect, spotless life of obedience.

Jesus himself says, " God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," (John 3:16). These being the " true sayings of God," (Rev. 19:9), where, O friend, is there the least cause for you saying, with hesitancy and doubt "If I perish, I perish?" (Esther 4:16). The proper thought you ought to have in reference to the glorious Gospel is this - God has so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son to die for sinners, and He assures me that if I, a perishing sinner, believe in Him, I shall not perish, but have everlasting life; I believe His Word, and reckon that if He gave His Son to die for us when we were yet sinners, He will with Him also freely give us all such things as pardon and purity, grace and glory; and if, in accordance with His own gracious invitation, I rest my soul upon His manifested love in Christ Jesus, I believe that it will be as impossible for me to perish, as for God to change His nature, or to cancel the word of grace and truth, that the " blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin," (1 John 1:7).

God the Father loved sinners so much as to send Jesus to die for them. Jesus loved sinners so much as to lay down His life for their redemption. The Holy Spirit loves sinners so much that He has written a record of God's manifested love to them in Jesus Christ, and He Himself has come down in person, to reveal that love to their souls, that they may be saved. And if you, O anxious one, will now agree to God's method of transferring all that Divine justice demands of you to Jesus, "who was made of a woman, made under the law," who perfectly obeyed and pleased the Father in His holy life, and in death endured and exhausted the penalty due to sin, you will obtain pardon, peace, grace, and holiness; the full tide of the love of God, which passeth knowledge, will flow into your soul, and, in the spirit of adoption, you will cry, "Abba, Father," (Gal. 4:6), feel the constraining influence of the love of Christ, and live to the glory of "Him who died for us and rose again."

That I may make the method of a sinner's salvation so "plain, that he that readeth it" (Hab. 2:2) may have his mind's eye so full of its meaning, "that he may run" at once to Jesus Christ, as his Divine sin-bearer, I will present the following homely and unmistakable illustration :-While standing, one day on the platform of the Aberdeen Station of the North-Eastern Railway, I observed a carriage with a board on it intimating that it ran all the way from Aberdeen to London. The doors of it were open, the porters were putting passengers' luggage on the top of it, and a few individuals were entering, or about to enter, its different compartments. They looked for this particular carriage as soon as they had passed through the ticket-office, and on seeing "London" on it, they threw in their traveling-rugs, entered, and, seating themselves, prepared for the journey.

Having furnished themselves with tickets and railway guides, and satisfied themselves that they were in the right carriage, they felt the utmost confidence and I did not observe any one of them coming out of the carriage, and running about in a state of excitement, calling to those around them, "Am I right? am I right?"

Nor did I see any one refusing to enter, because the carriage provided for only a limited number to proceed by that train. There might be 80,000 inhabitants in and around the city; but still there was not one who talked of it as absurd to provide accommodation for only about twenty persons, for practically it was found to he perfectly sufficient. Trains leave the city several times a-day, and it is found that one carriage for London in the train is quite sufficient for the number of passengers; and on the particular day to which I now refer, I noticed, that so ample was the accommodation, that one of the passengers had a whole compartment to himself. The carriage is for the whole city and neighbourhood, but carries only such of the inhabitants as come and seat themselves in it from day to day.

God, in His infinite wisdom, has made provision of a similar kind for our lost world. He has provided a train of grace to carry as many of its inhabitants to heaven, the great metropolis of the universe, as are willing to avail themselves of the gracious provision.

When we call you by the preaching of the gospel, the meaning is, that all who will may come, and, passing through the booking-office of justification by faith alone, seat themselves in a carriage marked, "From Guilt to Glory." Whenever you hear the free and general offer of salvation, you need not stand revolving the question in your own mind, "Is it for me ?" for just as the railway company carry all who comply with their printed regulations, irrespective of moral character, so if you come to the station of grace at the advertised time, which is " now,"-for "Behold now is the accepted time," (2 Cor. 6: 2),-you will find the train of salvation ready; and the only regulation to be complied with by you, in order to your being carried by it, is that you consent to let the Lord Jesus Christ charge Himself with paying for your seat, - which cannot surely be anything but an easy and desirable arrangement, seeing you have no means of paying for yourself.

Were you coming to the railway-station with no money in your pocket, and anxious to travel by a train about to start, in order to be put in possession of a valuable inheritance left to you by a friend; and were any one to meet you at the door of the ticket-office, and say, "I will pay your fare for you," you would not feel anything but the utmost satisfaction in complying with such a regulation; and is it not an easy matter for you on coming to the station of mercy to submit to the regulation of the gospel, to let Jesus pay your fare for the train of grace, that you may take your seat with confidence, and be carried alone, the new and living way to everlasting glory?

If we want to know the gospel and be saved, we must know Jesus as our Sin-bearer; for "Christ crucified is the sum of the gospel and the richness of it. Paul was so taken with Jesus that nothing sweeter than Jesus could drop from his pen and lips. It is observed that he hath the word Jesus five hundred times in his epistles."¹ "Jesus" was his constant subject of meditation, and out of the good treasure of the heart his mouth spoke and his pen wrote. He felt that Christ was made of God unto him "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," (1 Cor. 1:30), and glorying in the Lord and in His cross, he determined not to know anything among those to whom he preached and wrote, " save Jesus Christ and Him crucified," (1 Cor. 2:2). That faith which is not built on a dying Christ is but a perilous dream: God awaken all from it that are in it!

1) Charnock 1684