"Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that

her warfare is accomplished; that her iniquity is pardoned;

for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins."

(Isaiah 40:1-2)

Cry unto her that her iniquity is pardoned. This is wonderful! That God, the Everlasting Father should have collected all the sins—all the guilt and iniquity of His people, a number that no man can number, out of every nation, kindred and tongue from the beginning of the world to the end of the world— and laid it upon Christ, the Holy Lamb of God. It pleased the Father to bruise Him and lay upon Him the iniquity of us all. Who could have stood under that huge, tremendous weight but the Incarnate Deity? And He offered up Himself through the Eternal Spirit, without spot to God, having obtained everlasting salvation for us. When He hung upon the cross, when He bowed His head, when He uttered the words, "It is finished," the iniquity the entire church, was removed in one day. He made an end of sin. Sin is still in existence; it worries and vexes the people of God and casts them down but the condemning power of it is clean taken away. It has no power to condemn.