Four good responses to the good news

 Posted at Reformation Scotland:

When the Lord Jesus came to do His work of redemption, it cost Him dearly. He suffered in His body and in His soul and indeed died for the sake of sinful people like you and me. Preaching on Isaiah 53, “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities …” John Welsh of Irongray showed first the depth of Christ’s sufferings. He then asks, how should we respond? The following updated excerpt gives his four suggestions as to appropriate responses, concluding with a reminder of who should especially recognise themselves as summoned to act on the gospel call.

Now that I have spoken of the suffering Saviour, I desire this of you. Rouse yourselves up to be suitably affected with what I have spoken from these truths. There are three or four ways you should respond.

WONDER

And the first thing I would exhort you to be taken up with is wondering. What man or woman is there among you that can hear these things spoken of, and not wonder at it? That Christ should have suffered all this for the like of you and me! That He who is the Son of God should have quit heaven, and that the Son of God should have become man, that He should have been put so sore to it as to die — for sinners!

I cannot tell what calls for wonder from us, if this doesn’t. O the height! O the breadth! O the length! O the depth of this mystery! That the Son of God should have been put so sore to it as to die for sinners, and not only to die, but to drink the cup of the Father’s wrath! Who can hear this declared, and not wonder at the hearing of it? O wonder! O wonder at it! Wonder at the hearing of it!

Continue here.