Let me ask you a question. Are you more conscious of your sins than you are of the fact that they have already been paid for and taken away? If this is the way you think you still believe that Christ‘s work is not enough for you. As gospel driven believers, however, we need to concentrate, not on our sins, but on the fact that Jesus has paid for them. The Lamb of God has taken them all away (Jn 1:29)! The past cannot make us prisoners. Our focus is now centered on Him, the Lord Christ. It is because of His doing and dying alone that we are forgiven, accepted and redeemed! And when He purged our sins He really purged them—they and their memory are gone.
But there’s even more on which we can center our attention! Not only has Jesus taken away our sins, He has also brought us to God (1 Peter 3:18)! This is good news for we could never have found our way there in the first place. But Jesus, by His person and performance has already brought us to Him.
The good news is that there’s even more good news. For example, He, as our Great High Priest, is at this precise moment exercising His ministry for our benefit! As our penal substitute He bought us for God and as our High Priest He brings us to God. By the ministry of His priesthood He now sustains, keeps, maintains and protects every one of His blood bought people.
Our High Priest has now given us free and open access to the Father. Someone asks, “Exactly how near has He actually brought us to the Father?” The Hymn writer answers that question when He says,
So near so very near to God, I nearer cannot be, For in the person of His Son, I am as near as He.”
We are brought to God “in Christ”. Indeed, there is no possibility of standing before God other than by standing in Christ. That’s why Peter tells us, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Pet. 3:18).
You don’t have to feel that, just believe it. We are a redeemed people whom He has purchased for Himself so that we would be with Him forever. Jesus promised us, "that where I am, there ye may be also"(John 14:3). We, therefore, will lose this nearness to God only when Christ loses His—-and that will never happen—for He is God manifest in the flesh. We may fail, fall and flat out sin—we say this to our shame, but our High Priest retains our nearness to God! Although, the religious, self-righteous man rejects this statement, the truth remains that access to God is not founded upon any religious system based upon our performance. Our nearness to God is based on Christ and His finished performance alone.
The Father values the finished work and person of His Son and our salvation rests on the fact that God sees Him and is satisfied. It is impossible that God will ever reject the sacrifice and person of His precious Son. The Father, on the basis of Christ alone, has legally declared us both not guilty and reconciled. As repentant blood bought believers we can move past the domination of our failures because Christ alone is enough.
And that’s the Gospel Truth