“Did not the Beloved suffer a diminution of His acceptance with the Father— or of grace in His sight— when He assumed our sin- when He was made sin for us— when He was made a curse?
Did not this imply that the Father’s favour was removed from Him- that He ceased to find acceptance in His sight?
The answer is that the evidence of His acceptance with God became clouded, but the reality remained intact.
He indeed bore our sins on His own body on the tree. He bore them in reality, in all their heavy crushing burden, in all their guilt and hell-deservingness, in all the intensity of their merited malediction.
He drank the cup of His Father’s wrath, He tasted the death which is the wages of sin. He suffered the withdrawal of the light of His Father’s countenance, of the tokens and evidences of grace in His Father’s sight.
But all the while the Father’s good pleasure in Him — His own infinite favour with the Father- abode in unveiled perfection.
Standing in our stead, loaded with our sin, doing our work, expiating our guilt, bearing our curse and death, He remained the Beloved, accepted of the Father even as before.
For what was there in His taking our place and sin to interfere with the Father’s high esteem and regard for Him, the Father’s infinite good pleasure and delight in Him?
No doubt the divine justice was incensed, and the divine sword awoke against the man that was Jehovah’s fellow, and smote the shepherd. But justice was incensed and the sword awoke, not for taking on Him the sins of His people, but solely for the sins of His people which He took.
Was it any sin in Him to take the sins of His people on Himself? Was it a work fitted to sink Him in His Father’s favour or esteem? The Father laid on Him the iniquities of us all.
Of His own good and holy will He bowed His head to the appointed burden, and stretched out His hand in willingly endured soul agony to embrace the appointed cup.
Oh, for a good work like this:
— for a work full of love to His Father. ‘The prince of this world cometh, but hath nothing in me, but that the world may know that I love the Father, arise, let us go hence, let me go and lay down the life which no man has power to take away,’
— for a work so full of love to man He loved the church and gave Himself for it.
— for a work infinitely the most resplendent of all works, with the highest grace of the Holy Ghost in all their grandest operations (‘for He through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God’)
— for such a work as His expiation by eternal covenant of our iniquity, His reconciling the offended Father to His strayed and ruined family, His glorifying the Godhead in the highest and gathering in an eternal revenue of praise to God and felicity to man.
— for such a work, how could He possibly suffer in His Father’s esteem?
It was such a work, for the which I beheld, and ‘I heard the voice of many angels round the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing!’
For such a work, how could He be other than His Father Himself describeth Him to be, ‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold: mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth?’ ‘Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life for the sheep?’
For His joyful and willing advent to the work (‘A body hast thou prepared me: Lo, I come: I delight to do thy will, O my God’)
— for His firm and devoted entrance on it (‘Suffer me to be baptised of thee- suffer it to be so now, for thus it behoveth Me to fulfil all righteousness’)
— for His meek and unswerving continuance in it (‘I do always those things which please him, I have kept my Father’s commandments, and continue in his love’)
— for His finishing the work given Him to do, and therein glorifying the Father (‘Father, I have glorified Thy name on the earth, I have finished the work given me to do’)— was He not glorious in the eyes of the Lord?- the branch of the Lord, beautiful and glorious, excellent and comely?
Still, His humiliation concealed this. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. Still He was wounded and bruised, and we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
The Father had not lost aught of His love to Him, His regard and delight in Him, ‘for it pleased the Father to bruise Him, and He hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked.’ Still the evidence of the Father’s pleasure in Him was concealed.
From Himself, even, the tokens of it were withheld, as He exclaimed on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ He sank in man’s esteem. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not), and the proofs of God’s esteem were for the time refused.
But His vindication came as the sun shineth in its strength.”
–Hugh Martin, “Accepted in the Beloved,” Union with Christ: Sermons of Hugh Martin, eds. Matthew J. Hyde and Catherine E. Hyde (Glasgow, Scotland: Free Presbyterian Publications, 2024), 32-34. Martin is preaching on Ephesians 1:6.
Leave a Reply