A DOUBLE RAINBOW

My wife and I recently saw a double rainbow as we left the funeral visitation of one of our brethren. Both rainbows were clearly seen but one of them was absolutely brilliant in the brightness of all the different colors. It struck me that God would put two rainbows in the sky. One token of God’s promise should be more than enough, but He put two in the sky for us to see. Those rainbows reminded me of the beauty of God’s covenant of grace. None of God’s elect can ever perish because the Lord Jesus Christ, our ark, already bore all the condemnation of His people. God has made His covenant beautiful and doubly sure. “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” (Hebrews 6:17-20)

If Christ’s obedience is not enough to make me righteous, no attempt at obedience on my part will ever finish the job. Either Christ is all of my righteousness or I don’t have any…and never will.

Christ was Not Made a Sinner - 2 Corinthians 5:21

The Son of God was not made a sinner, when he died upon the cursed tree. I cannot imagine anyone imagining, let alone saying, that the Son of God became a sinner. When the Word of God declares that our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s darling, holy Son, “was made sin for us,” he was made sin. He was not merely treated as though he were sin, or as though he were a sinner. And he was not merely made a sin offering. In 2^nd Corinthians 5:21, the Holy Ghost tells us that the words of Isaiah in Isaiah 53:10 mean that Christ was made sin.

As our Substitute, that he might be justly punished for sin, the Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us. When our Savior began to show forth his glory by making water wine, he did not merely say the water was wine, or pretend the water was wine, or treat the water as though it were wine. “The water was made wine.” And when the Triune God showed forth his glory in his Son, he made his Son sin for us; he who had no sin, did no sin, and could not sin, was “made sin for us.” Nowhere does the Word of God say, or even suggest, that sin was imputed to the Lord Jesus, or that he was made sin by imputation. Rather, the Scriptures plainly declare that he was “made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

God never pretends. He did not pretend that Christ was sin. And he does not pretend that his elect are righteous. When Christ was “made sin,” he was justly punished for sin. And because God’s elect are “made the righteousness of God in him,” we are justly “saved with an everlasting salvation.”

Pastor Don Fortner

His Blood Alone!

The vital thing to understand about the blood of Christ is this: IT IS ENOUGH! Nothing else is needed to accomplish the salvation of all for whom His blood was shed. Not His blood plus my works; not His blood plus my “decision;” not His blood plus the ordinances; not His blood plus church membership; not even His blood plus my faith - His blood purchased my faith. HIS BLOOD ALONE paid the price required by his justice, and His blood alone can make a sinner clean. “By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having OBTAINED (not made possible) eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:12).