Chapter XXIX.
Of reconciliation by the death of Christ as it is a sacrifice.
II. The next consideration of the death of Christ is of it as a sacrifice, and the proper effect thereof is reconciliation by his death as a sacrifice.
Reconciliation in general is the renewal of lost friendship and peace between persons at variance. To apply this to the matter treated of, the ensuing positions are to be premised:—
1. There was at first, in the state of innocency, friendship and peace between God and man. God had no enmity against his creature; he approved him to be good, and appointed him to walk in peace, communion, confidence, and boldness with him, Gen. ii.. Nor had man, on whose heart the law and love of his Maker was written, any enmity against his Creator, God, and Rewarder.
2. That by sin there is division, separation, and breach of peace and friendship, introduced between God and the creature: Isa. lix. 2, “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you.” Chap. lxiii. 10, “They rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit; therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and fought against them.” Chap. lvii. 21, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” And therefore it is that, upon a delivery from this condition, we are said (and not before) to have “peace with God,” Rom. v. 1.
3. That by this breach of peace and friendship with God, God was alienated from the sinner, so as to be angry with him, and to renounce all peace and friendship with him, considered as such and in that condition. “He that believeth not, the wrath of God abideth on him,” John iii. 36.
And therefore by nature and in our natural condition we are “children of wrath,” Eph. ii. 3; that is, obnoxious to the wrath of God, that abides upon unbelievers, — that is, unreconciled persons.
4. This enmity on the part of God consists, —
(1.) In the purity and holiness of his nature, whence he cannot admit a guilty, defiled creature to have any communion with him. He is a God of “purer eyes than to behold evil,” Hab. i. 13. And sinners cannot serve him, because “he is a holy God, a jealous God, that will not forgive their transgressions nor their sins,” Josh. xxiv. 19.
(2.) In his will of punishing for sin: Rom. i. 32, “It is the judgment of God, that they which commit sin are worthy of death,” and this from the righteousness of the thing itself. 2 Thess. i. 6, “It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation” to sinner. “He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness,” etc., Ps. v. 4–6.
(3.) In the sentence of his law, in the establishing and execution whereof his truth and honour were engaged: “In the day that thou cutest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” Gen. ii. 17. And, “Cursed is every one that continueth not,” etc., Gal. iii. 13, Deut. xxvii. 26. And of this enmity of God against sin and sinners, as I have elsewhere at large declared, there is an indelible persuasion abiding on the hearts of all the sons of men, however, by the stirrings of lust and craft of Satan, it may be more or less blotted in them. Hence, —
(4.) As a fruit and evidence of this enmity, God abominates their persons, Ps. i. 4–6; rejects and hates their duties and ways, Prov. xv. 8, 9; and prepares wrath and vengeance for them, to be inflicted in his appointed time, Rom. ii. 5; — all which make up perfect enmity on the part of God.
5. That man was at enmity with God as on his part, I shall not need to prove, because I am not treating of our reconciliation to God, but of his reconciliation to us.
Where there is such an enmity as this, begun by offence on the one part, and continued by anger and purpose to punish on the other, to make reconciliation is properly to propitiate and turn away the anger of the person offended, and thereby to bring the offender into favour with him again, and to an enjoyment of the same, or a friendship built on better conditions than the former. This description of reconciliation doth God himself give us, Job xlii. 7–9, “And it was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job,” etc. The offenders are Eliphaz and his two friends; the offence is their folly in not speaking aright of God; the issue of the breach is, that the wrath or anger of God was towards them. Reconciliation is the turning away of that wrath. The means whereby this was to be done, appointed of God, is the sacrifice of Job for atonement.