Today’s Speaker: Brother Mark Pannell will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God’s word.
Television Broadcast: Our Reign of Grace Television program is being broadcast on WFXL Fox 31, Channel 4. The program will air every Sunday morning at 11 AM.
Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 10:30 am on Mix 107.7 FM
Web Sites: Visit our web sites at: Reign of Grace: www.rofgrace.com
“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” {II Cor.5:21} There is a twofold Righteousness, according to the diversity of his nature; the one uncreated and infinite, which is the Righteousness of the Deity; the other is created and finite, which is the Righteousness of the humanity. The first is infinite, and therefore incommunicable; the latter is the Righteousness of God also, because it is in him, who is not only man, but God. Therefore Observe: Christ’s Righteousness is the Righteousness of God. The Righteousness which frees a sinner from the curse of the Law, is a perfect Righteousness. {Heb.1:8, Heb.10:3, Job 33:24} Man’s best Righteousness is imperfect, for it cannot justify him before God. All our own righteousness is as filthy rags. {Isa.64:4-6} After what manner Christ became a sinner, after the same manner we are made just; but Christ became a sinner, not by any infusion of our corrupt qualities, but by imputation only; therefore we are just before God, not by any infusion of any habitual grace into our corrupt natures, but by imputation of his Righteousness without works. {Rom.4:6} If this were well minded, it might remove divers errors, and answer many temptations, which are occasioned in many by apprehending the contrary. So that justification is a reciprocal translation of our sins unto Christ, and his Righteousness to us, both which are done by God for us. God reveals to the soul Christ’s Righteousness, and the soul’s interest therein. {John 16:14} To comfort the soul, and cause us to love God, he doth not comfort us with our own righteousness, but with Christ’s Righteousness; that so we might fetch all our peace and comfort from Christ’s Righteousness, and so rest satisfied in Christ alone. Therefore; seeing Christ’s Righteousness is a perfect Righteousness, yea the Righteousness of God; this should teach us to prize highly Christ’s Righteousness, and count his enough for us, and rest satisfied in it; and to slight and abhorre all our righteousness, in comparison of his; esteem Christ to be as he is, our Righteousness. “In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” {Jer.23:6}
--- Samuel Richardson {Divine Consolations, Part Two, 1649}
Christ our Sabbath Rest
There remaineth yet a Sabbath to the people of God; but this Sabbath is spiritual, known and enjoyed only by those who live in and after the Spirit. A Sabbath signifies a rest, and believers in Christ enter into this rest; the rest of the Jewish Sabbath, and of all the Jewish Sabbaths of the land of Canaan, &c., were typical, and presented us with the spiritual rest of the Gospel; therefore the Apostle, after he had mentioned both the rest of the Sabbath, and the land of Canaan, he concludes, “there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God;” {Heb.4:9;} and, “we which have believed do enter into rest.” {vs.3} As God finished his work in six days, and rested the seventh, and so ceased from his work; namely, of creation; so when a soul comes to believe, he enters into spiritual rest, and so keepeth Sabbath with the Lord, resting from his own work, and this is the Christians Sabbath and Holy Days, a day of delight and spiritual solace to the soul, who lives in it; a day of spiritual liberty, and not of bondage; a day in which the soul enjoys all good in the Fountain; this is that land of rest, even the land of Canaan, that promised good land, “flowing with milk and honey,” a land of oil, olives and butter. Oh, this glorious, spiritual land; were it more known, it would be more sought after; this is the substance of all those types in the Old Testament; this is Israel’s land in the Spirit; this is that land God hath promised to gather his people into, in these latter {gospel} days, and David their King show reign over them, and be their Prince forever. My dear brethren, did your souls but see into the glorious rest of this spiritual Sabbath, into the riches of this glorious land, the abundance of all spiritual delights, and soul satisfying excellencies, the high honor of the inhabitants of this Kingdom, all kings and priests in the Spirit to the Lord, and shall reign forever; oh, you could not be so taken up in, and possessed with the glories of any external excellency, or thing without you; it would make you trample under feet all fleshly honors and dignities, all resting in anything short of this rest in Christ; in a word, it would make you slight the delights and glories of any kingdom, of any Canaan short of spiritual Canaan, this land of spiritual rest, and soul satisfying delight; if you saw Jesus Christ to be the substance, the body of those shadows, from your being gathered up into, and so living in this substance, this body, it would soon end all controversies in your spirits about things below and short of this heavenly rest.
--- Thomas Collier {General Epistle to the Universal Church, 1651}
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