Sinners Pardoned for Christ's Sake
It
was highly proper that the unexampled benevolence, humility, and
other graces which Christ displayed in condescending to obey, suffer,
and die in our stead - should receive from His righteous Father a
suitable reward; and that God should manifest, in a signal and
illustrious manner, His approbation (approval)
of such unequaled goodness to all His intelligent creatures. But the
Son of God neither needed, nor could receive any reward for Himself;
for He is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image
of His person, and possesses in the highest degree all possible
perfection, glory, and felicity (intense
happiness).
Since,
therefore, it was necessary that Christ should be rewarded, and since
He needed no reward for Himself - His Father was pleased, in the
covenant of redemption, to promise Him what would be to His
benevolent heart, the greatest of all rewards. He promised Him that
if He would make His soul an offering for sin - then He should have a
seed and people to serve Him; and that all His spiritual seed, all
His chosen people who were given Him by His Father - should, for His
sake and as a reward of His obedience, suffering, and death - be
saved from the guilt and power of sin, be adopted as the children of
God, made joint heirs with Christ of the heavenly inheritance, and
receive, through Him, everything necessary to prepare and qualify
them for its enjoyment.
Thus
God bestows everlasting life, glory, and felicity on guilty rebels,
merely for the sake of Christ - and with a view to convince
all intelligent beings that He is infinitely well pleased with the
holy benevolence which His Son displayed when He consented to die in
their stead.
-Gospel
report by preacher Edward Payson (1783–1827 A.D.)
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