In addition to this benefit, II. He has cancelled our obligation to punishment — This he has done in reference to,
1. Past sins —
[The trespasses which we commit in our unregenerate state are as numerous as the sands upon the sea shore : yet, on our believing in Christ, they are all forgiven. Whether they have been more or less heinous, they are all pardoned. This is not spoken of as a blessing that shall be enjoyed in the eternal world, but as actually possessed at this time. God has " cast our sins behind him into the very depths of the sea e " ]
2. Present infirmities —
[We must not be understood to say that believers have obtained a licence to commit sin with impunity ; for nothing can be more contrary to truth : this would make " Christ himself a minister of sin." But our meaning is this: the moral law denounces a curse against every one that trans- gresses it even in the smallest point. The ceremonial law illustrates and confirms those penal sanctions. The very sacrifices which were the appointed means of expiating sin, declared that the offerer deserved to die, and that he could not be saved but by the sufferings and death of an innocent victim. From hence it appears, that " the hand-writing of ordinances," which, in its external obligation, related only to the Jews, did, in its spiritual and more enlarged sense, declare the state of all mankind, whether Jews or Gentiles : and in this view it was equally " against us, and contrary to us."
Now this hand-writing Christ has " blotted out," and, by " nailing it to his cross," has " taken it out of the way." There were different ways of cancelling a bond : sometimes it was blotted out ; and sometimes it was pierced with a nail, and rendered thereby of no effect. Both these ways, if we may so speak, has Christ adopted, that we might have the fullest security that we shall never be dealt with according to the rigour of the law ; and that the debt we owe on account of our unhallowed infirmities shall never be required at our hands.]
A further obligation he has conferred upon us, in that, III. He has defeated all our spiritual enemies —
Satan and all his hosts are combined against us —
e Mic. vii. 19.