The work of Christ does mainly these two things for us. It secures us the pardon of God, and it creates a new spirit within us.
(1) It secures the pardon of God. — The pardon of God, though
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it does not check consequences or reverse natural law, gives us very different thoughts about the consequences of our sins, and sets us in a new relation to them. The pardon of God carries with it restoration to His favour, but not exemption from punishment. A lad takes out his father's favourite horse and in trying to leap a fence breaks the horse's neck and his own collar-bone. Pained as he is while lying in the field he fears his father's anger more than the setting of the bone. And when he is taken home he is delighted to be assured that his father is filled with pity and readily accepts his contrite apologies. And the restored sense of his father's love, which his fault had clouded, knits the bond between father and son more firmly than ever. But this happy sense of pardon does not lessen the actual pain of his broken bone, though it may help him to bear it. So is it when we return from sin to God. His pardon does not shield us from the consequences of our sin, but it makes our whole being different.
^ In the days of Caesar Augustus there lived a great pirate, for whose head a large reward was offered. He said to himself, " I shall surely be caught, now that a hue and cry has been raised against me ; Caesar's warships are scouring the seas, and will hunt me down." He disguised himself, and got into Caesar's presence, and claimed the reward for the pirate's head. " But where is it ? " Ctesar asked. " Here it is," he said, " I am the pirate." He threw himself at Caesar's feet, implored mercy, and offered to serve in the imperial navy. And he was pardoned. Be like him, except in one point. Do not disguise yourself, but tear off every disguise^ and, confessing your sin, make the name of Jesus your only plea. Find out your sin, before it finds you out. Like the Prodigal, inform against yourself before God.^
(2) It creates a new spirit within us. — We find in ourselves new forces arrayed against sin, and these forces at once set in motion a new series of consequences and results which counter- work the results of sin. At every point the penitent sees traces of his sin, but every day the new life which Christ gives him is sowing for him seeds which will spring up in happiness, in service, in all that blesses human life. The new life which Christ gives does not at once abolish sinful tendencies, but it gives us power to fight against them ; it does not on the spot emancipate us from
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all the bonds we have formed by sin, but it communicates a hope and a strength which, we feel, will one day effectually deliver us.
^ O my Saviour Christ, Christ my Saviour ! who will grant that I may die rather than again offend Thee ! Christ my Saviour, 0 my Saviour ! Lord, let a new manner of life prove that a new spirit hath descended on me ; for true penitence is new life, and true praise unremitted penitence, and the observation of a perpetual Sabbath from sin, its occasions, fuel, and danger, For as penitence destroys old sins, so do new sins destroy penitence.^
What shall I do ? Make vows and break them still ?
'Twill be but labour lost. My good cannot prevail against mine ill;
The business will be crossed.
Oh, say not so ! thou canst not tell what strength Thy God may give thee at the length; Eenew thy vows, and if thou keep the last, Thy God will pardon all that's past.
Then once again I vow to mend my ways;
Lord, say Amen, And Thine be all the praise I
^ Bishop Andrewes.
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