Sweet!
But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal.
For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness?
By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God?
O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!
~ Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (about AD 130, translated from Greek by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Full text here.)
17 October 2010 @ 9:24 am
The sweet exhange of His life for ours, not just for salvation through forgiveness by the blood of the Lamb, but also to place us in union with His death, burial and resurrection so that His risen life becomes our risen life…His risen position becomes our risen position…and by grace, marvelous grace, we are in reality beyond imagination, co-heirs with Christ to a security that cannot be diminished by economic downturn nor by the whims of a fickle relative. “I STAND IN AWE OF YOU!”