The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 by John Bunyan (best book clubs txt) 📖

Christ, then, must needs have suffered; the manner of the work laid a necessity upon him to take our flesh upon him; he must die, he must die for us, he must die for our sins. And this was effectually foretold by all the bloody sacrifices that were offered under the law—the blood of bulls, the blood of lambs, the blood of rams, the blood of calves, and the blood of goats and birds. These bloody sacrifices, what did they signify, what were they figures of, but of the bloody sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ? their blood being a shadow of his blood, and their flesh being a shadow of his flesh.

Therefore, when God declared that he took no pleasure in them, because they could not make the worshippers perfect as pertaining to the conscience, then comes Jesus Christ to offer his sinless body and soul for the sin of the people—‘For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifices and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me; in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God.’ Since burnt-offerings cannot do thy will, my body shall; since the blood of bulls and goats cannot do thy will, my blood shall. Then follows, By the will of God ‘we are sanctified, through the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once for all’

(Heb 10:4-10).

3. The end of the work required that Christ, if he will be our Saviour, should take upon him our flesh.

The end of our salvation is, that we might enjoy God, and that he by us might be glorified for ever and ever.

(1.) That we might enjoy God. ‘I will dwell in them, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.’ This indwelling of God, and consequently our enjoyment of him, begins first in its eminency by his possessing our flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Hence his name is called ‘Immanuel, God with us’; and ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.’ The flesh of Christ is the tabernacle which the Lord pitched, according to that saying, ‘The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God’

(Rev 21:3). Here God beginneth to discover his glory, and to be desirable to the sons of men.

God could not communicate himself to us, nor take us into the enjoyment of himself, but with respect to that flesh which his Son took of the Virgin, because sin stood betwixt. Now this flesh only was the holy lump, in this flesh God could dwell; and forasmuch as this flesh is the same with ours, and was taken up with intent that what was done in and by that, should be communicated to all the children; therefore through that doth God communicate of himself unto his people—‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself’ (2 Cor 5:19). And ‘I am the way,’ saith Christ, ‘no man cometh unto the Father but by me’ (John 14:6).

That passage to the Hebrews is greatly to our purpose. We have boldness, brethren, ‘to enter into the holiest,’ the place where God is, ‘by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh’ (Heb 10:19,20).

Wherefore by the flesh and blood of Christ we enter into the holiest; through the veil, saith he, that is to say, his flesh.

(2.) As the end of our salvation is that we might enjoy God, so also it is that he by us might be glorified for ever—‘That God in all things might be glorified, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

Here indeed will the mystery of his grace, wisdom, justice, power, holiness, and glory, inhabit eternal praise, while we that are counted worthy of the kingdom of God shall admire at the mystery, and see ourselves, without ourselves, even by the flesh and blood of Christ through faith therein, effectually and eternally saved.

Oh, this will be the burden of our eternal joy—God loved us, and gave his Son for us; Christ loved us, and gave his flesh for our life, and his blood for our eternal redemption and salvation!

THAT CHRIST WAS MADE UNDER THE LAW.

SECOND. But, secondly CHRIST WAS MADE UNDER THE LAW—‘When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law’ (Gal 4:4).

Of right, being found in flesh, he must needs be under the law, for that there is not any creature above or without law to God; but this is not to the point in hand. Christ was not therefore under the law because he was found in flesh, but he took flesh, and designedly put himself, or was made under the law; wherefore it is added, He was made under the law to ‘redeem,’ to redeem them that were under that law. Wherefore, here is a design, a heavenly contrivance and device on foot; Christ is made—that is, by design subjected—under the law, for the sake and upon the account of others, ‘to redeem them that were under the law.’

Made under the law—that is, put himself into the room of sinners, into the condition of sinners; made himself subject to the same pains and penalties we were obnoxious to. We were under the law, and it had dominion over us, bound us upon pain of eternal damnation to do completely all things written in the law. This condition Christ put himself into that ‘he might redeem’; for assuredly we had else perished.

The law had dominion over us, and since we had sinned, of right it pronounced the curse, and made all men subject to the wrath of God. Christ, therefore, did not only come into our flesh, but also into our condition, into the valley and shadow of death where we were, and where we are, as we are sinners. He that is under the law is under the edge of the axe. When David was to go to visit his brethren, and to save them from the hand of Goliath, he was to look how his brethren fared, and to ‘take their pledge’ (1 Sam 17:18). This is true of Jesus Christ when he came to save us from the hand of death and the law; he looked how his brethren fared, took to heart their deplorable condition, and put himself into the same plight—to wit, under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law.

I told you before that he came sinless into the world, that he had a miraculous conception, and wonderful birth; and here you see a reason for it, he was to be put, or made, under the law, ‘to redeem.’

He that will be made under the law to redeem, had need be sinless and spotless himself; for the law findeth fault with the least, and condemneth man for the first beginning of, sin.

Without this, then, there could not have been redemption, nor any the sons of God by adoption: no redemption, because the sentence of death had already passed upon all; no sons by adoption, because that is the effect of redemption. ‘God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.’ Christ, then, by being made under the law, hath recovered his from under the law, and obtained for them the privilege of the adoption of sons.

For, as I told you before, Christ stood a common[3] person, presenting in himself the whole lump of the promised seed, or the children of the promise; wherefore he comes under the law for them, takes upon him to do what the law required of them, takes upon him to do it for them.

He began, therefore, at the first tittle of the law, and going in man’s flesh, for man, through the law, he becomes ‘the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.’ The END of the law—what is the end of the law but perfect and sinless obedience?

that is the end of the law, both with respect to its nature, and the cause of its being imposed. God gave the law, that complete righteousness should by that be found upon men; but because sin was got into man’s flesh, therefore this righteousness, by us, could not be completed. Now comes Christ the Lord into the world, clothes himself with the children’s flesh, addresseth himself to the work of their redemption, is made under the law; and going through every part of the law without sin, he becometh ‘the end of the law for’

justifying ‘righteousness to every one that believeth’ (Rom 10:4).

For he obeyed not the law for himself, he needed no obedience thereto; it was we that needed obedience, it was we that wanted to answer the law; we wanted it but could not obtain it, because then the law was weak through the flesh; therefore God sent his own Son, and he did our duty for us, even to become the end of the law to every one that believeth. In this, therefore, Christ laboured for us, he was made under the law to redeem. Therefore, as I said before, it behoved him to be sinless, because the law binds over to answer for sin at the bar of the judgment of God. Therefore did his Godhead assume our human flesh, in a clean and spotless way, that he might come under ‘the law, to redeem them that were under the law.’

For, consisting of two natures, and the personality lying in the Godhead, which gave value and worth to all things done for us by the manhood, the obedience takes denomination from thence, to be the obedience of God. The Son’s righteousness, the Son’s blood; the righteousness of God, the blood of God (Heb 5:8,9; Phil 3:9; Acts 20:28; 1 John 3:16).

Thus Jesus Christ came into the world under the law to redeem, not simply as God, but God-man, both natures making one Christ. The Godhead, therefore, did influence and give value to the human flesh of Christ in all its obedience to the law, else there would have been wanting that perfection of righteousness which only could answer the demands and expectation of the justice of God; to wit, perfect righteousness by flesh.

But the second Person in the Godhead, the Son, the Word, coming under the law for men in their flesh, and subjecting himself by that flesh to every tittle and demand of the law; all and every whit of what was acted and done by Jesus Christ, God-man, for us, it was and is the righteousness of God; and since it was not done for himself, but for us, as he saith in the text, ‘to redeem,’ the righteousness by which we are set free from the law is none other but the righteousness that alone resideth in the person of the Son of God.

And that it is absolutely necessary thus it should be, is evident, both with respect to God and also with respect to man.

With respect to God. The righteousness is demanded by God; therefore he that comes to redeem must present before God a righteousness absolutely perfect; this can be done by none but God.

With respect to man. Man was to present this righteousness