The Gospel in Six Words
“Who gave Himself for our sins” (Galatians 1:4)
Herein lies the opening volley against the foolish Galatians. Herein lies the opening of every comfort for the Christian. In these six words – six simple words – lies the rebuttal to all of Satan’s devices, the remedy for all of our conscience’s questions, the refuge for all of the world’s mighty tempest. In these six words lie everything necessary for the Christian life. Six words of which a child could read, and yet they prove to be the hardest six words for us to truly understand and embrace. Let’s take these words three by three.
“Who gave Himself.” Jesus asked nothing of us. He did not ask for our works of righteousness, nor did He ask for our fastings, our praying, our sacrificing. He did not ask for the scales of heaven to weigh our blood, sweat, and tears against our sins and transgressions. He asked for nothing; He gave everything, for He gave Himself. The infinite value of His life and death was the only gift proportionate to the infinite debt of which our sin has occurred. Paul was often accused of making forgiveness too free, that it would promote laziness and licentiousness. Even today, we are accused of making crazy cheap by making forgiveness free! But mark my words – those who add their pleading, their prayers, and their pledges of good conduct to the work of Jesus Christ are the ones who make forgiveness cheap, for they say that the Christ’s giving of Himself was not enough, that more must be added. How dare they! How dare we! Every time we say in our hearts that God will answer us nor accept because we haven’t done enough, we cheapen Christ’s giving of Himself. The free and full forgiveness of God is hard to believe, even after many years.
“For our sins.” No one is so prideful as to say they have never sinned, but few will attach a personal pronoun to them. Few will say “my sin.” Tell a man that he has lied, and he will admit it. Call a man a liar, and he will fight you. Why are we hesitant to call sin “our sin”? These should be words of assurance for us. Martin Luther once said, “When the devil accuses us and says: ‘You are a sinner; therefore, you are damned,’ then we can answer him and say: ‘Because you say that I am a sinner; therefore, I shall be righteous and saved. In fact, when you say that I am a sinner, you provide me with armor and weapons against yourself, so that I may slit your throat with your own sword and trample you underfoot. You yourself are preaching the glory of God to me; for you are reminding me, a miserable and condemned sinner, of the fatherly love of God, who ‘so loved the world that He gave His only Son.’”
Christ did not give Himself for sins in the abstract; Christ gave Himself for our sins – for our lust, our lying, our pride, pettiness, our contempt, our selfishness, our willful forgetfulness, and for a million other sins which fill our daily life. When we minimize our sin, we minimize Christ’s salvation. When we treat sin as a petty something, we treat Christ as a petty someone. I ask: do you truly believe these six simple words?
