The Glorious Spectacle of All Things Done

Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing virtue.  It owns the fullness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labors and enter into rest.  Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything.  It comes to see the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion without a misgiving as to its efficacy.  It listens to the “It is finished!” of the Sin-bearer, and says, “Amen.”  Where faith begins, there labor ends,—labor, I mean, for life and pardon. Faith is rest, not toil.  It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that good will to any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his own performances or goodnesses, and relying implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.  

—Horatius Bonar in The Everlasting Righteousness

Comments

[Kim from Hiraeth]

"Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. "

To which I cried, "Amen!"

And then I kept reading and smiled. . .

I just finished reading a section of my Hebrews commentary and this dovetails beautifully with what I just read and rejoiced in. . .

[rebecca]

My favorite line is the one I used in the title: I love the idea that the cross is "the glorious spectacle of all things done."