Evangelista: “I tell you from Christ, and under the hand of the Spirit, that your person is accepted, your sins are done away, and you shall be saved; and if an angel from heaven should tell you otherwise, let him be accursed.
Therefore, you may (without doubt) conclude that you are a happy man; for by means of this your matching with Christ, you are become one with Him, and one in Him, you ‘dwell in Him, and He in you,’ (1 John 4:13). He is ‘your well beloved, and you are His,’ (Song of Songs 2:16).
So that the marriage union betwixt Christ and you is more than a bare notion or apprehension of your mind; for it is a special, spiritual, and real union: it is an union betwixt the nature of Christ, God and man, and you; it is a knitting and closing, not only of your apprehension with a Saviour, but also of your soul with a Saviour.
Whence it must needs follow that you cannot be condemned, except Christ be condemned with you; neither can Christ be saved, except you be saved with Him. And as by means of corporeal marriage all things become common betwixt man and wife; even so by means of this spiritual marriage, all things become common betwixt Christ and you.
For when Christ hath married His spouse unto Himself, He passeth over all His estate unto her; so that whatsoever Christ is or hath, you may boldly challenge as your own.
‘He is made unto you, of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,’ (1 Cor. 1:30). And surely, by virtue of this near union it is, that as Christ is called ‘the Lord our righteousness,’ even so is the church called, ‘the Lord our righteousness,’ (Jer. 33:6, 16).
I tell you, you may, by virtue of this union, boldly take upon yourself, as your own, Christ’s watching, abstinence, travails, prayers, persecutions, and slanders; yea, His tears, His sweat, His blood, and all that ever He did and suffered in the space of three and thirty years, with his passion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension; for they are all yours.
And as Christ passes over all his estate unto his spouse, so does he require that she should pass over all unto him. Wherefore, you being now married unto Christ, you must give all that you have of your own unto Him.
And truly you have nothing of your own but sin, and, therefore, you must give Him that. I beseech you, then, say unto Christ with bold confidence,
‘I give unto Thee, my dear husband, my unbelief, my mistrust, my pride, my arrogancy, my ambition, my wrath, and anger, my envy, my covetousness, my evil thoughts, affections, and desires. I make one bundle of these and all my other offences, and give them unto Thee.’
And thus was Christ made ‘sin for us, that knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,’ (2 Cor. 5:21)”
–Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Fearn, Scotland, UK: Christian Heritage, 1645/2009), 166-167.
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