Reconciliation with God the fruit and effect of the blood and death of Christ

Obadiah Sedgwick

How powerful and efficacious the blood of Christ is! It hath done that which all the righteous men on earth, and which all the Angels in heaven could never do. If all the righteous men on earth should have come forth and offered their lives, their souls and bodies unto God, and have said, Lord, take all these at our hands, so that thou wilt be reconciled and at peace with such a sinner; they could not have made his peace: Yea if all the angels in heaven had offered themselves to God, and said, Lord, we are content to be put out of Heaven, so that this may satisfy thy justice, and so that this may make peace for sinners, neither would this have took up the difference and made peace: There cannot be found in any creature sufficiency enough to be a Peace-maker, to be a Daysman between God and sinners, to take off the wrath of God due to a sinner: No, no, it is not our tears, nor our confessions, nor our repentance, which can make reconciliation; it is Jesus Christ only: He was only able to open the book, and he only is able to shut the book: None but Christ, and nothing but the blood of Christ is able to satisfy and to pacify God: His blood was the blood of atonement or reconciliation, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him: The debt was so great, and the provocation by sin was so high, and the wrath of God against sin was so infinite, that nothing could discharge that debt and pacify that wrath, but the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

How much are we beholden to Jesus Christ, who by his blood reconciled God to us, and us to God, and hath made peace. "Oh," said Luther concerning the 118th Psalm, "I am more beholden to this Psalm, than to all the potentates of the world. This Psalm hath done more for me in my distress, than all the world could do for me." We may much more say that of Jesus Christ. We are more bound to Him than all the world besides, for Christ has done more for us, why? because He hath reconciled us to God; we had lain under his wrath for ever, had it not been for Christ: and we should never have seen the face of God, had it not been for Christ: He hath pacified his wrath, and brought us into favor and friendship again: O sirs, ponder it well what I am about to speak unto you, that you may know how much you are beholding to Christ. What a miserable unhappy creature is the sinner who is separated from God, and at variance with him, and whiles he is separated from God! God only is happiness, and nothing can be our happiness but the enjoyment of him; and therefore the falling away from God, and the separation from him is an infinite loss, and misery, and infelicity: Cain thought it a peculiar curse, I shall be hid from thy face! And the Church cries out, he hides his face from us: Why I cannot express the darkness, the loss, the curse, the death, the hell of this, that the sinner is fallen out with God, he hath forsaken God, and God hath forsaken him; he is none of God's, and God is none of his, he is an enemy to God and opposeth him, and God is an enemy to the sinner, and doth abhor and will curse him: but besides this, consider also how terrible the wrath of God is and how dreadful it is for a poor sinner to be a child of wrath, and to live under the wrath of God. Or the wrath of God it is a consuming fire; and who can stand before his wrath! If his wrath be kindled but a little, saith David. How doth the conscience tormented with the apprehension and sense of God's wrath make men cry out and roar and tremble and quake, and be restless, and easeless, and hopeless! But now Jesus Christ by his blood hath reconciled us and God; he hath quenched this devouring flame of fire, he hath slain enmity, he hath saved us from wrath, from that wrath which is so infinitely dreadful, and which otherwise would have burned and consumed us for ever, and ever, and ever, And besides that he hath made us nigh, and hath made us one again; we may now with the Prodigal come back again unto our Father's house and be kindly accepted and received, Well! If you know the Scriptures, and if you know what a just and wrathful God is, and if you know what a sinning creature is, or what sin is! Then bless God for Christ, and bless Christ for himself, and for his love, and for his blood, and for his death, who hath taken up the greatest controversy that ever was; as he took up the nature of the different parties into his own Person, so he took off the differences twixt them by his own blood. O love this reconciling Christ!

By all means strive to get into Jesus Christ, to receive him, to make him yours, and to become his: why so? because if he be not your Christ, he cannot be your peace; and if he be your Christ, assuredly he is your Peace-maker. Is there anything in the world which can concern you more than this? what! To have the justice of God satisfied, to have all your sins pardoned, to have God reconciled! If a great man and you fell out, and were at deadly variance, as he has you in his power, and might every moment of the day seize on you, and take away your life, and cut you in pieces, would you be quiet and contented? especially when you your self were the just cause of all the difference and danger, would you not seek peace? would you not be glad to be reconciled, especially if he should offer it? why, you and the great God are fallen out, and you are the cause of it, you sinned against him, and did that which his soul did hate, and did him wrong, and provoked him to wrath, and his wrath is revealed against you, and he can (when he will) at any time, in any place lay hold on you by the hand of his power, and execute his righteous judgments on you, and destroy and damn you for ever! And yet will you neglect to make peace with him? will you dally in this case, especially seeing he is thus far indulgent as to shew you the way how to take hold of him, and make peace with him! There is no way in the world for this, but by coming in to Christ, and receiving of him by faith; I say on Christ, who only is our peace, and who only can make our peace: In whom the Father is well pleased, and by whom he is well pleased with us.

~Obadiah Sedgwick, The bowels of tender mercy sealed in the everlasting covenant