The Wednesday Word ~ 18 September, 2024 A.D.
The Loveliness of Jesus
by D.G. Miles McKee
See II Corinthians 5:21
Christ’s loveliness consists mainly in this … He knew no sin! If He had had just one tiny sin of His own, He could not have suffered for ours. Remember, in Hebrews 7:26 we are told that our High Priest (Jesus) was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. We would think that such a person should be welcome in any community. But no! He got terrible treatment. The people despised, rejected and hated Him… But Jesus suffered this wretched behaviour on our behalf. That makes Him altogether lovely.
Do any of us hate Him? Hate Him? Yes, hate Him. Do any of us use His name as a common swear word? If we do, we are speaking as though we despise Him. If we are guilty of that crime, it doesn´t seem that He is lovely to us.
Also, if we will not trust Him alone for our salvation is that not yet another way of despising Him! When you stand before God on Judgement Day, is there anything more that you would like to add to the perfect righteousness of Christ to save you? If there is, you have not yet grasped the Gospel and the Gospel has not grasped you. However, when believers stand before God, it will be as if they had never sinned. They will stand before Him in the immaculate righteousness of the worthy Lamb.
He is altogether Lovely!
So, how did the Father deal with the spotless Christ? In Isaiah 53:5-6 we are told the shocking truth that ‘the Lord laid on Him the iniquities of us all.’
This is dreadful.
The Father heaped upon the Lord Jesus the thousands and millions of our sins till at last He was so covered, in God’s sight, that nothing but sin appeared.
He was treated as though He was one entire mass of sin.
He was dealt with by the Father as if He was sin from head to toe. We tend to think of the agonies of the cross as being merely physical. But the physical pain was only a small part of His suffering. There was a torrent of torment that hit Him when our sin was imputed to His pure and lovely being.
As the hymnwriter said, “We may not know, we cannot tell what pains He had to bear but we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there.”
He is altogether lovely!
But why was He made sin?
He was made sin so that we would be declared to be the righteousness of God in Him. Just as Christ, at Calvary, was covered with innumerable sins and, in a manner of speaking, appeared as one mass of sin, so the vilest one of us who trusts in Christ is so covered with the Lord’s glorious righteousness that in God’s eye we, as it were, appear to be one mass of uprightness.
We are swallowed up by the righteousness of Christ (see again II Corinthians 5:21).
What an amazing provision He has made for us!
He is altogether lovely!
“Thou dear Redeemer, dying Lamb,
I love to hear of Thee;
No music like Thy charming name,
Is half so sweet to me,
Is half so sweet to me.
And that´s the Gospel Truth! ‘Til He Comes...
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