Saturday, April 19, 2014

Christ's Death a Sufficient Sacrifice for All - A Puritan's View

It is sufficient for the salvation of all sinners and the expiation of all sins. The wrath of God was so fully appeased by it, his justice so fully satisfied that there is no barrier to a re-admission into his favour and the enjoyment of the priviledges purchased by it, but man's unbelief. The blood of Christ is a stream, whereof all men may drink; an ocean, wherein all men may bathe. It does not lack value to remove our sins, if we do not lack faith to embrace and plead it. As no sickness was strong enough against the battery of his powerful word when he was in the world; so no guilt is strong enough against the power of his blood, if the terms upon which it is offered by God are accepted by us. It is absolutely sufficient in itself, so that if every son of Adam, from Adam himself to the last man that shall issue from him by natural descent, should by faith sue out [ask God for] the benefit of it, it would be conferred upon them. God has no need to stretch his wisdom to contrive another price, nor Christ any need to reassume the form of a servant to act the part of a bloody sacrifice any more. If any perished by the biting of the fiery serpent, it was not for want of a remedy in God's institution, but from willfulness in themselves. The antitype answers to the type, and wants no more a sufficiency to procure a spiritual good than that to effect the cure of the body.