Christ - His Sinlessness and Sacrifice
His sinlessness
When the angel Gabriel announced the conception and birth of Jesus Christ to His mother Mary, he said, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Lk 1.35). His conception by the power of the Holy Spirit and His birth through the virgin womb made indisputable His impeccability. He was "that holy thing", and utterly sinless in His human nature at birth. He was clean. He was pure. The only man who ever walked upon earth without sin. The only man of woman born who never felt sin's inner power, because His nature was untainted and holy. The consistent testimony of the Apostles is to the sinless perfection of Christ throughout His life. The Apostle John said, "In him is no sin" (1 Jn 3.5). The Apostle Peter testified of Him, "Who did no sin" (1 Pet 2.22). The Apostle Paul described Him as one, "Who knew no sin" (2 Cor 5.21). Sinless beyond argument: sinless in nature, sinless in act and thought, he was incapable, by inherent perfection, of any sin whatever. His purity therefore is fundamental to the salvation He mediates. Only a sinless Saviour can offer Himself as a sacrifice for guilty, sinful men (Heb 7.26-27)! The teaching of a sinless Saviour is absolutely fundamental to the Christian gospel.
The title "Son of God" as used by Gabriel in the passage from Luke above is, in Hebrew usage, an unmistakable indication of His full deity (compare also John 5.18). This same Scripture is also a testimony to the glorious Trinity. We see the "Holy Ghost" coming upon Mary, the power of the "Highest" overshadowing her, and the child to which she would give birth called the "Son of God". The Spirit, the Father, and the Son! This gives to the fruit of Mary's womb, the infant child, by angelic pronouncement co-equal status with the Spirit and the Highest. He is absolutely divine! "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim 3.16): His unabridged deity accredited through the supernatural conception of the Holy Spirit, and His unambiguous humanity guaranteed by the virgin's womb. Such a birth, and such a person, introduces One who, because of His humanity, can legally stand in the stead of guilty men and die for their sins, and at the same time infuse everlasting validity into that death because of the divinity of His nature. Hallelujah! What a Saviour! What a glorious gospel that includes such exalted truths in its message.
His Sacrifice
The sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ has reference to the death which He died. The death of Christ upon Golgotha's cross was pre-eminently a sacrifice. "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pet 2.24 - also Is 53.5). His death was not simply an example of meekness undergoing unjust punishment, it was a death that endured the curse of God on behalf of sinful men who had transgressed God's holy Law. That death was also a ransom, it was the price He paid when He suffered under God's wrath against sin to deliver man from the consequences of his transgression, and make possible the salvation of all who would receive Him as their Saviour. "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim 2.5-6).
His death is also seen as a reconciliation, the means by which the gulf between a holy God and sinful man has been finally bridged, and bridged to the satisfaction of God's justice and the praise of His grace. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet 3.18). His just and holy life, with infinite value in it, offered on behalf of unrighteous man, has brought the guilty and estranged sinner who believes home to the heart of God. It is the blood of Christ that is the seal and sign of His great sacrifice, for the shed blood is the incontrovertible evidence of a life which has been given. "The blood of Jesus Christ his (God's) Son cleanseth us from all sin! (1 Jn 1.7); "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Pet 1.18-19). The preaching of the blood sacrifice of Christ is another absolute, fundamental to a proper declaration of the Christian gospel.
Christ's sacrifice is central to God's dealings with men. It explains why and how God can justify the unrighteous. The efficacy of the Saviour's sacrifice at Calvary affects both God and man. It affects God's throne of justice because the sacrificial death of His own Son has provided a "propitiation" for sin allowing God to be just and at the same time to justify the guilty. "And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 Jn 2.2, RV). The sacrifice of Calvary was not the appeasing of an angry, sin-hating Deity, for God's love was supremely manifest in that sacrifice (Jn 3.16). No, that sacrifice was a propitiation in respect of the demands of God's holiness. It was a satisfaction rendered to divine justice. The demands of divine justice in respect to sin were eternally satisfied in the sacrifice of Christ. The value of Christ's cross-work has therefore influenced the very throne of God rendering a satisfaction to the demands of that holy throne and making possible the righteous clearing of the guilty who believe in Jesus!
Propitiation provides the ground on which God in His holiness can righteously reach out to sinful humanity everywhere ("for the whole world") with the offer of free pardon and forgiveness, because the stern demands of His justice have been perfectly and eternally met in the blood sacrifice of His Son. What His justice demanded His love graciously provided. O the depth of the riches of His grace and mercy!
That same sacrifice reaches men in their need too, providing them a perfect standing before a holy God. As the blood on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16.14) was sprinkled once upon the Mercy Seat and seven times before the Mercy Seat - showing the blood of atonement perfectly satisfied the divine throne, and giving an inviolable standing and perfect acceptance to the guilty sinner - so the blood of Christ shed at Calvary not only satisfies divine justice but affords an unshakeable standing before the bar of God for the believing sinner: "To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Rom 3.26); "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil…Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Heb 10.19-22).
His Resurrection
Indissolubly linked with the death of Christ is the fact of His physical resurrection. "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And…he rose again the third day according to the scriptures (1 Cor 15.3-4)! His resurrection on the third day was "by the glory of the Father" (Rom 6.4). God's glory is thus openly and triumphantly associated with it. It was the public attestation and assurance of God's acceptance of His sacrifice. "Jesus our Lord…who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for (because of) our justification" (Rom 4.24-25, RV). His resurrection is proof positive that all who believe in Him are justified, and that we have an ever living Saviour as the object of our faith! Here is another great foundation doctrine of the gospel of our blessed God, for "if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins…But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Cor 15.17-20).
To be continued.
