Grace: Remission of Sins Preached at Jerusalem
“Beginning at Jerusalem!” What gracious words are these! Repentance and remission of sins to be preached first at Jerusalem. And what sort of a place was Jerusalem? Was it a very good city? Had the people who lived there manifested any such great zeal or love toward Jesus as was calculated to draw forth such favor from him as this? What did Jesus say of this city, a little while before this gracious commission was given? “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!” There was surely nothing like love or zeal in all this; but what had they done afterward? Had their ways become improved? No; they had but added the crowning sin of all their iniquity; they had been guilty of the most horrid act of wickedness ever perpetrated by man. They had by wicked hands crucified and slain Jesus, God’s own son; they had deliberately slain and hanged him on a tree. They were now the unrepenting murderers of Jesus. And it was in this city of murderers—murderers of the Son of God, that remission of sins was first to be preached. Here indeed is a marvelous exhibition of grace. Now, reader, cannot you in this discern something of God’s free grace? Your case also, as regards any righteous hope, is a desperate one. The Bible says that you are a sinner, and that God is holy and just. This puts you at an immeasurable distance from God. His holiness and justice seem quite to shut you out. But there is something else here, in God, to be discerned beside his holiness and justice. The gospel tells of his grace. Yes, blessed be his name! it is “the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20: 24. And now this grace, this very same abounding grace, which flowed out toward the murderers of Jesus, is flowing toward you. Yes, let your own thoughts about your case be what they may, God knows it to be desperately bad, and therefore his word to you is this: “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works; lest any man should boast.” Eph. 2: 8, 9.—Sel.