Sung By: Project: 10 Men in concert – SoundForth Music
His Robes for Mine
His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange! Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage. Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified. In Christ I live, for in my place He died.
Chorus:
I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost: Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God. Bought by such love, my life is not my own. My praise-my all-shall be for Christ alone.
His robes for mine: what cause have I for dread? God’s daunting Law Christ mastered in my stead. Faultless I stand with righteous works not mine, Saved by my Lord’s vicarious death and life.
His robes for mine: God’s justice is appeased. Jesus is crushed, and thus the Father’s pleased. Christ drank God’s wrath on sin, then cried “Tis done!” Sin’s wage is paid; propitiation won.
His robes for mine: such anguish none can know. Christ, God’s beloved, condemned as though His foe. He, as though I, accursed and left alone; I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home!
“..the gospel itself is distorted. It is presented in sermons less and less as what God has done so sinners under His wrath and curse may be right with Him Who is holy. By a horrible neglect of the problem, the gospel is presented more in terms of how God is yearning to have a relationship with us so He can be our friend. God is not lonely, nor in any kind of need. When the problem of sin gets passing attention, fellowship replaces forgiveness. Propitiation and justification are foremost to bringing a restored communion with God. Today people skip over the foundation and try to have the benefits apart from the foundation. We cannot know God as He is if we avoid or neglect the real wonder, that God the Son was forsaken by God for us on the cross. We cannot be filled with wonder if we are missing the wonder of the cross. “
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.
He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Words: Charles Wesley, Psalms and Hymns, 1738.
Music: Sagina, Thomas Campbell, Bouquet, 1825
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-4
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Here we see the absolute holiness and in flexible justice of God.
The tragedy of Calvary must be viewed from at least four different viewpoints. At the cross man did a work: he displayed his depravity by taking the Perfect One and with “wicked hands” nailing him to the tree. At the cross Satan did a work: he manifested his insatiable enmity against the woman’s seed by bruising his heel. At the cross the Lord Jesus did a work: he died the Just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. At the cross God did a work: he exhibited his holiness and satisfied his justice by pouring out his wrath on the one who was made sin for us.
What human pen is able or fit to write about the unsullied holiness of God! So holy is God that mortal man cannot look upon him in his essential being, and live. So holy is God that the very heavens are not clean in his sight. So holy is God that even the seraphim veil their faces before him. So holy is God that when Abraham stood before him, he cried, “I am but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27). So holy is God that when Job came into his presence he said, “Wherefore I abhor myself” (Job 42:6). So holy is God that when Isaiah had a vision of his glory he exclaimed, “Woe is me! for I am undone . . . for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:5). So holy is God that when Daniel beheld him in theophanic manifestation he declared, “there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption” (Dan. 10:8). So holy is God that we are told, he is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13). And it was because the Saviour was bearing our sins that the thrice holy God would not look on him, turned his face from him, forsook him. The Lord made to meet on Christ the iniquities of us all: and our sins being on him as our substitute, the divine wrath against our offences must be spent upon our sin-offering.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That was a question which none of those around the cross could have answered; it was a question which, at the time, none of the apostles could have answered; yea, it was a question which had puzzled the angels in heaven to make reply to. But the Lord Jesus had answered his own question, and his answer is found in Psalm 22. This psalm furnished a most wonderful prophetic foreview of his sufferings. The psalm opens with the very words of our Saviour’s fourth cross-utterance, and it is followed by further agonizing sobs in the same strain till, at verse 3, we find him saying – “But thou art holy” . He complains not of injustice, instead he acknowledges God’s righteousness – thou art holy and just in exacting all the debt at my hand which I am surety for; I have all the sins of all my people to answer for, and therefore I justify thee, O God, in giving me this stroke from thine awakened sword. Thou art holy: thou art clear when thou judgest.
At the cross, then, as nowhere else, we see the infinite malignity of sin and the justice of God in the punishment thereof. Was the old world over-flown with water? Were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by a storm of fire and brimstone? Were the plagues sent upon Egypt and were Pharaoh and his hosts drowned in the Red Sea? In these may the demerit of sin and God’s hatred thereof be seen; but much more so here is Christ forsaken of God. Go to Golgotha and see the Man that is Jehovah’s Fellow drinking up the cup of his Father’s indignation, smitten by the sword of divine justice, bruised by the Lord himself, suffering unto death, for God “spared not his own Son” when he hung in the sinner’s place.
Behold how nature herself had anticipated the dreadful tragedy – the very contour of the ground is like unto a skull. Behold the earth trembling beneath the mighty load of outpoured wrath. Behold the heavens as the sun turns away from such a scene, and the land is covered with darkness. Here may we see the dreadful anger of a sin-avenging God. Not all the thunderbolts of divine judgment which were let loose in Old Testament times, not all the vials of wrath which shall yet be poured forth on an apostate Christendom during the unparalleled horrors of the Great Tribulation, not all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth of the damned in the Lake of Fire ever gave, or ever will give such a demonstration of God’s inflexible justice and ineffable holiness, of his infinite hatred of sin, as did the wrath of God which flamed against his own Son on the cross. Because he was enduring sin’s terrific judgment he was forsaken of God. He who was the Holy One, whose own abhorrence of sin was infinite, who was purity incarnate (1 John 3:3) was “made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:2 1); therefore did he bow before the storm of wrath, in which was displayed the divine displeasure against the countless sins of a great multitude whom no man can number. This, then, is the true explanation of Calvary. God’s holy character could do no less than judge sin even though it be found on Christ himself. At the cross then God’s justice was satisfied and his holiness vindicated.
In this short clip from The Gospel Coalition, J. Ligon Duncan spoke out on what must constitute the message within any Gospel presentation. Essentially, What is the Gospel ?
‘Sola Gratia: The Erosion Of The Gospel
Unwarranted confidence in human ability is a product of fallen human nature. This false confidence now fills the evangelical world; from the self-esteem gospel, to the health and wealth gospel, from those who have transformed the gospel into a product to be sold and sinners into consumers who want to buy, to others who treat Christian faith as being true simply because it works. This silences the doctrine of justification regardless of the official commitments of our churches.
God’s grace in Christ is not merely necessary but is the sole efficient cause of salvation. We confess that human beings are born spiritually dead and are incapable even of cooperating with regenerating grace.
Thesis Three: Sola Gratia
We reaffirm that in salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by his grace alone. It is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit that brings us to Christ by releasing us from our bondage to sin and raising us from spiritual death to spiritual life.
We deny that salvation is in any sense a human work. Human methods, techniques or strategies by themselves cannot accomplish this transformation. Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature.’
"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us' Galatians 3:13
‘If it is true that the cross is of central importance to biblical Christianity, it seems that it is essential for Christians to have some understanding of its meaning in biblical terms. That
R C Sproul
would be true in any generation, but it’s particularly necessary in this one. I doubt there has been a period in the two thousand years of Christian history when the significance, the centrality, and even the necessity of the cross have been more controversial than now. There have been other periods in church history when theologies emerged that regarded the cross of Christ as an unnecessary event, but never before in Christian history has the need for an atonement been as widely challenged as it is today.’ R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross
“I’ve heard sermons about the nails and the thorns. Granted, the physical agony of crucifixion is a ghastly thing. But thousands of people have died on crosses, and others have had even more painful, excruciating deaths than that. But only One received the full measure of the curse of God while on a cross. Because of that, I wonder if Jesus was even aware of the nails and the thorns. He was overwhelmed by the outer darkness. On the cross, He was in hell, totally bereft of the grace and the presence of God, utterly separated from all blessedness of the Father. He became a curse for us so that we one day will be able to see the face of God. God turned His back on His Son so that the light of His countenance will fall on us. It’s no wonder Jesus screamed from the depths of His soul.” R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross
“Nowhere in Scripture is the reality of God’s wrath more sharply manifested than in the forsaking of His Messiah. To be cursed of God is to be cut off from His presence and all of His benefits. The Incarnate Christ who enjoyed intimate personal fellowship with the Father, such as no man had ever enjoyed, was suddenly and completely cut off. Once the sin of man was imputed to Him, He became the virtual incarnation of evil. The load He carried was repugnant to the Father. God is too holy to even look at iniquity. God the Father turned His back upon the Son, cursing Him to the pit of hell while on the cross. Here was the Son’s ‘descent into hell.’ Here the fury of God raged against Him. His scream was the scream of the damned. For us.” R.C. Sproul, Tabletalk magazine, “My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?” (April 1990), p. 6.
‘The figure of a cross is the universal symbol of Christianity. The concept of atonement reaches back to the Old Testament where God set up a system by which the people of Israel could make atonement for their sins. To atone is to make amends, to set things right. Both the Old and New Testaments make it clear that all human beings are sinners. As our sins are against an infinite, holy God who cannot even look upon sin, atonement must be made in order for us to have fellowship with God. Because sin touches even our best acts, we are incapable of making a sufficient sacrifice. Even our sacrifices are tainted and would require a further sacrifice to cover that blemish, ad infinitum. We have no gift valuable enough, no work righteous enough to atone for our own sins. We are debtors who cannot pay their debts. In receiving the wrath of the Father on the cross, Christ was able to make atonement for His people. Christ carried, or bore, the punishment for the sins of human beings. He atoned for them by accepting the just punishment due for those sins. The Old Testament covenant pronounced a curse upon any person who broke the law of God. On the cross, Jesus not only took that curse upon Himself, but He became “a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). He was forsaken by the Father and experienced the full measure of hell on the cross.’ R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of The Christian Faith, 1992, 137-138
“On the cross, God’s wrath was poured out on Christ. God did strike Him, smite Him, and afflict Him – but not for any evil in Christ.” R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross
‘Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned–every one–to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all……By oppression and judgment he was taken away; … he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? …….although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. ‘ Isaiah 53:4-6,8,9
“If all that happened was the single transfer of our sins to Jesus, we would not be justified…..We must see that the righteousness of Christ that is transferred to us is the righteousness He achieved by living under the Law for thirty-three years without sinning.” R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross
‘Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. ‘Isaiah 53:10-12
‘Atonement involves substitution and satisfaction. In taking God’s curse upon Himself, Jesus satisfied the demands of God’s holy justice. He received God’s wrath for us, saving us from the wrath that is to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10). A key phrase in the Bible regarding the Atonement is the phrase, “in behalf of.” Jesus did not die for Himself, but for us. His suffering was vicarious; He was our substitute. He took our place in fulfilling the role of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. While the Father’s wrath is real, it should be noted that the atonement Christ made was not a case of the Son working against the Father’s will. It is not as if Christ were snatching His people out of the Father’s hand. The Son did not persuade the Father to save those whom the Father was loathe to save. On the contrary, both Father and Son willed the salvation of the elect and worked together to bring it to pass. As the apostle Paul wrote, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19).’ R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of The Christian Faith, 1992, 137-138
To Download FREE MP3 Sermon “The Curse Motif of the Atonement” by Dr R C Sproul delivered at the T4G08:
Thabiti Anyabwile has a unique perspective of explaining the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Muslims
In these video clips from the Muslim – Christian dialogue held in Dubai 2009, Thabiti Anyabwile explained the Gospel of Jesus Christ and specifically “Who is God and how are we saved?”. This is third dialogue/debate in a series organised by the Muslim Student Association and Christian Fellowship Club from the University of Wollongong in Dubai.
Thabiti Anyabwile, currently senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, has a remarkable testimony of being converted to Islam while being a nominal Christian, and then God called him to a true saving faith in Jesus Christ. Being a former Muslim and is now a Christian pastor, Thabiti Anyabwile has a unique perspective of explaining to Muslims the Gospel of Jesus Christ and specifically “Who is God and how are we saved?” with some very useful insights.
He was delivered over to death for our sins, and was raised to life for our justification Rom 4:25
There is NONE that does good or seek after God, not even one. ALL have sinned.
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Rom 3: 10-12
If God’s sovereignty offers you Mercy and Grace, it is God’s gift. No one ever deserve it, God shows mercy to whom He chooses.
Without God’s righteousness through the finished work of His only Savior, given freely and at God’s will to those He called, no sinners will ever be saved.
This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Rom 3:22-24
You can’t save yourself, only God can save. You don’t choose God, He chooses to save who He calls. Neither you or anyone deserve any mercy from God, He saves by His Grace. A saving faith to trust and believe in Him is the only through God’s mercy and mighty power.
Lets turn to God and take Him on His word and call upon Him for mercy:
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” John 3:36
And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
I John 5:11-12
Rom10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.