Atonement -christiansquoting.org.uk

I have heard some say that the three most beautiful words are "It is finished".

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide,
Through the floodgates of God's mercy,
Flowed a vast and gracious tide,
Grace and love like mighty rivers,
Flowed incessant from above,
Heaven's peace and perfect justice,
Kissed a guilty world in love.
Love Song of the Welsh Revival
..if the death of Christ on the cross is the true meaning of the Incarnation, then there is no gospel without the cross. Christmas by itself is no gospel. The life of Christ is no gospel. Even the resurrection, important as it is in the total scheme of things, is no gospel by itself. For the good news is not just that God became man, nor that God has spoken to reveal a proper way of life for us, or even that death, the great enemy, is conquered. Rather, the good news is that sin has been dealt with (of which the resurrection is a proof); that Jesus has suffered its penalty for us as our representative, so that we might never have to suffer it; and that therefore all who believe in him can look forward to heaven. ...Emulation of Christ s life and teaching is possible only to those who enter into a new relationship with God through faith in Jesus as their substitute. Theresurrection is not merely a victory over death (though it is that) but a proof that the atonement was a satisfactory atonement in the sight of the Father (Rom 4:25); and that death, the result of sin, is abolished on that basis. Any gospel that talks merely of the Christ-event, meaning the Incarnation without the atonement, is a false gospel. Any gospel that talks about the love of God without pointing out that his love led him to pay the ultimate price for sin in the person of his Son on the cross is a false gospel. The only true gospel is of the one mediator (1 Tim. 2:5-6), who gave himself for us. Finally, just as there can be no gospel without the atonement as the reason for the Incarnation, so also there can be no Christian life without it. Without the atonement the Incarnation themeeasily becomes a kind of deification of the human and leads to arrogance and self advancement. With the atonement the true message of the life of Christ, and therefore also of the the life of the Christian man or woman, is humility and self sacrifice for the obvious needs of others. The Christian life is not indifference to those who are hungry or sick or suffering from some other lack. It is not contentment with our own abundance, neither the abundance of middle class living with home and cars and clothes and vacations, nor the abundance of education or even the spiritual abundance of good churches, Bibles, Bible teaching or Christian friends and acquaintances. Rather, it is the awareness that others lack these things and that we must therefore sacrifice many of our own interests in order to identify with them and thus bring them increasingly into the abundance we enjoy...We will live for Christ fully only when we are willing to be impoverished, if necessary, in order that others might be helped.
JAMES MONTGOMERY BOICE, Foundations of the Christian Faith

Not what my hands have done
Can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne
Can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do
Can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears
Can bear my awful load.
Thy work alone, O Christ,
Can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God,
Can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God,
Not mine, O Lord, to thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest,
And set my spirit free.

Thy grace alone, O God,
To me can pardon speak;
Thy pow'r alone, O Son of God,
Can this sore bondage break.
No other work, save thine,
No other blood will do;
No strength, save that which is divine,
Can bear me safely through.

I bless the Christ of God;
I rest on love divine;
And with unfalt'ring lip and heart,
I call this Saviour mine.
His cross dispels each doubt;
I bury in his tomb
Each thought of unbelief and fear,
Each ling'ring shade of gloom

I praise the God of grace;
I trust his truth and might;
He calls me his, I call him mine,
My God, my joy, my light.
"Tis he who saveth me,
And freely pardon gives;
I love because he loveth me,
I live because he lives.
Horatius Bonar, 1861

All the kings throughout history sent their people out to die for them Only one person ever died for their people willingly and lovingly. -- DAVE BROWN

The Creed sets forth what Christ suffered in the sight of men, and then appositely speaks of that invisible and incomprehensible judgement which he underwent in the sight of God in order that we might know not only that Christ's body was given as the price of our redemption, but that he paid a greater and more excellent price in suffering in his soul the terrible torments of a condemned and forsaken man. -- John Calvin (1509-1564)

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
William Cowper, THERE IS A FOUNTAIN FILLED WITH BLOOD in Conyer's Collection of Psalms and Hymns, 1772.

On the cross Jesus was guilty of nothing but God treated Jesus as if he had committed personally every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe...though in fact he committed none of them. That's what substitution means. Then God exploded the full fury of His wrath against all the sins of all who will ever believe against Jesus. And God exhausted His wrath on Jesus. Jesus was no sinner; God treated Him as though he was. On the other side, God did it in our behalf in order that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus...Jesus lived a perfect life to fulfill all righteousness. Why? So his life could be imputed to us...On the cross Jesus wasn't a sinner; God treated him as if he was; you're not righteous but He treats you as if you are. On the cross, God treated Jesus as if he lived your life so he could treat you as if you had lived his. That's imputation; that's substitution. Jesus came to be poor to exchange his life for yours in order to fulfill the elective plan of God that he might do the will of God perfectly and in the end back the very love gift the Father had given to him. JOHN McARTHUR

The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:
1. The sins of all men.
2. All the sins of some men, or
3. Some of the sins of all men.
In which case it may be said:
a. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so none are saved.
b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.
c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?You answer, Because of unbelief. I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died? If He did not, He did not die for all their sins! John Owen

Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but He died for all God's elect, that they should believe. -- JOHN OWEN

We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

Christ's blood has value enough to redeem the whole world, but the virtue of it is applied only to such as believe. THOMAS WATSON

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, Thine,
And bathed in its own blood;
While all exposed to wrath divine,
The glorious Sufferer stood.

Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
For man the creature's sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt my eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give my self away
'Tis all that I can do.
Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707