Today’s Speaker: Brother Jim Casey will conduct the 11:00 am service today. Pray for him as he delivers God’s word.
Television Broadcast: Our Reign of Grace Television program is being broadcast on WFXL Fox 31, Channel 4. The program will air every Sunday morning at 11 AM.
Radio Broadcast: Sunday morning at 10:30 am on Mix 107.7 FM
Web Sites: Visit our web sites at: Reign of Grace: www.rofgrace.com
Birthdays: Sarah Hall – May 27th - Alex Wages – June 1st
Salvation in Christ
The Word of God doth nowhere teach us that we are accepted or saved for our sincerity or anything that is within our power to do; yet we acknowledge that sincerity is found in all believers, and that it is an evidence of their interest in the Covenant of Grace, but not the condition thereof. As I said before, so I say now again, that heaven did never intend upon any consideration whatsoever to confer everlasting salvation upon sinners for their performances, since all that our God and Father gives is purely upon the Redeemer’s account; so that, now in this way all boasting is excluded, for the Law of faith admits of none, {Rom.3:27,} unless it be in the Lord Jesus Christ; because everyone that glories must glory in the Lord; {I Cor.1:31;} and truly gracious souls can make their boast in the Lord, as the psalmist saith, “My soul shall make her boast in the LORD; the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.” {Ps.34:2} - Thus, the believer sees, that his whole salvation lies entirely in Christ Jesus, and that all the blessings thereof are handed forth, without money and without price. This indeed is wonderfully sweet unto him, because he seeth that he hath nothing to buy with, and that grace is free to the worst and vilest of sinners; and, though once he came to Christ with his duties, prayers, and tears, expecting to have an interest in his Righteousness for them, he now breaks out in language quite different from his former apprehensions.
--- Samuel Stockell {Redeemer’s Glory Unveiled, 1733}
But the elect fell in Adam. Granted: but did they fall out of Christ when they fell in him? No, he who sanctified, chose, or set them apart for himself, preserved them in him to be called. So that although they suffered much by that awful event, they still stood firm in Christ, and their interest in the special love and favour of God, in him, continued immutable.
--- Job Hupton - 1762-1829
God’s Wrath Removed in Christ
This seems to be a kind of paradox, that God should, from all eternity, look with eyes of love upon his people, and yet there should be a time in which there should be an alienation or enmity between God and them. For the reconciliation of this difference, you must know, it is one thing for God to recollect all future things that shall come in all the several times of the world, into one thought of his own; and it is another thing for these things to come to pass in their several times, according to their own nature. You must know, it is true, that in God’s eternal thoughts, according to the infinite vastness of his own comprehension, he did sum up, from first to last, all the occurrences and passages which in succession of time should come to pass. As for example: — he had at once in his eye man in his innocency, in his fall, and in his restoration by Christ; he had in his eye man committing sin against him from time to time; and, at the same instant, had in his eye Christ dying for these sins of men, and so satisfying his own justice for their transgressions. Now, because God had all things at once in his eye, which, in respect of their actual being, are in succession of time; therefore, it comes to pass, that God, from all eternity, had everlasting love unto his own people, though in time they do those actions which, in their own nature, are enmity against God. As God from all eternity had the present sins we now commit, in his eye, and at the same moment had the satisfaction in his eye; from hence it comes to pass, there was not a time in which God actually stood at enmity with our persons: but, in respect of the nature of things coming successively to pass, man’s condition may be considered as a condition of enmity; and again, it may be considered as a condition of reconciliation to God. That you and I were born in sin is true, and that this our being born in sin was a state of enmity against God, is as true; that in the fullness of time Christ came into the world, and then actually did bear our sins, by which God became reconciled unto us again, is also most certainly true. There is a great distance of time between sin committed, and that satisfaction actually made; but in respect of God’s eye looking upon all things at once, there is no distance of time between that enmity which sin did produce, and that reconciliation which the blood of Christ hath wrought, to take away this enmity.
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