Hence, there is absolutely nothing against the believer. He is linked with Christ, and stands in the same condition of righteousness. "As He is, so are we in this world." (1 John iv. 17.) This gives settled peace to the conscience. If I am no longer in a condition of guilt, but in a condition of justification,--if God only sees me _in_ Christ and as Christ, then, clearly, my portion is perfect peace. "Being justified by faith, we _have_ peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. v. 1.) The blood of the Lamb has canceled all the believer's guilt,--blotted out his heavy debt, and given him a perfectly blank page, in the presence of that holiness which "cannot look upon sin." But the believer has not merely found peace with God; he is made a child of God, so that he can taste the sweetness of communion with the Father and the Son, through the power of the Holy Ghost. The cross is to be viewed in two ways: first, as satisfying God's claims; secondly, as expressing God's affections. If I look at my sins in connection with the claims of God as a Judge, I find, in the cross, a perfect settlement of those claims. God, as a Judge, has been divinely satisfied--yea, glorified, in the cross. But there is more than this. God had affections as well as claims; and, in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, all those affections are sweetly and touchingly told out into the sinner's ear; while, at the same time, he is made partaker of a new nature which is capable of enjoying those affections and having fellowship with the heart from which they flow. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God." (1 Peter iii. 18.) Thus, we are not only brought into _a condition_, but unto _a Person_, even God Himself, and we are endowed with _a nature_ which can delight in Him.--"_We also joy in God_, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation (margin)." (Rom. v. 11.) What force and beauty, therefore, can we see in those emancipating words, "Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness." "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised." (Luke iv. 18.) The glad tidings of the gospel announce full deliverance from every yoke of bondage. Peace and liberty are the boons which that gospel bestows on all who believe it, as God has declared it.