Forgiveness of Sins Through the Blood of Jesus

HE GOD OF LOVE, dear reader, in His written Word, which gives an account of the rich mercy He has provided for the guilty, tells you that you may be saved. His Word assures you that you may be saved from guilt, sin, and wrath. And that Word also informs you that your salvation depends not on anything you may do, but on what God has already done. Good news about God have reached our world, and in believing these glad tidings. you shall be saved. This is the good news, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," (Rom. 5:8). "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," (John 3:16). "Christ died for the ungodly," (Rom. 5:6). "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him," (2 Cor. 5:21). If, by simply believing the good news about what God through Christ hath done for sinners, we become "partakers of Christ," (Heb. 3:14), and are "accepted in the Beloved," (Eph. 1:6), it will become matter of personal consciousness and spiritual joy that "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace," (Eph. 1:7). "Be it known unto you therefore, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things," (Acts 13:38).

I beseech you to settle it in your mind that "forgiveness of sins" (Acts 13:38) lies at the very threshold of the Christian life. It is a blessing, needed and obtainable now. You must have forgiveness, or perish for ever; you must have it now, or you cannot have peace. It is surely a most delightful thought that you may have the guilt of all your past sins blotted out at once and for ever! God pardons freely and at once. He does not inculcate any preparation in order to pardon. One who knew the blessedness of enjoying His pardoning mercy testifies thus concerning it: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," (1 John 1:9); and this testimony was given on the ground of what he had affirmed in the same letter, that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). He does not say, After you have repented more thoroughly, after you have spent days and weeks in agonising prayer, after you become more thoroughly instructed in divine things, and after you pass through years of "trouble and sorrow," then you may venture to hope for forgiveness. No; but, knowing that Christ died to put away sin, you are warranted, on simply taking the place of a sinner, and accepting of Jesus as your Saviour, to believe that, through the all-perfect merits of Christ, you are pardoned that very moment, and enjoy perfect peace with God; for God "justifieth the ungodly," (Rom. 5:5).

Peace with God through the forgiveness of all your sins may thus be obtained at any moment, seeing that you do not have to repent for it, work for it, or wait for it, but simply believe what God says regarding Christ "having made peace by the blood of his cross," (Col. 1:20). "And being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom, 3:24), - and being, fully satisfied that your sin has been forgiven you in a righteous way, being put away by "the precious blood of Christ," (1 Pet. 1:19) - God being "well pleased for his righteousness' sake," (Isa. 42:21)-"just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus," (Rom. 3:26) - "peace that passeth all understanding" (Phil. 4:7) will spring up spontaneously within your soul, like the fresh, flowing current of a perennial fountain.

In reference to the pardon of your sins, there is no time to be lost, for "the Holy Ghost saith, To-day," (Heb. 3:7); and were you now refusing to listen, and dying in your sins ere tomorrow's sun arose, you would inevitably perish eternally, notwithstanding your conviction of sin, and anxieties of soul; for Jesus himself assures us that "he that believeth not shall be damned," (Mark 16:16). Besides, you can do nothing else that will prove satisfactory to yourself, or well-pleasing to God, until you have obtained the forgiveness of your sins. And as pardon of sin is the first thing that you feel in need of, so it is the first thing which is presented by the God of love for your acceptance; for God is still to be found "in Christ reconciling sinners unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them," (2 Cor. 5:19). Moreover, you will have your whole life and character affected in a most striking way by the scripturalness or unscripturalness of the views you now entertain of "the God of all grace," (1 Pet. 5:10), and the heartiness or hesitancy with which you embrace His pardoning mercy. As a man's position in the world is very materially affected by the character of his elementary education and early training, so is the position of even true believers in Christ materially affected not only in this world, but in the world to come, by their being thoroughly grounded or not grounded in the great elementary truths of the Gospel of the grace of God, which preaches present pardon and immediate peace "to every one that believeth," (Rom. 1:16). Your position, as well as destiny for time and for eternity, are now to be determined! It is, therefore, of the last importance that you should have thoroughly scriptural views and an intelligent experience of the grace of God as it is manifested to you, a sinner, in the person and work of His Son Jesus Christ. And again, the character of your service for God, and your success in winning souls, will very greatly depend upon the clearness with which you realise your own salvation through the blood of Christ at the commencement of your Christian course; for how could you labor faithfully to bring others to feel the constraining power of the love of Christ, unless you yourself felt assured that He had loved you personally and put away your sin? The most useful life must ever be that which is firmly based on a knowledge of Christ crucified as the sole ground of acceptance with God, and on being justified, and having peace "through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us," (1 Thess. 5:9,10). It will be found that those who do most for God and their fellow-sinners are such as the Rev. Robert McCheyne, who knew himself to be forgiven by God and safe for eternity-of whom his biographer says, that "he walked calmly in almost unbroken fellowship with the FATHER and the SON" and who himself thus describes his own undoubted conversion in the only record he has left of it:-

1) Translation: the Lord our Righteousness