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. --Edward Payson
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Christ is Risen
Author: Unknown Tune: Take My Life (H.A Cesar Malan)
1. Christ is risen, let us sing,
Glory, honor, praises bring;
Law and justice magnified
By our Lord Who bled and died,
By our Lord Who bled and died.
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2. Christ is risen, O what grace,
To our God alone we trace;
Peace with God and blessedness
Through imputed righteousness,
Through imputed righteousness.
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3. Christ is risen, blessed hour,
In God's plan, by sovereign power;
For His sheep that they might live,
Them eternal life He gives,
Them eternal life He gives.
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4. Christ is risen, O what love;
Now He reigns and rules above;
Sin and death no victory,
Christ alone has set us free,
Christ alone has set us free.
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“...Now therefore are we all here present before God,
to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.”
Acts 10:33
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Free Grace! Unmerited Mercy! Sovereign Love!
No truth shines with clearer luster in the Bible than that salvation, from first to last, is of God.
God is sovereign in salvation!
He often selects . . . the poorest, the vilest, the most depraved, the most fallen, as if utterly to explode all idea of human merit, and to reflect the free grace of His heart in its richest luster.
O precious truth! It stains the pride of human merit! It lays the axe at the root of self! It humbles and abases! It empties and lays low!
It ascribes all the praise, honor and glory, might, majesty and dominion, of the new creation in the soul, to the Triune God!
No worthiness of the creature allures Him to the sinner's heart! What worthiness can be supposed to exist--what merit can there be in . . . a guilty criminal, an outlawed rebel, a poor insolvent, one whose mind is enmity, one whose heart is swelling with treason against God, His government, and His Son? One who owes millions, but has 'nothing to pay'? None whatever!
And that the eternal Spirit should enter the heart of such a one . . . convincing of sin; subduing the hatred; breaking down the rebellion; leading to Jesus, and sealing pardon and peace upon the conscience; oh! what but free grace, unmerited mercy, and sovereign love could thus have constrained Him?
“Lord, what did You see in me,” exclaims the converted soul, “that moved You with compassion, that drew You to my heart, and that constrained You to make me Your child? Nothing on my part, but poverty, wretchedness, and misery! Nothing on Your part, nothing but love, sovereignty, and unmerited favor!”
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