“For all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus..” Romans 3:23-24
Recently I completed a series of readings through John
Calvin’s venerable Institutes of the
Christian Religion. One of the
insights Calvin had is what he called the double blessing of Christ. I want to pass it on to you for your
reflection and edification. What Calvin
noted was that God really could have forgiven all of us with just a word. Justice can be satisfied in any way of God’s
choosing and if he wanted to show complete clemency, it is His universe and His
prerogative. But instead God chose to
send His only Son to die on the cross in our stead. In this way God would be able to show us how
grievous our sin really is before Him while sparing us. We would also know from this costly sacrifice
that God loves us to such an extent that He would not even spare himself to
redeem us. What is even more amazing is
that Christ had to voluntarily let himself die because as a sinless human he
was not subject to the curse and therefore immortal. What a magnificent and mysterious redemption
we have been given. God made sure that
it was extravagantly costly to Him so that in our justification we are given
the gifts of certainty about his love, forgiveness, and the resurrection to
come.
