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"Nature and Object of Christ’s Death," Final Perseverance of the Saints ch.II (1878)
AUTHOR: | Oliphant, James H. |
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beings, so forgetful, so unmindful, that no part of our salvation dare be left for us to make sure.
Upon this Paul says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us”; not through our own strength or doings, but “through him that loved us.” What a blessed faith he had here—no faith in nor mention of self, or obedience or anything but Jesus; yet a happy, triumphant faith in Jesus, one that hushes all fears. He is our hiding place from every wind and covert from every tempest. David could say, “I will praise thee, Oh Lord, my strength”—“The Lord is my light and my salvation.” He then asks “Whom shall I fear?” “The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” Oh, Christian! Christian! If God is thy light, life and strength; if he is thy covert from the tempest and every storm, what can harm thee? Danger and deep trouble may be and are before thee. But oh! look, do look! “to the hills from which thy help cometh,” and at the mighty bulwarks around thee and sweetly and safely sing praises to God.
Christ, as our advocate, has securely guarded every point. To pay our fearful debt of sin, the dagger of justice he received into his own heart, poured out his own blood, not to make anything possible, but with his eye fixed on one object, i.e., our salvation. He suffered himself reared up on the cross and there, as a true and faithful shepherd, died. Language fails to express the deep intensity of his love to us. Our own imaginations are too weak to mount up
to it, and when he arose from the dead he still remembered the object of his death, and now at the right hand of God he prays for us; makes intercessions for us. So, if apostasy or falling from grace is possible, it is also possible that Christ’s blood is thrown away; it is possible that the purchase of his blood will remain forever in hell; possible that his father will not hear and answer his prayers, for he intercedes for us, and prays for every believer; possible that
Jesus, after all his pains, and after all that has been said of the virtue of his blood, and his power to save, and after all that we have hoped or believed of his influence and power in winning the hearts of sinners—yet after all this he may be sadly disappointed. Heaven’s expected guests dragged down to hell; seats in heaven unoccupied; God’s will not done, which was—that “of all thou hast given me I should lose nothing but raise it up again at the last day.”
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