As it was last night

To fulfill his covenant promise of salvation to a dying world God gave his Son as a real sacrifice for sin. He gave him, incarnate, to the world that he might bear that sin in a real human body on a real Roman cross. We need to remember this, that the suffering of Christ for us was a real, intense suffering, one that tried his soul beyond the limits of ordinary human experience. His was a suffering as man, as God, in the flesh and spirit, in the fullness of his being and to the depths of his soul. No part of Christ was untouched by the agony of his being “made to be sin” for us. (II Corinthians 5.21).

There is never a time for the believer to speak casually or dismissively of Christ’ suffering, especially if one is living in real union with the risen Christ, partaking of his daily mediation in our behalf. The ‘blood of the covenant’ that justifies and sanctifies the believer in Christ should always, daily, hourly, be accounted a precious thing to us.

Such an experience, such an accounting, of the blood of Christ is possible as long as we remember what our condition before God is without the merits of Christ mediation in blood. It is when we silence the Spirit’s witness in our heart and forget the weakness of our natures, our propensities toward sin and away from God, when we dismiss our transgressions as minor and without serious consequences, it is then that we are in our greatest danger and least likely to apply to the “throne of grace” in preparation for the inevitable “hour of need”.

How often I’ve wondered alone in the dark, enduring the numbing shame of my sins, feeling lonely, outcast, humiliated! All because I had tried to live in the world without a Savior. I know myself to be in continual need of the righteousness of God, one that is more than justice, but one that is given me as a free gift in Christ by his gracious act of dying the death that was mine so I could have the life that is his. I have that life as God’s response to my heartfelt, sorrowful, confession of sin.

I’m not speaking of just those acts that are clearly recognized on the surface of my life, but of that sin of pride and self-seeking which seems to infect everything I have done or try to do. When I want to do good, as the apostle Paul said, sin lies close at hand. The wanting, the willing of my mind to do good is not the righteousness of God in me. I can desire the good but not do it, not without the mediation of Christ and his indwelling Spirit.

I join those two things intentionally and in that order, the mediation of Christ and his indwelling by the Holy Spirit. I need, I must have both, if I am to glorify God in this body of flesh. Only as I receive by faith the mediation of Christ’ own blood in his present high-priestly ministry for me, only as I then receive his abiding Spirit to make effective that mediation for sin in me, only in this union with Christ in his work outside of and inside of me do I find the thing called salvation from sin.

He is my righteousness. I have none I would call my own on any day of clear spiritual awareness (I am often extremely self-righteous). And this righteousness is indeed a real deliverance from the power of the law of sin and death that still works in my flesh. I can be kept from telling lies, at least in any conscious way, when I abide in the righteousness of Christ. I do not have to lust in my heart, hate my neighbor, or fear even the smile of a child when I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me. I have hope in Christ yet none in myself, that is, I have this when I confess my sinful nature, my sinful acts and throw all of the weight of my existence on him.

I cannot bear being myself without Christ. I cannot bear living in this world without him. The thought of doing either is a nightmare for me. Who I am without Christ for me and in me is so remote, so dark I cannot even see myself for who that would be. Self is too shrouded to peer beneath the unconscious part of my mind. Only when the Spirit brings me to conviction and confession do I glimpse even the faint hem of the inner robe I so often imagine as my self-righteousness. That brief view creates a suicidal despair without the tempering whispers of his grace, without the blood of his grace pouring from his heart to mine.

I need those moments, as it was last night, to bring me back to a healthier faith. I need it to repudiate the self-righteousness I so often indulge. I thank God for the painful crucifixion of self, and because I can trust him, I ask for it to continue unabated until my final, full redemption along with the rest of his creation.