A Greater Sickness VII: The Cure is a Person

We’ve been spending several weeks talking of the greater sickness: sin. We’ve discussed what it is, how it acts, and how it is against a loving God and against ourselves and our own happiness.

But this week, we’ll be talking about the only cure to sin.

There is a cure to your sin! How do you respond to this news? Do you rejoice that there is a cure to what is destroying your relationships and happiness? Or do you remain unaffected?

How much do you feel you need a cure? Do you think of yourself as only “kind of” sick?

If God isn’t who He says He is, then you would be a fool to risk your life on Him.

What is not the cure? It is not just a plan or a checklist, a set of rules, or a philosophy. The cure is a Person. It is the beauty of the Holy One reaching down into our dirty, ugly lives and restoring us, redeeming us.

Jesus Christ, the only Cure, is both divine and one of us. He is fully God and fully man. He is one Person with two natures.

In Hebrews 2:17, we read of this God-Man: “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

Jesus did not just appear as a man, but He was a man. In marriage, we don’t marry part of a person. We marry all of them—the good and the bad. When we are united to Christ, we are united to all of Him. And He is the cure.

“ALL of Christ is accepted by the sincere convert. He loves not only the wages—but the work of Christ; not only the benefits—but the burden of Christ. He is willing not only to tread out the corn—but to draw under the yoke. He takes up the commands of Christ, yes, the cross of Christ.
The unsound convert takes Christ by halves. He is all for the salvation of Christ—but he is not for sanctification. He is for the privileges—but does not appropriate the person of Christ. He divides the offices and benefits of Christ.”
—Joseph Alleine, Alarm to the Unconverted

Conversion is all of you embracing all of Christ. All that you know of yourself, you want to be His. All that you read of Him, you want to be yours.”

Christ for us is the objective work. Christ in us is the subjective work. We’ll talk about this next week.

O Lord, grant us your grace
That we may not be hardened
Through the deceitfulness of sin.
Give us true repentance
And such a sense of our sinfulness
As may lead us to despair of
Salvation by any works of our own.
And bring us humbled and penitent to the foot of the Cross.
Help us to, by faith, behold the Lamb of God
Who takes away the sin of the world.
Teach us to renounce our own righteousness
And depend wholly on Jesus Christ.
May we be able to say and feel,
‘In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.’

We commend ourselves to your care.
Let no evil come near us;
May our every thought be with you.
And when we wake each morning,
May we still be with You.Amen

(Isaac Watts)