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The sermon presents Christ’s death as God’s appointed propitiation, or mercy seat, through which sin is covered and reconciliation with God is offered. Salvation rests on Christ alone, not on the sinner’s repentance, emotional experience, grasp of promises, or moral effort, though repentance remains a necessary Christian grace. Because Christ’s atonement is complete and immutable, believers may possess assurance and peace with God through faith. The church is therefore called to preach Christ, pray earnestly for the lost, and plead Christ’s blood while inviting sinners to believe in Him as they are.
Theological center: God sovereignly set forth Jesus Christ as the propitiatory sacrifice whose blood satisfies divine justice and justifies sinners through faith alone.
Applications: Look to Christ alone · Accept Christ’s complete atonement · Set forth Christ in ministry · Plead Christ’s blood
Primary texts: Romans 3:25 · Romans 5:1 · Romans 8:33-34
“Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Romans 3:25 WE commenced the services in this place by the declaration that here Christ shall be preached. Our brother who followed us expressed his joy that Christ was preached, herein he did rejoice, yea, and would rejoice. And our friends must have observed, how, throughout the other services there has been a most blessed admixture not only of the true spirit of Christ, but of pointed and admirable reference to the glories and beauties of His person. This morning, which is the beginning of our more regular and constant ministry, we come again to the same noble theme. Christ Jesus is today to be set forth. You will not charge me for repeating myself—you will not look up to the pulpit, and say, “Pulpits are places of tautology.” You will not reply that you have heard this story so often that you have grown weary of it, for well I know that with you the person, the character, and the work of Christ are always fresh themes for wonder. We have seen the sea, some of us hundreds of times, and what an abiding sameness there is in its deep green surface, but who ever called the sea monotonous. Traveling over it as the mariner does, sometimes by the year together, there is always a freshness in the undulation of the waves, the whiteness of the foam of the breaker, the curl of the crested billow, and the frolicsome pursuit of every wave by its long train of brothers. Which of us has ever complained that the sun gave us but little variety—that at morn he yoked the same steeds, and flashed from his car the same golden glory, climbed with dull uniformity the summit of the skies, then drove his chariot downward, and bade his flaming coursers steep their burning fetlocks in the western deep? Who among us has complained of the monotony of the bread that we eat? We eat it today, tomorrow, the next day. We have eaten it for years that are passed, and though we have other savory matters therewith, yet still the one unvarying food is served upon the table, and the bread remains the staff of life. Surely I know that as Christ is your food, and your spiritual bread, as Christ is your sun, your heavenly light, as Christ is the sea of love in which your passions swim, and all your joys are found, it is not possible that you as Christian men should complain of a monotony in Him, “He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,” and yet He has the dew of His youth. He is the manna in the golden pot which was always the same, but He is the manna which came from heaven which was every morning…