God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
If Christ has borne whatever our sins deserved, and by doing so has satisfied God’s justice to the full, then God cannot, in justice, punish us for sin, for that would require the full payment from Christ and yet demand part of it from us... God does not chastise us as a means of satisfaction for sin, but for rebuke and caution, to bring us to mourn for sin committed, and to beware of the like. It must always be remembered that, although Christ has borne the punishment of sin, and although God has forgiven the saints for their sins, yet God may correct His people in a fatherly way for their sin. Christ endured the great shower of wrath, the black and dismal hours of displeasure for sin. That which falls upon us is as a sun-shine shower, warmth with wetness, wetness with the warmth of His love, to make us fruitful and humble… That which the believer suffers for sin is not penal, arising from vindictive justice, but medicinal, arising from a fatherly love. It is His medicine, not His punishment; His chastisement, not His sentence; His correction, not His condemnation.
Where did we ever get this belief that manipulation, arrogance, anger and abrasiveness are effective ways to win people to the Lord? Even if we are persecuted, such an individual is acting in the flesh. Why would we respond in the flesh as well? If we are persecuted for Christ, respond in a way that Christ would respond. Isn’t that common sense. Didn’t our Lord command us to respond to unbelievers with “gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:15)?
