REFLECTIONS Gems gleaned by Jim Robinee hp://aconuganda.net/ Reflections is a Christian meditation sent by ACTION Uganda Ministries and is meant to encourage and edify. PAUL’S DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT By George Smeaton (1814-1899) “Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world” Gal 1:4. In the Epistle to the Galatians we have the most copious evidence of the value which Paul attached to the preaching of the Atonement. His great objective there is to show that if the Cross is either obscured or superseded, the Gospel is no Gospel. He pointedly condemns the views of the Judaizing teachers who enforced on the Galatian churches the observance of the Mosaic Law as necessary to salvation; showing that, in reality, it is another gospel where the Cross is either concealed, or not presented as the sole ground of acceptance. These Judaizing zealots were men who, instead of directing their undivided attention to the Atonement as the exclusive ground of salvation and, therefore, as the Doctrine of the Gospel, put circumcision and the rites of their Mosaic law in its place (Gal. 5:1-4). And the Apostle asserts that there is no other Gospel but where the Cross of Christ occupies the principal place. They to whom he referred perverted the Gospel of Christ (Gal 1:7). Then he declares, in a tone of authority as well as of the deepest solemnity, “Though we, or an angel from Heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:8)—a statement which he repeats, partly to show that it was no utterance of human passion and partly to recall to memory what he seems to have first spoken in the course of his personal ministry. Were the Atonement not the principal matter of the Gospel, and the highest exhibition of the united wisdom, love and faithfulness of God—in a word, the greatest act of God in the universe—that terrible anathema on its subverters would seem to us something inexplicable, if not intolerable. But the doom is justified by the nature of Christ’s death and by the great fact of the Atonement. The Apostle, as he proceeds, takes every opportunity from the course of his argument, not only to warn the Galatian churches against the perverters of the Gospel, but to show that the Cross formed the burden of his own preaching. He observes that the men to whom he wrote the Epis- tle, were they, “before whose eyes Jesus Christ had been evidently set forth, crucified among them” (Gal 3:1), in which expression he gives us a brief outline of his preaching. And he winds up the Epistle by the announcement that in his official capacity, as well as in his individual capacity as a Christian, he would not “glory, save in the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14). This one foundation he adduces in opposition to all these false grounds—the rites, the ceremonies, the legal observances—on which the others built their confidence. He would glory in nothing save in the Cross! And all the legalism he denounces as enmity to “the Cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18). The expression “the Cross of Christ,” in the sense in which the Apostle uses it, denotes salvation by the Propitiation of the Cross, or by the dying obedience of a Surety made a curse in our place. And when we minutely examine the various Epistles addressed to the churches, whether composed of Jews or Gentiles, we find that the Atonement was preached to men in all states of mind, as the great message with which the Apostles were charged, and as equally necessary to the established Chris- tian and the anxious inquirer. In one memorable passage which I shall subjoin, the Apostle Paul remarks that the preaching of the Cross was the main scope of his ministry and the very end for which he was specially appointed—“Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an Apostle (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not)” (1 Tim 2:6, 7). He there declares with all the solemnity of an oath, that he not only preached the Atonement as a Divinely provided ransom for man’s salvation, but that he was specially ordained as an Apostle and preacher for this very service. The Cross was thus to him and to all his successors the main burden of preaching, without which, indeed, the function of preach- ing would neither have any deep foundation nor possess any true significance.—George Smeaton from The Apostle’s Doctrine Of The Atonement First Published in 1870. Published by The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991 Carlisle, PA Pages 18-20.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 01:29:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015