Our SUBSTITUTE: Jesus Christ the Righteous!

SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION WAS EMBODIED IN THE FIRST PROMISE regarding the woman's seed and His bruised heel. Victory over our great enemy, by His subjecting Himself to the bruising of that enemy, is then and there proclaimed.

- The clothing of our first parents with that which had passed through death, in preference to the fig leaves which had not so done, showed the element of SUBSTITUTION as that on which God had begun to act in His treatment of fallen man.

- Abel's sacrifice revealed the same truth, especially as contrasted with Cain's. For that which made Abel's acceptable, and himself accepted, was the death of the victim as SUBSTITUTED FOR HIS OWN; that which rendered Cain's hateful, and himself rejected, was the absence of that death and blood.

- The slain firstling was accepted by God as (symbolically) Abel’s SUBSTITUTE, laid on the altar till He should come, the “woman’s seed,” “...made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (GALATIANS 4:4-5).

From the beginning God recognized this principle in His dealings with man: the just dying for the unjust and the Blessed One becoming a curse that the cursed might be blessed. It is this truth that the gospel embodies; and it is this that we preach when, as ambassadors for Christ, we pray men in Christ’s stead to be reconciled to God. God’s free love to the sinner is the first part of our message; God’s righteous way of making that free love available for the sinner is the second. Who God is and what Christ has done make up ONE GOSPEL. The belief of that gospel is eternal life. “All that believe are justified from all things” (ACTS 13:39).

With a weak faith and a fearful heart many a sinner stands before the altar. It is not the strength of his faith but the perfection of the sacrifice that saves; and no feebleness of faith, no dimness of eye, no trembling of hand can change the efficacy of our burnt offering. The vigor of our faith can add nothing to it, nor can the poverty of it take anything from it. Faith, in all its degrees, still reads the inscription, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I JOHN 1:7).

-Gospel report by preacher Horatious Bonar (1808–1889 A.D.)