“DELIVERED FOR OUR OFFENCES”
Glen M Barlow
Romans 4: 23-25; 5: 1-2
I have a simple impression for this occasion as to the One “who has been delivered for our offences”, and “raised for our justification”. I was thinking that there are many gospels of various kinds going out in the world today. Paul speaks in the Galatians of a “different gospel” (1: 6). They had heard a different gospel. I think what characterises every gospel other than the true gospel is that it would present the thought that there is something you can do for yourself, that there is something you can do to meet your own need and hopelessness. When we come to the true gospel, we present another “who has been delivered for our offences” and “raised for our justification”.
It is necessary that this should be so when we consider the great matter that stands out against us that offends, or should offend, our consciences and brings us into bondage and the fear of death. When we consider the matter of sin and the offence that it is against a holy and righteous God, and the prospect of the unbeliever as having offended God and “being dead in …offences and sins” (Eph 2: 1), we must come to it that there is no answer to that predicament in ourselves, none. It has struck me what another has said, ‘if you could by some means acquire to yourself the combined merits of all the saints of God who ever lived on earth, there is not value enough in all their holy living and dying to absolve one of your sins’, CAC vol 14 p12. Our position is hopeless, but in the gospel we have to proclaim One who wishes to meet the hopeless case and has already done so! We do not present a work that you could accomplish to answer to God for the state into which you have fallen as one who has offended against Him, because there is none. What we have to present is that the very One against whom we have offended has Himself accomplished the work that can satisfy His claims. Our help, if we believe, has been laid on another. He has been “delivered for our offences”.
What a glorious message the glad tidings is, beloved. There was only one thing, speaking reverently, that God could give that would satisfy His claims of righteousness and it was the One that was most precious to Him. Think of the perfection of the life of Jesus in comparison with all that had gone before: four thousand years of constant failure; four thousand years of sin proliferating in a sphere in which God should have been supreme. And, because of sin, the sentence of death and the fear and the bondage of death upon all men, because it is the righteous judgment of sin. It is necessary that sin should be judged.
Into such a scene came His beloved Son. I have been affected recently by considering the distinction between the way that God’s presence was known in Exodus, when He appeared on Mount Sinai, and in the beginning of Luke’s gospel. At Sinai, the children of Israel could not draw near to the mountain and they could not touch it; there were thunders and lightnings, Exod 19: 16. There is the sense of God protecting Himself against the unholiness and unrighteousness that marked that sphere. Then compare that scene with the beginning of Luke's gospel. There you find “a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger”, Luke 2: 12. God has drawn near in the Person of Jesus, and Jesus, in the perfection of His manhood, has delighted God. There were thirty years which are largely hidden to us, but the summation of them is at the point of the Lord's baptism at the end of those thirty years, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matt 3: 17. God found delight in Him in every moment of those thirty years, in the circumstances of every-day life. Every movement, every thought of His, satisfied the will and pleasure of the Father. That estimation as to His delight in Him was then repeated at the mount of transfiguration, as to the three years of His public service. God found in the Lord Jesus a Man who satisfied His heart and there was nothing lacking in Him.
But what does that mean for us, as lost and far from God? The scripture says, “the redemption of their soul is costly, and must be given up for ever”, Ps 49: 8. God gave up forever what was so precious to Him, the life of Jesus in perfection here. Jesus was the One whom He delivered, in the words of this scripture, “for our offences”. It also says in scripture that He delivered Himself up, Eph 5: 2. He was delivered up by men (Acts 3: 13), that is man's responsibility, and He was delivered up by God (Rom 8: 32), that is God's disposition; but He also delivered Himself up. In the scripture where it speaks of Abraham and Isaac going to make the offering, Abraham says that God will provide Himself with the sheep for the burnt offering, and then it says, “they went both of them together”, Gen 22: 8. Think of the Father and the Son in perfect accord, with one object before them in view of the glory of God; and the object was you and me. The Father and the Son went both of them together, the Son prepared as the willing Victim to deliver Himself up for our offences, the Father willing to give up that which so delighted Him on your account and mine.
The death of the Lord Jesus and the shedding of His precious blood have answered the great question, really the only question that matters for anyone away from God. Think of how much men worry about questions of the day. They worry, for instance, about how long this planet can continue physically. I have been thinking recently that this world's moral conclusion is arriving far sooner than its physical one. It is going on to a sink of corruption, but think of how men worry about these questions, and the question of the eternal prospect of their immortal soul goes unanswered. Others perhaps seeking to answer it in their own strength without any prospect of success. We have to present in the gospel the One who was delivered, He was “delivered for our offences”, and He shed His precious blood. And so this question to which I referred, which the earlier part of Romans really addresses, is the question of how a holy and righteous God could show mercy and grace to those whom He would have to be the objects of His mercy and grace, while maintaining the claims of His righteousness. It speaks in the previous chapter of “the shewing forth of His righteousness in the present time, so that he should be just, and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus”, Rom 3: 26. The answer is to point to the blood of Jesus and for you to have your faith and trust in Him.
The passover to which we were referring in the reading is a very helpful type in this regard, because you will recall that the question of whether a person was saved or unsaved did not depend on their own thoughts as to salvation, but on the blood being on the door-posts and lintel. It did not depend on how good or how bad they thought they were, or even the degree of the trust of the persons within each household. A well-known tract (Safety, Certainty and Enjoyment - George Cutting) has the illustration of two different households of the children of Israel in Egypt. In both houses, the blood is on the door-posts and the lintel, but in the first house they know that the destroying angel is coming over and they are not really sure as to whether they are safe until the angel has passed, so they are cowering in the house. In the second house, by contrast, they are standing ready to leave Egypt. What the tract draws attention to, as to the distinction between those two households, is that your eternal salvation as having your faith and trust in the precious blood of Jesus depends on what God thinks of the blood. That is what gave certainty in the second household. They could say, ‘God has said, “when I see the blood, I will pass over you”’, Exod 12: 13. That is really my impression for this occasion, that Christ has done it all. Let there be no doubts or fears as having your faith and trust in the precious blood of Jesus because nothing ever depended on you. If it did, you would be lost for eternity. There is nothing you can do to add to your salvation, and no one can take away from it. God has said, “when I see the blood, I will pass over you”. The righteousness of God has been satisfied in the death of Jesus.
We know what that involved for Him. Where we read in the reading in Matthew 26, He was going alone.. At that time, there was communion with the Father, but He went alone as far as men could have seen. There were none that could understand, He “looked for sympathy, but there was none; and for comforters, but ... found none”, Ps 69: 20. . There was communion with the Father, but your salvation and mine meant that that communion had to be broken. It is beyond our comprehension, but there was that moment when there was, as another has said, ‘without one ray of light, not even from God’ (JND Collected Writings vol 7 p169): all was darkness. And in the darkness, and in the distance, He bore and exhausted God's righteous judgment in relation to sin and sins. He bore the sins of many (Heb 9: 28), but He also bore the curse that lay upon man from Adam onwards. He went into the distance and He measured sin’s distance. I gather persons used to speak about the ‘unfathomable depths of sin’, but it was brought out that He fathomed them. We can never understand what that involved for Him, when that communion that He so treasured and enjoyed with the Father was broken and the wrath of God was poured upon Him without relief. He was “delivered for our offences”.
What has been given up is so precious and it has been given up for those in whom there was nothing to call forth the love that gave it. It raises that question which I suppose we could never really answer, ‘Why did He love me?’. The great evidence of the love of God was at the cross of Jesus and what was demonstrated at the cross is that love required nothing from its objects. Nothing. If it did, we would have no hope. There was nothing in us to call forth that love, but it was such that He was “delivered for our offences”. God gave up what was so pleasurable to Himself in view of your blessing and mine.
Then it says too that He “has been raised for our justification”. We might sometimes tend to think more of the death of Jesus as being for us and of the resurrection of Jesus as being for the Father, that He must glorify the One who had so satisfied Him. All was for God, but in this scripture we are told that He was “raised for our justification”. So that not only His death, not only the shedding of His precious blood, not only His burial as taking away out of the sight of God all that stood out against us, but too His rising again was for us. As to the matter of justification being linked with being raised, it has been observed that if God could not raise a man to life, justification would be a dead letter, FER vol 5 p292. What would be the joy of knowing deliverance from our sins, if we were still lost to the penalty of death? The rising again of Jesus is the testimony that the power of death has been broken and that our liabilities have been discharged. Every liability that stood out against us has been discharged, He “has been raised for our justification”. There is a Man raised, exalted and glorified, and His present position is the assurance that the believer has life everlasting. “The wages of sin is death”, and in being delivered for our offences, He has taken that upon Himself, “but the act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”, Rom 6: 23. He “has been raised for our justification”.
It has been said (FER vol 2 p326), and I found it interesting and helpful, that if we think of a substitute as one who took our place in order that we might go free, we must remember that in the gospel the first Person to go free is the Substitute, the Lord Jesus. The One who took our place was the first to go free; He has been raised. What is the testimony to the fact that the believer will be raised? What is the testimony to the fact that we are set on the platform of resurrection? How do we know that resurrection is true? It is because the resurrection has already begun. There is already a Man in heaven and His place there is the assurance to the believer that our place is there. He “has been raised for our justification”. We could never be comfortable there if we had not been justified. The truth is that we stand in the worth of Another; the One who has been raised is our righteousness.
In the beginning of chapter 5, the power of justification is brought out. There are three things we are told that we can have as drawing near and as having been justified and placed on the platform of resurrection. It says we have “peace”, and we have “favour”, and we have “hope”. How could we have peace before God if any offence was yet outstanding? There is no offence outstanding for the believer. It is impossible that a believer should be subject to the wrath of God and it is impossible that a believer should be subject to the condemnation of God. We may know discipline, but wrath and condemnation can never be applied to the believer because Jesus bore it and He exhausted it. There is no condemnation left for the believer, none, and so we have peace. We can come into the presence of God clothed in the perfect worth of the Man who has satisfied Him for time and eternity. We have peace in the presence of God. It is a peace that Adam, even in innocence, really never knew. Adam was incorrupt before he sinned but he was not incorruptible. But there is now a Man in the presence of God in the power of indissoluble life. It is a life to which nothing of Adam’s nature can attach. Then we have the favour in which we stand. It is the favour of divine love, “taken us into favour in the Beloved”, Eph 1: 6.
You will notice that all three of the things that are spoken of in the beginning of chapter 5 are the consequence of what Jesus has done; peace “through our Lord Jesus Christ”, and then, “by whom we have also access by faith into this favour in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God”. So we can know peace, and peace forms the basis for the enjoyment of all the blessings that follow and the liberty of access that we have to the presence of God, as having been justified, and we can boast in hope of the glory of God. I have been thinking in relation to that verse that the unbeliever cannot boast in the hope of the glory of God. The glory of God involves that there should be a sphere, a universe of glory, all headed up in the One in whom God has secured His will and pleasure, but that must involve that everything contrary to that scene falls under judgment. In the second epistle to the Thessalonians we have some sense of what will take place in judgment and the solemnity of it. It says that there will be “the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven, with the angels of his power, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who know not God, and those who do not obey the glad tidings of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall pay the penalty of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his might”, chap 1: 7-9. What a contrast with the blessing of those whose faith is in the One who has been delivered and raised. They know peace and favour and they can “boast in hope of the glory of God”.
There is coming a day when God will “judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed” (Acts 17: 31), and the glory of God necessitates that. But the believer can “boast in hope of the glory of God” because there is no judgment for the believer. There is no condemnation. There is no prospect of “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord”. There is the prospect of sharing with Him in His glory; that is the hope of the believer. The believer looks first and foremost for the exaltation of Jesus, when He will come into the place and the rights that are due to Him. There should be nothing dearer to the heart of the believer than that He should have His place and that every knee should bow to Him. But when that happens, He will have with Him those whom He has secured. The hymn says -
Quickened with Him in life divine,
Raised with Him from the dead:
His own (and all His own are Thine)
Shall with Him in His glories shine,
Our blessed living Head! (Hymn 40)
That is the prospect for the believer. That is why we can “boast in hope of the glory of God” because the glory of God does not mean condemnation for us. It does not mean wrath; it does not mean judgment; it means a Man set up in His presence, as the Centre of a universe of glory that speaks of Him. It means the prospect of eternal bliss. We can “boast in hope of the glory of God”.
The scripture we have read makes clear that everything of which we have spoken, and the entrance into it, depends on faith: “to whom, believing on him who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord”. How wonderful is God’s grace in reckoning our faith to us for righteousness. Yet, the help has been laid on Another. Nothing is required from our side, and nothing we could give would ever suffice. But we must have faith and trust in the One who has accomplished the work. Earlier in Romans, it tells us that the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ is “towards all”, chap 3: 22. The righteousness of God has been made known, and it has been displayed at the cross that it is towards all, but it is “upon all those who believe”. I trust that all here have their faith and trust in the work of Jesus and His precious blood because there is no other means of salvation. There is none. He has been delivered for your offences and has been raised for your justification. And God's blessing -
Rich blessings, unmeasured, conceived in His heart! (Hymn 257)
are available to those who put their faith and trust in the One who God has delivered and the One who God has raised.
And then there is the power for the present enjoyment of all that His work has secured. How can we enter into the peace? By the power of the Holy Spirit. How can we enjoy the favour? By the power of the Holy Spirit. How can we be boasting in the hope of the glory of God? How can our eyes be fixed on what is coming, fixed on the sphere to which we belong, fixed on the One who is there and the place that He fills? By the power of the Holy Spirit of God. God gave His all at the cross, and only God could give His all and carry on giving. He has given His Holy Spirit. So there is the power available in the sphere of Christ's absence to link us to Him in the place where He is. There is the power for the present enjoyment of the place of favour, and joy, and peace, and blessing and hope that belongs to every believer, because Jesus has secured it for them.
May we all enter into it in a greater way, for His Name's sake.
Sunbury
10th December 2023