"Salvation is of the LORD." -Jonah 2:9

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." -Job 19:25-27 [KJV] What sublimity is in these words! and what blessed glorious truths do they contain! Here is Job's creed. My soul, see if it be thine. Job did not say, that he had heard of a Redeemer, and that he hoped it was true, and he gave credit to it; but he saith, he knoweth it . And observe Who this Redeemer is. Job calls him his Goel, his Kinsman-Redeemer. For the right of redemption belonged to the nearest of kin, and he might redeem; Leviticus 25:25 . We have lost our inheritance, forfeited our possession, and are poor indeed, both in person and in substance.   Now as Christ, by virtue of His being our nearest of kin, is the one, the blessed one, the only one to whom the right of redemption belongs, and must red...

In the gospel, God has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus (Colossians 1:15) . He has done this so that there might be no mistake about who He is. There need be no speculation concerning what He is like.   God is not some vague spirit being out there Who chooses to conceal Himself. He is not a God Who refuses to or is unable to communicate with us.   One of the astonishing truths discovered in the gospel is that Christ Jesus is the revelation of God.  He is fully God and fully man.  He is in the Father, and the Father in Him (John 10:38) .  It is in Christ alone that we see the exegesis (  full declaration ) of God (John 1:18) . In Jesus Christ, we have the express image of the Father’s person (Hebrews 1:3) . Christ is the crossroads between heaven and earth. Don’t think for a moment that it was an angel or a created dignitary who went to the cross for sinners. A good man would not have had the strength to bear our sins. A created angel could never save deprav...

"Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the L ORD of hosts."   - Zechariah 13:7 [KJV]  Would we see, feel, and realise the exceeding sinfulness of sin, it is not by viewing the lightnings and hearing the thunders of Sinai's fiery top, but in seeing the agony and bloody sweat, and hearing the groans and cries of the suffering Son of God, as made sin for us, in the garden and upon the cross. To look upon Him whom we have pierced will fill heart and eyes with godly sorrow for sin, and a holy mourning for and over a martyred, injured Lord. To see, by the eye of faith, as revealed to the soul by the power of God, the darling Son of God bound, scourged, buffeted, spit upon, mocked, and then, as the climax of cruel scorn and infernal cruelty, crucified between two thieves,—this believing sight, this fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, will melt the hardest heart into contrition and compunction.   But when we see, by the eye of fait...