You sent Your Son to be our Savior — to rescue us from sin’s power by taking our guilt on Himself and dying to pay sin’s awful price. Mercy and truth thus met at the cross; righteousness and peace kissed each other. Your wrath against sin was perfectly satisfied; Your justice was fully vindicated; Your truth was forever established; Your grace was brilliantly magnified; and all the demands of Your law were perfectly fulfilled. In the process, You lovingly brought us into a place of safety, honor, glory, and everlasting salvation! You made us Your children and heirs — joint heirs with Your only begotten Son. Truly “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
As we contemplate all that Christ did for us on the cross, our hearts are filled with humble gratitude. Surely He bore our grief and carried our sorrows. He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him; and by his scourging we are healed. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. And You have graciously and tenderly drawn us to Him, the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls.
O Lord, what gifts these are to us! Give us grace and pure hearts to worship in spirit and in truth, that our praise may be acceptable to You. May Christ Jesus be fully on display in us through both our words an dour works, so that others may see and be drawn to the pure light of the gospel.
–John MacArthur, At the Throne of Grace
(Eugene, OR:Harvest House Publishers, 2011) 24-25
