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“The Man Christ
Jesus” “For there is one God, and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
(1 Timothy 2:5) This Man is no ordinary
man. This Man is himself God. He is the God-man. He became a man that he
might redeem men. He lived in this world as the Representative Man, the
Representative of God’s elect. He lived the full age of a man in perfect
obedience to the will and law of God to establish righteousness for men, even
the righteousness of God, by magnifying the law and making it honorable.
Then, when his hour had fully come, this Man, the God-man, our Lord Jesus
Christ, died upon the cursed tree as our Substitute, “the just for the
unjust, that he might bring us to God.” Now, this Man, who as a man put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself, is seated upon the very throne of God in glory, accepted as a man,
with God! Hear the good news of that fact. — Since there is a Man in
glory, accepted of God, there may be another, and another, and another!
Because this Man, the God-man, is in glory, “He is able also to save them
to the uttermost that come unto God by him!” Who is he? This man, the Lord Jesus
Christ, is “the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of his
person.” Christ is both God himself
and the singular revelation and expression of the glory of God. “The
reference,” Henry Mahan wrote, “is to the sun and its rays. The Father and
the Son are the same as the sun and its rays. One is not before the other,
and they cannot be divided or separated. He is the perfect revelation and the
exact image and character of the Father (Isa. 9:6; John 1:1-3; 10:30;
14:8-10; Matt. 1:21-23).” What has he done? Much needs to be said in
answer to this question; but allow me to simply declare that which is the
essence of all our Savior did as the God-man, our Mediator. The Lord Jesus
Christ has “by himself purged our sins!” The Lord Jesus, of himself, by himself alone, and by the sacrifice
of himself, made atonement for all the sins of God’s elect. He took our sins
upon himself, bore them, and died under the penalty of them, thereby
abolishing them completely and forever (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:26; Col. 1:19-22;
Isa. 53:4-6). Where is he now? He is yonder in glory,
where more than two thousand years ago “he sat down on the right hand of
the majesty on high.” The “Majesty
on high” is God the Father to whom majesty belongs and who is clothed with
majesty. His right hand is the place of power, greatness, acceptance, and
glory. There sits the Man, Christ Jesus, and all his elect in him. We have been
made to sit down with him in heavenly places! “There, like a man,
the Saviour sits; the God, how bright he shines; And scatters
infinite delight on all the happy minds.” Do you see him? “The head that once
was crowned with thorns, is crowned with glory now; A royal diadem
adorns that mighty Victor’s brow. No more the bloody
crown, the cross and nails no more: For hell itself
shakes at his frown, and all the heavens adore.” Listen to sermons
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