4th Sunday in Lent, 19 Mar 1955

Review of last week’s address. This morning we will consider God’s remedy for sin. However grievous our sins maybe we can obtain perfect remission and forgiveness. Forgiveness is possible because of two factors.

1. Christ made a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world – we find this in the Prayer of Consecration.
2. Our God is a forgiving God.

Consider

Language based on the sacrificial system of the Jews. The ritual of atonement was repeated every year. Animals were sacrificed. The Priest offered the blood in the name of the people, and returning from the sanctuary assured the people that their sins were forgiven. In this sacrificial system the people had a glimpse of the truth that sacrifice had to be offered to obtain remission of sin and forgiveness. The writer of Hebrews in his epistle shows how Christ is the fulfilment of the ancient longing and hope. The question we would naturally ask is: How was it that Christ was able to do once for all and with permanent effect that which the old sacrifices showed forth many times, but could never render effective. In other words, how can the sacrifice of Christ on the cross bring about the remission of our sins and forgiveness?

The answer is that Christ did offer to God the perfect obedience of a human will, perfectly surrendered to him in loving service. No animal can take the place of a man, since the animal lacks precisely that which makes a man a man – namely the mysterious gift of free will. The old sacrifice could show forth in symbol something that it could not make real. But Jesus was a real man, who lived in history as we do; was tempted as we are; and did in reality make the perfect offering himself. Once that was done, the universe became a new place. Something had happened in it that had never happened before; it was like a plant which at last after long delay has produced its first flower. Once that has happened, the plant can never go back to what it was before. Once the perfect obedience has been offered, the universe can never be what it was before – a place of failure, of frustration and of imperfection.

This is the central meaning of the atonement. Christ obeyed. If we trust in him, he makes it possible for us to obey; he cleanses our conscience from dead wood to serve the living God. Christ by his perfect sacrifice has opened up for us a new and living way to God, and all human life can be changed because our God so abundantly forgives.