Dear Friends,

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” – that’s what preachers are charged to preach! What does that mean? Today’s devotional explains and gives you some very interesting illustrations. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,

John Janney

Hebrews 9:26-28

“By his coming and sacrifice he accomplished many things; but his first end and object was ‘to put away sin.’ You know what the modern babblers say: they declare that he appeared to reveal to us the goodness and love of God. This is true; but it is only the fringe of the whole truth. The fact is, that he revealed God’s love in the provision of a sacrifice to put away sin. Then, they say that he appeared to exhibit perfect manhood, and to let us see what our nature ought to be. Here also is a truth; but it is only part of the sacred design. He appeared, say they, to manifest self-sacrifice, and to set us an example of love to others. By his self-denial he trampled on the selfish passions of man. We deny none of these things; and yet we are indignant at the way in which the less is made to hide the greater. To put the secondary ends into the place of the grand object is to turn the truth of God into a lie. It is easy to distort truth, by exaggerating one portion of it and diminishing another; just as the drawing of the most beautiful face may soon be made a caricature rather than a portrait by neglect of proportion. You must observe proportion if you would take a truthful view of things; and in reference to the appearing of our Lord, his first and chiefest purpose is ‘to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.’ The great object of our Lord’s coming here was not to live, but to die. He hath appeared, not so much to subdue sin by his teaching, as to put it away by the sacrifice of himself. The master purpose which dominated all that our Lord did, was not to manifest goodness, nor to perfect an example, but to put away sin by sacrifice. That which the moderns would thrust into the background, our Lord placed in the forefront. He came to take away our sins, even as the scapegoat typically carried away the sin of Israel into the wilderness that the people might be clean before the living God. The Lord Jesus has come hither as a priest to remove sin from his people: ‘Ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins.’ Do not let us think of Jesus without remembering the design of his coming.” [Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XXXVII, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1891), p. 147-148]