February - the Free Presbyterian church of Scotland

34
The Free Presbyterian Magazine
not left to our own devices; we have a revelation which is utterly dependable
and tells us of One who came into this world to redeem sinners from all
iniquity. The Bible tells us of the Son of God entering this world and coming
“under the law” and therefore making Himself responsible for paying the
debt of every sinner who will ever be saved.
Think then of the little Child who has been laid in the manger in Bethlehem.
He is perfectly pure and holy, and yet, as divine justice beholds Him, it says,
“Pay me that Thou owest”, even to the uttermost farthing. He has no sins of
His own, and yet God the Father has laid on Him the guilt of a multitude that
no man can number. What unmeasurable guilt that is! What a price He must
pay to deliver sinners from the debt which they owe to God because of
their transgressions! Even as a little child, He must experience the ordinary
troubles of a sinful world, and even some extraordinary hardships, such as
the threat of murder from Herod and the consequent flight to Egypt. His was
a life of suffering from the beginning, for He must pay the debt of those
whose substitute He is.
Consider Jesus when He has just begun His public ministry and begins to
teach in His home village of Nazareth. He must suffer rejection, as the
prophet Isaiah was inspired to say of Him: “He is despised and rejected of
men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our
faces from Him” (53:3). What sorrow of heart is His when those He has
known so well reject Him and His teaching and attempt to throw Him headlong
over the brow of a hill!
Follow Him to Sychar, where in weariness He sits on a well. He enters
into conversation with a woman whose lifestyle is evidently immoral. But
He did not come “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mk 2:17).
As He has come to call this woman to repentance, He reveals Himself to her
as the Messiah, and she believes. He forgives all her sin, and no longer does
divine justice say to the woman: “Pay me that thou owest”. But the Saviour
no doubt hears divine justice saying to Himself instead: “Pay me that Thou
owest”. And He will pay the full amount when His hour comes.
Or consider the woman who, in Simon’s house in Bethany, anoints Christ
with the ointment from her alabaster box, washes His feet with tears and
wipes them with her hair. He assures her: “Thy sins are forgiven” (Lk 7:48),
and encourages her to “go in peace”. He speaks thus positively because of
how certain it is that He can and will pay, to the uttermost farthing, all her
debt to divine justice. “He will not fail nor be discouraged” till He has done
so, but His words of encouragement to the woman must be a fresh reminder
to Himself of the greatness of the debt that He must pay.
Follow Jesus now to Gethsemane, where He says to His disciples: “My