Propitiation, John 1:29

Did the Lord Jesus Christ in dying bear the sins of everybody? Would not that follow from the fact that He takes away the sin of the world, according to John 1: 29? 

Scripture puts things thus: 

"He died for all" (2 Cor. 5: 15). 

"Who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2: 6). 

"He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2: 2). 

These verses indicate what we may call the Godward aspect of His work. It includes ALL within the wide sweep of its benevolent intention; and propitiation has been made on behalf, not only of believers, but everybody; the whole world. 

When we come, not to the intention or bearing of His work, but its actual results, we find things put differently. When we view things on the largest possible scale, and "think imperially,'' in the best sense of the word, John 1: 29 does indeed apply, but that is quite in keeping with the fact that sin and all that are eternally identified with it find their part in the lake of fire. 

If we think of things in detail, we cannot say He bore the sins of everybody, for Scripture says: 

"Who His own self bare our [i.e., believers'] sins in His own body on the tree " (1 Peter 2: 27). 

Hence it is that again we read: 

"Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9: 28). Thanks be to God that we find ourselves amongst them! 
H.B. Hole

He bore the sins of many...

Propitiation and Substitution
1 Timothy 2: 6.
J.N.Darby
My intercourse with saints, and especially with those who preach, has led me to discover that a good deal of obscurity in their manner of putting the gospel, and I may add a good deal of Arminian and Calvinistic controversy, arises from not distinguishing propitiation and substitution. I am not anxious about the words, but about the practical distinction, which is very simple and I think of moment. I say the words, because in propitiation, in a certain sense, Christ stood in our stead. Still there is a very real difference in Scripture.
This difference is clearly marked in the offerings of the great day of atonement. Aaron slew the bullock, and the goat which was called the Lord's lot, and sprinkled the blood on and before the mercy-seat and on the altar. The blood was presented to God, whose holy presence had been dishonoured and offended by sin. So Christ has perfectly glorified God in the place of sin, by His perfect obedience and love to His Father in His being made sin who knew no sin. God's majesty, righteousness, love, truth, all that He is, was glorified in the work wrought by Christ, and of this the blood was witness in the holy place itself. Our sins gave occasion to it, but God Himself was glorified in it. Hence the testimony can go out to all the world that God is more than satisfied, glorified, and whoever comes by that blood is freely, fully received of God and to God. But there was no confession of sins on the head of this goat; it was about sin by reason of Israel's sinfulness, but it was simply blood offered to God: sin had been dealt with in judgment according to God's glory, yea, to the full glorifying of God, for never was His majesty, love, and hatred of sin so seen. God could shine out in favour to the returning sinner according to what He was; yea, in the infiniteness of His love beseech men to return.
But besides this there was personal guilt, positive personal sins for which Israel was responsible, and men are responsible, according to what is righteously required from each. On the great day of atonement, the high priest confessed the people's sins on the scape-goat, laying both his hands on its head: the personal sins were transferred to the goat by one who represented all the people, and they were gone for ever, never found again.
Now this is another thing. Christ is both high priest and victim, and has confessed all the sins of His people as His own, borne our sins in His own body on the tree. The two goats are but one Christ, but there is the double aspect of His sacrifice, Godward, and bearing our sins. The blood is the witness of the accomplishment of all, and He is entered in not without blood. He is the propitiation for our sins. But in this aspect the world comes in too. He is a propitiation for the whole world. All has been done that is needed. His blood is available for the vilest whoever he may be. Hence the gospel to the world says, "Whosoever will, let him come." In this aspect we may say Christ died for all, gave Himself a ransom for all, an adequate and available sacrifice for sin, for whoever would come - tasted death for every man.
But when I come to bearing sins the language is uniformly different. He bore our sins, He bore the sins of many. "All" is carefully abstained from. I say carefully, because in Romans 5: 18, 19, the difference is carefully made. The first, our sins, is the language of faith, left open indeed to anyone who can use it, but used and to be used only by faith. The believing remnant of Israel may use it, including the blessing of the nations, for He died for that nation; Christians use it in faith, for all that have faith use it. The second "many" restricts it from all, but generally has the force of the many as contrasted with a head or leaders, the mass in connection with them. Adam's the many were in result all, but all is in connection with him. Christ's the many those connected with Him.
But it will never be found in Scripture that Christ bore the sins of all. Had He done so they never could be mentioned again, nor men judged according to their works That Christ died for all is, as we have seen, clearly said. Hence I go to the world with His death as their ground and only ground of approach, with the love shewn in it. When a man believes, I can say, Now I have more to tell you, Christ has borne every one of your sins, they never can be mentioned again. If we look at the difference of Arminian and Calvinistic preaching we shall see the bearing of this at once; the Arminians take up Christ's dying for all, and generally they connect the bearing of sins with it, and all is confusion as to the efficacy and effectualness of Christ's bearing our sins, and they deny any special work for His people. They say if God loved all He cannot love some particularly; and an uncertain salvation is the result, and man often exalted. Thus the scape-goat is practically set aside.
The Calvinist holds Christ's bearing the sins of His people so that they are effectually saved, but he sees nothing else. He will say, if Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, there can be no real love for anything else, and denies Christ's dying for all, and the distinctive character of propitiation, and the blood on the mercy-seat. He sees nothing but substitution.
The truth is, Christ is said to love the church, never the world, that is a love of special relationship. God is never said to love the church, but the world. That is divine goodness, what is in the nature of God (not His purpose), and His glory is the real end of all. But I do not dwell on this, I only point out the confusion of propitiation and substitution as necessarily making confusion in the gospel, enfeebling the address to the world or weakening the security of the believer, and in every respect giving uncertainty to the announcement of the truth. I believe earnestness after souls, and preaching Christ with love to Him will be blessed where there is little clearness, and is more important that great exactitude of statement. Still it is a comfort to the preacher to have it clear, even if not thinking about it at the moment; and when building up afterwards, the solidness of the foundation is of the greatest moment.

Jesus himself drew near...

No messenger is sent to recall to His presence these erring saints. When all goes well with His people, angels, apostles, prophets and others may carry out His behests, as well we know in many a fine scene recorded in the Word. But is there a wandering sheep — dejected and disappointed — behold, "JESUS HIMSELF" will draw near to restore. There is work to be done between a wandering saint and "Jesus Himself" with which no stranger can intermeddle. "The Lord hath risen indeed andhath appeared to Simon" tells the same blessed tale of a secret and personal interview between a broken-hearted backslider and "Jesus Himself". How different, alas, the way we often take with one another. Does a brother wander away from us, how apt we are to draw away from him. But in the day that the Emmaus saints drew away, Jesus Himself drew near. What a Saviour! when we were far away He came near, and when we draw away He draws near.
Having drawn near, how gracious the way He takes. He discovers to us all that is in our hearts. With divine wisdom and infinite tenderness He drew out all the difficulties of the two disciples, and disclosed the root of unbelief that was behind their disappointment. They were " slow to believe".
Nor does He stop there, for the discovery of what is in our hearts, however important in the work of restoration, is not sufficient to restore. We need indeed true thoughts of our hearts to learn how we wander into a wrong path; but we must have true thoughts of His heart that our feet may be restored to a right path. And this is the way the Lord takes with the two disciples. Having exposed all that was in their hearts, He reveals all that is in His heart. And revealing what is in His heart turns their "slow hearts" into "burning hearts" (25, 32). He sets their hearts ablaze with love to Himself by revealing the love that is in His heart.
To reveal the love of His heart He expounds "to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself". And as He expounds He passes before them the touching story of His sufferings and His glories (26). The disciples, with their poor human thoughts, would have spared Him the sufferings, and so withheld from Him His glories. We know He must needs suffer "to enter into His glory".
What in all the Scriptures concerning Himself so touches the heart as the sufferings and the glories of Christ. And when we find the sufferings, we are not far from the glories. Ps. 22 speaks of His sufferings, Ps. 24 of His glories. Again the story of the sufferings is taken up in Ps. 69, to be followed by the glories in Ps. 72. So in like manner the sufferings of Christ in Ps. 109 are followed by the glories of Christ in Ps. 110. As we look back to His sufferings and on to His glories, our hearts may well burn as we think of the love that led Him to the cross that He might lead us into the glory.
The two disciples had been thinking of the things concerning themselves, the Lord leads them to "the things concerning Himself". Their desire was to bring Christ into their circumstances. He would lead them into His, and to know Him as the Risen One outside this present evil world.
The Lord had exposed their hearts and revealed His heart, but to what end? Clearly to lead them to desire His company above all else. Now He will test them to see if the " end of the Lord" is reached. So it came to pass having arrived at the village, whither they went, "He made as though He would have gone further". He had drawn near to win their hearts, He will now draw away to lead out their hearts in longing desire after Him. And very blessedly they respond to the testing of the Lord. "They constrained Him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent." He wants them — had endured the sufferings of the cross to possess them — but He has so dealt with them that at last they want Him.
Have we so learnt the evil of our hearts in the presence of the love of His heart that we can say we desire His company above all else? Search throughout the length and breadth of God's great universe and where shall I find another who knows me through and through, and yet loves me. This it is that makes us more at home in His presence than in the presence of the nearest and dearest on earth.
And such is His love that we can have as much of Christ and His company as we desire. Thus the disciples found when they "constrained Him" and the Lord loves to be constrained — for do we not read, "He went in to tarry with them"?
Thus at last the Lord does come for a brief moment into their circumstances, but only to lead them out of their circumstances into His. For having made Himself known He vanishes out of their sight. How touching also the way by which He makes Himself known. " He took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. " Would it not at once recall that other scene, when in the upper room " He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it and gave unto them saying, This is My body which is given for you"? The whole act proclaimed who He was, and recalled His dying love. Little wonder that " their eyes were opened and they knew Him". Yes! but how did they know Him? Not as in the days before the cross, in their circumstances, but as the One who was dead but is alive for evermore. Immediately He vanishes out of their sight. For if we know Him as the Risen One, it can only be by faith while yet we are in this scene. The disappointment that had possessed the disciples when they lost Him on earth, was changed to delight when they found Him in resurrection.
The immediate result is, they are recalled from their wanderings. In spite of having walked eight or nine miles, and though the day was far spent, and the night fast drawing on, they at once retrace their steps in their earnest desire to join the little company of the Lord's people gathered together at Jerusalem. And having reached their own company they find, to their great delight, they are in the company of the Risen Lord, and in His company there is no room for dissatisfied or disappointed hearts. There all reasonings and all sadness give place to "wonder", "worship", and "great joy" (41, 52)
.
Hamilton Smith

The Lord can right the wrong

It is admitted that the assembly being a spiritual formation (for we have all been made to drink into one Spirit) it is incumbent that we be in a right spiritual state either to receive those who are scripturally commended, or to exclude those who should be scripturally excluded. Yet even where the principle is generally recognised, there will always be forthcoming instances of failure, where saints have allowed human influences to warp their judgment. The occurrence of rare cases where mistakes are made will remind us that no claim can be put in of infallibility in the church; and these instances require much patience, and the ministry of grace and truth from the Lord to put a wrong right. In all such matters He Himself is the one Resource to Whom we can turn. Where He has permitted a brother to be misjudged or misrepresented it is best for him to be submissive before the Lord, and to wait with a weaned and self-judging spirit for the Lord to clear him. To defy the decision and to escape the exercise by slipping into another company is to miss the blessing the Lord has for him behind the trouble." May we too be able to say with yet another, "We humbly submit to His word, confident that God will never abandon those who seek to obey Him; and that the word of God and the grace of the Church's Head, suffice, and ever will suffice, at all times, for those who are satisfied to walk in littleness and unappreciated by the world."
H.S.

C. Stanley. Peace...

The Wanderers Restored

His precious blood...

It was when the Lord Jesus was dead upon the cross that His precious blood flowed forth. It was the expression of sullen hate that led the Roman soldier to pierce His side; but the point of his spear brought out the precious blood of the blessed Son of God, which was the expression of His deep and wondrous love to us. That blood "speaketh better things than that of Abel" (Heb. 12: 24), and it made peace. "A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have," expresses the risen condition of the Lord. His blood He has given for us. The reason that His Church can, by the Holy Ghost, be united to Him in glory is, that He has given His life's blood for it, He has purchased and redeemed it, and everything is based upon His blood. Testimony to the blood runs, like a scarlet line, right through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It begins with "the coats of skin" (Gen. 3: 2) and closes with "the blood of the Lamb." There will be a renewed company in the millennial day who will fill the earth with praise, for they "have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 7: 14), just as we can now sing, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood" (Rev. 1: 5).
W.T.P. Wolston

Whatsoever ye do...

"Be of good cheer." "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31
) Suppose your job was to be the personal assistant to the President of the United States or the King of some foreign land and your job was to be at his beck and call and to serve him in whatever way he desired.Would you not do all that he asked?

The truth is, as Christ Ones, we are at the beck and call of the King of Glory!“If we are really, and always, and equally ready to do whatsoever the King appoints, all the trials and vexations, arising from any change in His appointments, great or small, simply do not exist.  If He appoints me to work there, shall I lament that I am not to work here?  If He appoints me to wait indoors today, am I to be annoyed because I am not to work out of doors?  If I meant to write His messages this morning, shall I grumble because He sends interrupting visitors, rich or poor, to whom I am to speak, or "show kindness" for His sake, or at least obey His command, "Be Courteous"?(Selected) 
"If all my members are really at His disposal, why should I be put out if today's appointment is some simple work for my hands or errand for my feet, instead of some seemingly more important doing of head or tongue?”  (Francis Ridley Havergal - 1902)