Advantages of Knowing Christ (1)

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We shall now state some of the advantages which result from knowing Christ, and him crucified; and the first we would mention is freedom from the condemnation of sin, and also from its reigning power in the heart. 

The wages of sin is death, and that in its threefold form - death temporal, spiritual, and eternal. In consequence of sin, man is by nature a debtor to the justice of God, and exposed to his wrath; while he continues in sin, every threatening in the Bible is his rightful portion. 

However ignorant he may be of this truth, his case is none the safer on that account. Nay, this ignorance makes his case all the more dangerous; for, while ignorant of the danger of his condition, he will never wish for deliverance from it. But when his eyes are open to see his danger, and his soul is pressed with the weight of his sins, which are ready to sink him under the wrath of God, surely he will then value the ransom that frees him from such an intolerable burden, and averts the vengeance of that God whose laws he had trampled underfoot. 

Would it not be esteemed an advantage of an unspeakable nature by such a person to be freed from the condemnation of sin? Well, this great advantage stands connected with knowing Christ. ‘Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom”’ (Job 33:24). ‘But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7).

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