Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. LukeMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Luke -- Commentaries
And here, brethren, I want not to argue but to preach. Jesus Christ
died on the Cross for you, and your sin was in His heart and mind
when He died, and His atoning sacrifice cancels the guilt, and
suspends all that is dreadful in the penalty of the sin. Nothing
else--nothing else will do that. Who can deal with guilt but the
offended Ruler and Judge? Who can trammel up consequences but the
Lord of the Universe? The blood of Jesus Christ is the sole and
sufficient oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole
world.
That disposes of two of the monster's heads. What about the third?
Who will take the venom out of my nature? What will express the
black drop from my heart? How shall the Ethiopian change his skin or
the leopard his spots? How can the man that has become habituated to
evil 'learn to do well'? Superficially there may be much
reformation. God forbid that I should forget that, or seem to
minimise it. But for the thorough ejection from your nature of the
corruption that you have yourselves brought into it, I believe--and
that is why I am here, for I should have nothing to say if I did not
believe it--I believe that there is only one remedy, and that is
that into the sinful heart there should come, rejoicing and
flashing, and bearing on its broad bosom before it all the rubbish
and filth of that dunghill, the great stream of the new life that is
given by Jesus Christ. He was crucified for our offences, and He
lives to bestow upon us the fullness of His own holiness. So the
monster's heads are smitten off. Our disease and the tendency to it,
and the weakness consequent upon it, are all cast out from us, and
He reveals Himself as 'the Lord who healeth thee.'
Now, dear brethren, you may say 'That is all very fine talking.'
Yes! but it is something a great deal more than fine talking. For
nineteen centuries have established the fact that it is so; and with
all their imperfections there have been millions, and there are
millions to-day, who are ready to say, 'Behold! it is not a
delusion; it is not rhetoric, _I_ have trusted in Him and He
has made _me_ whole.'
Now, if these things that I have been saying do fairly represent the
gravity of the problem which has to be dealt with in order to heal
the sicknesses of the world, then there is no need to dwell upon the
thought of how absolutely confined to Jesus Christ is the power of
thus dealing. God forbid that I should not give full weight to all
other methods for partial reformation and bettering of humanity. I
would wish them all God-speed. But, brethren, there is nothing else
that will deal either with my sin in its relation to God, or in its
relation to my character, or in its relation to my future, except
the message of the Gospel. There are plenty of other things, very
helpful and good in their places, but I do want to say, in one word,
that there is nothing else that goes deep enough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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