My sin seems an abyss yawning to devour the whole universe. The heavens, they are finite; but my sin comes against the infinite God, and is therefore an immeasurably expansive evil stretching like the elastic jaws of a snake. I shudder and tremble, but then I behold the crucifix spanning even further, resting firmly as a joist sits over a well. From this cross Jesus descended into the watery depths, down and down. Yes, and at the bottom of this pit he left an empty tomb opening like a drain to receive and seal away all my sins, swallowing them into a still larger abyss, a vast and fathomless ocean of mercy. In the resurrection I discover a vacuum stronger than death.
If I had enough years—though it seem like an eternity, yet it would be less than an instant compared to true eternity—I might count by hand the distance from star to star across all creation. Yet gigantic as the cosmos are, they may be reduced to at last to a figure. None, however, can put a number upon the love of God in Christ. What is its depth, or height, or breadth? Who can quantify Deity under the full weight of just condemnation? The love of Jesus somehow bridges the distance between bottomless guilt and infinite holiness, from the belly of perdition to the spires of everlasting life. This love is revealed in His suffering voluntarily, as no other man can or would ever suffer, dying under the burden of justice for the sins of those He loved dearly, the shameful sinners, the despised castaways, the dregs.
Overcoming Despair About Personal Change
If our only hope of personal change was to let time and nature do their work, we might lose hope that ourselves and others would ever be brought to faith or holiness. Yet one of the deepest works of personal transformation to ever occur was that which happened within Saul on the road to Damascus, and this was accomplished in an instant by the Spirit. [Acts 9, 22] One moment Saul viewed Jesus as his enemy. Then a light appeared from heaven and a voice spoke, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” As the bitter Pharisee beheld the fearful glory of the Son, a more mysterious light suddenly appeared within his heart—faith, the gift of God. Now in a moment he believed Jesus was his greatest benefactor, for having died to reconcile him, an enemy of God, to the Father at the cross. The greatest change imaginable happened in the twinkling of an eye, when a spiritually dead man was resurrected by God through new birth into spiritual life.
If you have turned to Christ for your whole righteousness and life, know today that you have been loved with an everlasting love. Old things have passed away and all has become new; this is a morning of new mercy. To the extent you believe it, you will feel it, but even your feelings do not change the facts of your calling in Christ.
Keeping Your Eyes on Jesus
There are many phrases in popular Christianity which can be difficult to decipher for any practical meaning, an example of which is “keep your eyes on Jesus.” Whatever it means, certainly the idea is not to peer into the sky. The words come from Hebrews 12:1-2, which say, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” So then, keeping one’s eyes on Jesus means knowing his teachings and promises in scripture, and believing they represent truth and life, not just for others, but for oneself. And by faith in his Word, deriving energy from the Spirit to persevere in the upward calling. For instance,
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” [Heb. 13:5] To every believer, this promise is as true as Christ’s own existence.
“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” [Matthew 25:23]
Remember the thief on the cross, the one who mocked Christ but afterward repented of his unbelief. He was a saint in this world for mere for hours. During his brief Christian life, the little with which he was faithful was only to believe Christ’s promises of forgiveness, and once or twice compel his fellow robber to repent. Yet this converted thief was greeted that same day in the Kingdom, a victor with Christ over sin and death. He looked to Christ and was saved.
“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” [Isa. 45:22]
“For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” [1 John 5:4]
If not to indulge our lustful appetites openly, the world tempts us in every way to look to our own efforts to be right and approved in God’s sight. Yet faith overcomes this temptation by looking beyond oneself, one’s own circumstances and history, to the finished work of Christ on behalf of believers, finding satisfaction and confidence in all Jesus has promised Himself to be.
For more on what it means to “look unto Jesus”, I recommend this excellent article by J. C. Ryle.
Reflecting on Death with Christopher Hitchens
In reference to his cancer, a host asked Christopher Hitchens, “how are you feeling?”
“Thank you for asking. Well, I’m dying,” he replied. “But so are you…No one is ever more than a breath away from the end. We were born into a losing struggle. We all knew that, or we should, it’s just that I have to think about it a bit more.”
He was right to have the perspective that physical death is inevitable and nearer than we think. But the spiritual sting of death, the fear of what, if anything, comes next, may be removed by the promise that those who rest in Christ’s finished work shall be embraced freely by God in the life to come. For them, personal obedience to the moral law has been removed as the standard by which they enter—or are excluded from—everlasting life.
“I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” [1 Cor. 15:55]
By his dying, Christ defanged and beheaded the serpent of death in all its forms. Through faith, physical death becomes a door into bliss; spiritual death gives way to new birth and indwelling of the Spirit of life; the sentence of eternal death is commuted and life everlasting granted. Life triumphs over death in Christ!
It is a telling paradox that God, who is omniscient, remembers sins less than we Christians do. He chooses to regard our faults, “white as snow,” “far as the east from west,” and “buried beneath the deepest ocean.” But we run red-faced through the world digging up the memory of our past errors.
Saul of Tarsus thought he did a decent job dismantling the early church, yet how much more efficiently he established the faith once God laid hold of him! Our sinfulness cannot exceed God’s skill to make holy servants of the worst sinners any time he chooses.
Christians are often grieved and troubled by backward glances at their temptations and failures, but ought to look even further back, before the foundation of the world, to see Christ from eternity plotting their redemption, restoration, and glorification.
