Monday, February 6, 2012

Atonement - Sinclair Ferguson Explains...

Of late I've been memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism and mulling over the Incarnation, and Christ's estates of humiliation and exaltation.  I came across the following quote last week and it stopped me in my tracks.  It is from the book pictured at left.  Ferguson's chapter is a reflection on Isaiah 53.

We see Jesus in all the glory of what theologians call the munus triplex, the three-fold office of our Savior.  Jesus became a humiliated prophet who did not open his mouth.  He became a humiliated priest who was offered as the sacrifice for guilt.  He became a humiliated king so that there was no majesty in him to attract us.  Because his work has ended, his mission was accomplished, and his sacrifice was accepted.  Thus, God has raised him up and he is now the exalted prophet become whom even kings will shut their mouths and listen.  He is the exalted priest who will sprinkle the nations with his sacrificial blood, cleanse them, and make them a fellowship of priests unto God, his Father.  He is the exalted king who has returned from battle victorious in his splendor and entered into the majesty of the right hand of God.  He has received the spoils of war.  "As of me," says the Father, "and I will make you the very nations as your inheritance" (cf.  Psalm 2:8).  

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