2. A mediatorial sacrifice : Isa. liii. 3, ' When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin ;' Eph. v. 2, Christ ' hath loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- smelling savour.' He hath undertook the expiation of our sins, and
Mat. XVII. 3.] Christ's transftguration. 367
the propitiating of God. God's provoked justice would not acquit the controversy it had against us till it were appeased by a proper sacri- fice : 1 John ii. 2, ' He is the propitiation for our sins.' Secondly, The necessity of it,
1. The sins and guilty fears of mankind needeth such a remedy. We are naturally sensible that the punishment of death is deserved and due to us by the law of God : Kom. i. 32, ' They which commit such things are worthy of death.' Now these fears are not easily appeased : Micah vi, 6, 7, ' Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God ? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? ' Christ came and died to free us from them, that we might serve God cheerfully : Heb, ii. 14, 15, ' Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil ;' Heb, ix, 14, ' How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works, to serve the living God ? '
2. The glory of God requires it : —
[1,] To declare his justice : Eom, iii. 25, 26, ' Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the for- bearance of God : to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness ; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.' If God will pardon sin, there must be a fit means to keep up the honour of his justice, and the authority of his law ; for sin is not a wrong done to a private party offended, but a disobedience to authority, and disturbeth the order of government.
[2.] To declare his holiness, that he is a pure and holy God, hating sin. This was demonstrated in the sufferings of Christ, and the dear rate at which it was expiated ; for if this was done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?
Use 1, Oh, then, be affected with this great mystery, the death which the Son of God accomplished at Jerusalem ; look upon it under a double notion. With respect to his Father's command, it was an act of obedience, carried on with such humility, patience, self-denial, resig- nation of himself to God, charity, pity, as the like cannot be done by man or angel : Kom. v. 19, ' By the obedience of one many were made righteous;' Phil. ii. 8, 'He humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.' This commendeth obedience to us. It was an act of love : Gal. ii. 20, ' Who loved me, and gave himself forme ;' Kev. i. 5, * To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood,' He thought no price too dear for our salvation. Let us love him, again, who loved us first : 1 John iv, 19, ' We love him, because he first loved us ; ' and be contented to suffer with him and for him, that we may enter into his glory : Eom. viii, 17, ' If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together,' if he call us thereunto.
368 Christ's transfiguration. [Ser. III.
2. Feel the virtue of it in heart and conscience. In heart : by our dying to sin, then we are planted into the likeness of his death, JPtom. vi. 5. ' They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affec- tions and lusts thereof,' Gal. v. 24 ; ' Who his own self hare our sins in his body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness.' Then glory in it : Gal vi, 14, ' God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the woi-ld.' In conscience : 1 John V. 10, ' He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself,' &c. ; Heb. xii. 24, ' And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel ' — doth it appease our guilty fears, and purge our consciences from the stain and guilt of sin.