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

it sticks so fast to us, as not to be severed from us by all the mercy of God: do but exclude redemption by the blood of Christ. I will say it over again. All the mercy of God cannot save a sinner, without respect to redemption from the curse of the law, by the death and blood of Christ. ‘Without shedding of blood is no remission’

(Heb 9:22). No remission, no pardon, or passing by of the least transgression, without it. Tears! Christ’s tears will not do it.

Prayers! Christ’s prayers will not do it. An holy life! the holy life that Christ lived, will not do it, as severed from his death and blood. The word redemption, therefore, must be well understood, and close stuck to, and must not be allowed, as properly spoken, when we talk of deliverance from sin, the law, and God’s curse, unless it be applied particularly to the death and blood of Christ (Eph 1:7). We have redemption through his blood (Rev 1:5). ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree’

(Gal 3:13). He has redeemed us to God by his blood. ‘For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood’ (Rev 5:9). This is the redemption that is joined with mercy, yea, that is the fruit thereof; and it is that without which sin cannot be removed out of the sight of God. Moses, that was a better preacher of the law, and the sufficiency of the righteousness thereof, than any now can pretend to be, yet he full well declared by all his bloody sacrifices, that the blood and death of Jesus Christ is of absolute necessity for the redemption of the soul. Besides, he tells us that the man that should flee to the city of refuge, from the avenger of blood, should not be at liberty from the law, unless he kept himself close in that city until the death of the high-priest. Mark the words, ‘Ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the’ high ‘priest’ (Num 35:32). Wherefore, Christian man, know thou thy sin in the nature of it and persuade thyself, that the removing of it from before the face of God is by no less means than the death and blood of Christ. But it is a poor shift that the enemies of the truth are put to, when, to defend their errors, they are forced to diminish sin, and to enlarge the borders of their fig-leaf garments, and to deny or cast away, as much as in them lies, one of the attributes, the justice of God.

Indeed they will say they abhor to do thus, and all erroneous persons will put the best face they can upon their bad matters; but the natural consequences of things amount to it; nor can they, when men stick close to their sides, avoid the charge.

Fourth. Then here you see the reason of that free course that mercy hath among the sons of men, and why it doth, as has been showed before what it doth. Why justice is content. Blood hath answered the demand of justice. The law hath nothing to object against his salvation that believeth in Jesus Christ. Blood has set the door open for us with boldness to go to God for mercy, and for God to come with his abundant grace to us. We have ‘boldness, brethren, to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, his flesh’ (Heb 10:19,20). This is the way that Moses desired to find, when God so largely spake to him of his mercy. ‘Thou hast said,’ says Moses to God, ‘I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way that I may know thee,’ &c.

(Exo 33:12,13). What if it should be applied thus? thou now talkest of mercy, but in thy words to us from the Mount, thou spakest fire and justice; and since thou hast delivered us to holy a law, and are resolved that the least tittle thereof shall by no means fall to the ground; by what means is it that mercy should come unto us? Well, saith God, I will show thee my way, I will put thee in a clift of the rock, which was a figure of Christ, for Christ says, ‘I am the way’ (Exo 34; John 14:6). This done, he proclaimed his name, and showed him how he could be gracious, and gave him the sign of his being merciful, a promise that his presence should go with him. The breaking then of the body of Jesus was, the renting of the vail, that out of which came blood, that the way to God might be living; and not death, or sword, or flame, to the poor children of men. Out hence therefore bubbleth continually the tender mercy, the great mercy, the rich mercy, the abundant mercy, the multiplying mercy, and every other mercy of God to us for our present and everlasting good.

Not that God was sparing of his mercy, and would not part with it unless paid for it; for this way of redemption by blood was his contrivance, the fruit of his wisdom (Eph 1:8). So then, God was big with mercy for a sinful world; but to be continually extending of mercy, since sin and justice, because of the sanction of the law, lay in the way as a turning flaming sword, there did lie the work (Gen 3:24); so it was concluded, that mercy might, in a way of justice, be let out to sinners; Christ, the Son of God, should die for the sin of man. By which means the outcries of the law and justice against us for our sins did cease, and mercy flowed from heaven like the waters of Noah, until it became a sea (Micah 7:18,19).

By redemption by blood, therefore, is this great mystery—That a just God can save that man that has broken that law, that God has said he will inflict the penalty for the breach thereof upon, and do his justice no wrong—expounded; not by a relaxation of the punishment, as the doltish wisdom of this world imagines; but by an inflicting of the exactest justice upon that nature that has offended. If the question be asked, How a just God can save that man from death, that by sin has put himself under the sentence of it? any fool can answer, ‘By a pardon.’ And if it be asked, But what will become of the threatening wherewith he threatened the offender? He that knows no mysteries can say, Why, man must repent of his sin, and God of his threatening. But if it be asked, How God can execute his threatening to the utmost, and yet deliver the sinner by his mercy from it; the sinner that has deserved it, and yet be just to his law, faithful to his law, and one that will stand by every tittle of his law? this, to expound, is to high for a fool; therefore these men are for despising of mysteries, and for counting of mysteries in the gospel, follies.

But this key of heaven is no where but in the Word of the Spirit; it is not seen in the law, nor in the reason or righteousness of the world. To punish ‘the just for the unjust,’ and to make him ‘to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,’ seems unreasonable; so cross to the wisdom of man are the wards of this lock (1 Peter 3:18; 2 Cor 5:21). Wherefore usually, when they come at this doctrine, they belch out their frumps, their taunts, their scoffs, and their scorns against it; and in opposition thereto, comment, exalt, cry up, and set on high, Socinianism, Mahometanism, man’s ragged righteousness, or anything.

But we will pass these things.

Fifth. The knowledge of redemption, and the faith of redemption, is the only means of settling, composing, and upholding the soul of the thoroughly awakened, in the hope of enjoying a portion in mercy for ever. What senseless, secure, besotted, and deluded men, conclude of themselves, and of the means of future happiness, is one thing; and what the thoroughly awakened soul concludes upon, is another. And I say, one thoroughly awakened about the nature of God, the nature of sin, and the worth of the soul, will find but little ease of mind, notwithstanding notions of mercy, until he comes and sees that he must be saved by mercy and justice both; and that to be sure he shall never do, until he is taught that by the blood of Christ the law is, as to the curse that is in it against the sinner, taken out of the way (Col 2).

These things, sin and justice, are too great to be played with by him that shall see them in the light of the law, and that shall feel them in their terror upon a trembling conscience. But when the soul shall see that a propitiation is made to justice by blood, then, and not till then, it sees sin taken away: and when it sees, by this means, sin taken away, then it can behold to hope in the mercy of God. Yea, and it will be as hard to wring off him that is settled here, from this belief to another, as it would be to persuade him that stands upon sound ground to venture his life upon a shaking bottomless quag. O! It is a pleasant thing for the wounded conscience to taste the sweetness of redeeming blood! (John 6:51-56). This is like the best wine that goes down sweetly; this carries with the last of it the very tang[25] of eternal life! (Heb 9:14). And know that dead works, or works of death, will abide in the conscience, notwithstanding all talk and notions of mercy, until that be purged with blood applied thereto, by the Spirit and faith. This is one of the three that abide to witness on earth, that ‘God hath given us eternal life, and that this life is in his Son’; because he died for us, and rose again (1 John 5:8-11).

This, therefore, is that that will establish a man with that peace that shall not be shaken, because by this such an one seeth the justice of God is quieted. For peace is made by the blood of the cross; peace with God for sinners (Col 1:20). Yea, God himself, by the blood of the cross, has made it, that by him, Christ, he might reconcile to himself all things, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven. Nor will a man that is truly spiritually wise, rest till he comes where God towards man doth rest; but that can be only there, where such means are offered for the taking away of sin, that are of a sweet-smelling savour to God. Now this is the offering that Christ offered, to wit, himself; for Christ loved us, and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour (Eph 5:2). Therefore it is by it, the body of his flesh, through death, that we are presented holy, unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight (Col 1:21). Wherefore it must be