CHRIST OUR SURETY

"If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins" 1 John 2:1-2.

Conscience is set by God to judge for Him in the private court of our own hearts. It is bound up by the same law by which Christ Himself will acquit or condemn at the last day. When we go on trial for our lives, before Christ's bar, the great question will be whether or not we have been sincere. And as He will not condemn the sincere soul, though a thousand sins be brought against it, neither can our hearts condemn us.

But how can God accept such imperfect obedience when He was so strict with Adam that He pronounced one failure as unpardonable? In the covenant God made with mankind in Adam there was no surety to guarantee and stand responsible for man's performance of his part of the covenant, which was absolute obedience. Thus God, to recover His glory and pay Himself for the wrong which man's default would do to Him, stood strictly with Adam.

Yet in the Gospel covenant there is a surety-- Jesus Christ the righteous-- who stands responsible to God for all the sins of a Christian's lifetime. And the Lord Christ cancels not only the vast sums of those sins which Christians are charged with before conversion, but also all the dribbling debts which they contract afterward through weakness and carelessness. "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And He is the propitiation for our sins 1 john 2:1-2. So then, without impeaching His justice, God can cross out His saints' debts for which He is paid by Christ. It is mercy to saints but justice to Christ that God should do this. What a precious oneness when mercy and justice kiss each other!

Also, God required complete obedience in the first covenant because man was in a perfect state, full of power and ability to perform it; so God expected to reap no more than what He had planted. But in the Gospel covenant God does not infuse the believer with full grace but true grace; and accordingly, He expects not flawless but sincere obedience.” 


Quoted material from, ”The Christian in Complete Armour Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare” by Gurnall and James S Bell. http://www.moodypublishers.com/pub_productDetail.aspx?id=41823&pid=53617