12月8日 神公平的能力

因为他一次献祭,便叫那得以成圣的人永远完全。(来十14)

若以为得赦免是因为自己的悔罪,实在是践踏神儿子的血。神赦免我们,对我们无比的宽恕,是因为耶稣基督的死。我们的悔改,只是我们对他成就了的救赎工作,有个人体认而产生的后果。“基督耶稣成了我们智慧、公义、圣洁与救赎。”一旦知道基督成为我们这一切时,神无比的喜乐就开始了;神的喜乐何时止住,死亡的定案就仍然作祟。

不管我们是什么人,是怎么样的人,耶稣基督的死,都可以使我们与神重新建立关系。不是因为耶稣基督苦苦哀求,乃是因着他的死,我们才得拯救,此外别无他途。这不是赚回来的,而是白白领受。若一味苦求,故意拒绝十字架,那是绝无功效的。这样做,是叩错了主并未开启的门。我不想走那条路,把我当作罪人般看待,太屈辱了。“除他以外,别无拯救……”表面看来无情,其实是神真正的用心,开放无阻的通道,让人到他那里去。“我们在宝血中得蒙赦罪。”与基督耶稣同钉十字架,就是向一切不在他里面的东西死去。

神有理由拯救坏人,倘若他能改变他们。我们的主不会把我们的错事,一概当作对的。救赎就是神藉耶稣的死所成就的和解,叫不洁的人成为圣洁。

祈祷◆“求你使我专心敬畏你的名!”我的心充塞着自私、自觉和次好的东西,它们在我脑中盘旋,妨碍我的祈祷。主啊,愿你全能的手帮助我!

December 8 The Impartial Power Of God

“For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14

We trample the blood of the Son of God under foot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only explanation of the forgiveness of God and of the unfathomable depth of His forgetting is the Death of Jesus Christ. Our repentance is merely the outcome of our personal realization of the Atonement which He has worked out for us. “Christ Jesus . . . is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” When we realize that Christ is made all this to us, the boundless joy of God begins; wherever the joy of God is not present, the death sentence is at work.

It does not matter who or what we are, there is absolute reinstatement into God by the death of Jesus Christ and by no other way, not because Jesus Christ pleads, but because He died. It is not earned, but accepted. All the pleading which deliberately refuses to recognize the Cross is of no avail; it is battering at another door than the one which Jesus has opened. I don't want to come that way, it is too humiliating to be received as a sinner. “There is none other Name . . .” The apparent heartlessness of God is the expression of His real heart, there is boundless entrance in His way. “We have forgiveness through His blood.” Identification with the death of Jesus Christ means identification with Him to the death of everything that never was in Him.

God is justified in saving bad men only as He makes them good. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The Atonement is a propitiation whereby God through the death of Jesus makes an unholy man holy.