09/04/2020
All that is to live before God must come out of the death of Christ. A death marked by Christ being forsaken of God, so that we can be accepted in the Beloved.
In Psalm 22 seven enemies are identified – “perfect” opposition” yet overcome by the suffering Servant through faith!! Although the first few enemies were worldly and upon the earth, the last are invisible and in the heavens. Here illustrated are the hosts of enemies seen and unseen, carnal and spiritual, earthly and heavenly through which the Suffering Servant must pass, through the realms of darkness, if He should break the bands of death and rise victorious over the grave.
9 APRIL
The seventh and the last power to which the psalmist refers are the “horns of the unicorns”. It is a place of utmost extremity, beyond earthly help, past hope of deliverance from man, outside of what is natural or visible. The unicorn is a figure like the serpent, or leviathan the great dragon and the beasts – which denotes those powers whose strength and aggression is concentrated in the terrible horn, which they thrust against the elect.
Here He whose cry had not been heard beyond natural hope, transfixed, speaks with the voice of faith and affirms “Thou hast heard me from the voice of the unicorns.” And so it was. ALL these powers were utterly destroyed and vanquished in the death of the Suffering Servant. Finally He cries Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani and the veil of the temple was rent from top to bottom – the way into the most Holy place made manifest and accessible. The first covenant had run its course, the New Testament of life, grace and glory was ushered in and all that was heavenly, divine, and spiritual and everlasting had taken the place of that which was earthly, carnal, human, legal and temporal. The Servant appears on the threshold of the administration of righteousness, justification and everlasting redemption.
This is the sure ground upon which the house of God is to be established. Here is seen the basis upon which the mercy that endureth forever meets with the justice which can never pass away to form the habitation of peace through the everlasting ages of glory.
“Metcalf”
The truth of redemption is rooted and grounded in the shedding of the blood of Christ. When Christ’s blood was shed the essential work was done. The shedding of the precious blood of Christ was the price of redemption – nothing less. The sin we were saved from was not our individual sins – this was the fruit of the fall. It was a “mortal fall into a vast and terrible bo***ge” – spiritual death. The “fall” is implied as innumerable and continuous falls in consequence (continuous present tense). This indicated a death wholly obnoxious to a Holy Living God, a condition of in**ed corruption. Christ’s shed blood testified that chain after chain of bo***ge fell from man as it echoed from the gates of hell to the heights of heaven. Sin earned wages, Christ paid in full. Every seal of seven implacable enemies were broken.
The blood of Christ was poured forth, shed on earth, payment for our ransom and redemption however it was also known as the blood of sprinkling. If it had to be sprinkled someone did the sprinkling. Heb 9:12 By His own blood He entered once into the Holy Place.
For this cause He is the mediator of a new covenant and thus we are come to Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant and the blood of sprinkling.
The voice of the law sounded against every sin of the guilty as the wrath of God exposed the transgression but this was not the work of a High priest under the law but the Finger of Christ the spotless Lamb that sprinkled His own blood. The finger represents precise refined work. Christ the mediator of the new covenant did not miss one single sin, not in the whole of a lifetime, every drop of his blood sprinkled silenced the voice of the law. Therefore God declares “Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more – He had rent the second curtain asunder in the body of His flesh through death, had sprinkled the heavenly pathway. The mercy seat in glory was sprinkled with the sevenfold atoning work over the thundering and lightning and voices of the law. ALL became silent. There was a great calm. Ransom had been paid.
“Metcalf”
A perfect redemption through the perfect love of God.
It is only when you understand how great the “fall” was, and how costly the payment, that you can appreciate how far reaching the Grace and Mercy of God is and how perfect His love for you and I.
