Wednesday, November 30, 2011

How Does God Reveal Himself To Us? (pt 2)


Thus we reach the final thought of comparison: that of the approach of God to man through Moses, and the approach of God to man through Jesus. The difference may be discovered by the reading of the twentieth chapter of Exodus in close connection with the twenty seventh chapter of Matthew, which, of course, simply means the comparison between Sinai and Calvary.
Through Moses, God spoke to men in thunder, in cloud, in lightning, in the terror of the tempest, and earthquake. Through Jesus He spoke through a broken, bruised and dying Man Who was infinitely more than Man. By Sinai came the law. By Calvary came the flowing the river of grace.
 
-God’s Last Word to Man, G. Campbell Morgan, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, Ltd, 1948, pg. 36

How Should We See The Cross?


Barabbas had a wonderful angle on the cross; he could point to the middle cross and say, 
“There would I have been, if He had not been put in my place.” 
 The Cross He Bore : Meditations on the sufferings of the Redeemer, Fredrick S. Leahy, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh 1996. P72


    For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous...
    1 Peter 3:18

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Two Cups

As we meditate on Christ’s prayerful submission in Gethsemane, we should realise that there, as Philip E Hughes puts it, ‘we see Him enduring our hell so that we might be set free to enter His heaven.’ And so at unspeakable cost He drank ‘the cup’ to the very last drop. ‘Shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given Me?’ (John 18:11) What obedience, what love! What mystery!

But none of the ransomed ever knew

How deep were the water’s cross’d;

Nor how dark was the night

That the Lord pass’d through…


Now He gives to His people ‘the cup of salvation’ (Psalm 116:13) these two cups, one so bitter, the other so sweet, stand side by side: the one cup necessitated the other. One cup was emptied that the other might be filled to overflowing. The first cup guaranteed the second. Both cups are precious and bear the hallmark of sovereign grace. ‘what shall I render to the LORD for all His bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD…’ (Psalm 116:12,13)
The Cross He Bore : Meditations on the sufferings of the Redeemer, Fredrick S. Leahy, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh 1996. pg.10-11