War In Your Heart # 62

Christ Our Provision (continued)

In Christ - The Redemption of the Race (continued)

The only begotten Son, the Father's dearly Beloved, who was in the bosom of the Father through all the eternity of the past, would take into His own bosom the full wrath of God. He would not only taste death, but hell also for us. His own anguished cry upon the Cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?" tells the story.

"My God." Not here "My Father," but "my God"; for Christ was speaking as the Man Christ Jesus, in the capacity of His humanity. He is upon  the Cross as the Representative Man, bearing in His human body the sinner's destiny.

"Thou - Me." Between these two there had been an unbroken fellowship, an indivisible nearness both in eternity and in time. Twice the heavens were opened that the Father might tell earth of His delight in the Son of His love. The Son had said of Himself that He always lived to please the Father. But now that precious fellowship was not only broken, but a most sinister word is used to describe the tragic, total separation between God and the Man on the Cross.

"Forsaken." Let me quote from a professor of Greek to get the real and full meaning of this word: "The word means to abandon; to desert; to leave in straits; to leave in the lurch; to let one down; all these meanings were included in that awful cry that came from the lips of the Son of Man." The Father's face was turned away; aye, more than that, the Father's back was toward the Son. Our precious Lord and Saviour was utterly deserted; He was abandoned by God. Understand the agony of that desertion we cannot; feel the awfulness of it we may not: believe that fact of it we must.

"I deserve hell.
Christ took my hell.
There is nothing for me now but His heaven."

Infinite grace has manifested itself in infinite love - "the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). The one who believes this truth and receives this Saviour will never be brought to the judgment seat of the great white throne (Revelation 20:11-15), but will spend eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ in the glory, even as He willed and requested of His Father.

John 17:24: Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am..."

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 63 - (Victory Through the Second Man at Calvary - Christ Our Pattern)