Friday, December 6, 2013

On the Double Blessing of Christ by Chris White




“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.


No comments:

Post a Comment