“Christ did not die to make men savable, but to save them”
"I understand by the expression, 'The blood of the Lamb,' (Revelation 12:11) that our Lord’s death was effective for the taking away of sin.
When John the Baptist first pointed to Jesus, he said, 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' Our Lord Jesus has actually taken away sin by His death.
Beloved, we are sure that He had offered an acceptable and effectual propitiation when He said, 'It is finished.' Either He did put away sin, or He did not. If He did not, how will it ever be put away?
If He did, then are believers clear. Altogether apart from anything that we do or are, our glorious Substitute took away our sin, as in the type the scapegoat carried the sin of Israel into the wilderness.
In the case of all those for whom our Lord offered Himself as a substitutionary sacrifice, the justice of God finds no hindrance to its fullest flow: it is consistent with justice that God should bless the redeemed.
Near nineteen hundred years ago Jesus paid the dreadful debt of all His elect, and made a full atonement for the whole mass of the iniquities of them that shall believe in Him, thereby removing the whole tremendous load, and casting it by one lift of His pierced hand into the depths of the sea.
When Jesus died, an atonement was offered by Him and accepted by the Lord God, so that before the high court of heaven there was a distinct removal of sin from the whole body of which Christ is the head.
In the fulness of time each redeemed one individually accepts for himself the great atonement by an act of personal faith, but the atonement itself was made long before.
I believe this to be one of the edges of the conquering weapon. We are to preach that the Son of God has come in the flesh and died for human sin, and that in dying he did not only make it possible for God to forgive, but he secured forgiveness for all who are in Him.
He did not die to make men savable, but to save them.
He came not that sin might be put aside at some future time, but to put it away there and then by the sacrifice of Himself; for by His death He 'finished transgressions, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness.'
Believers may know that when Jesus died they were delivered from the claims of law, and when He rose again their justification was secured. The blood of the Lamb is a real price, which did effectually ransom.
The blood of the Lamb is a real cleansing, which did really purge away sin. This we believe and declare. And by this sign we conquer.
Christ crucified, Christ the sacrifice for sin, Christ the effectual redeemer of men, we will proclaim everywhere, and thus put to rout the powers of darkness."
--Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Blood of the Lamb, the Conquering Weapon,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Volume 34 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1888), 34: 508–509.
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