Jesus has “power on earth to forgive sins.” He is the God of grace, and He also “appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Matthew 9:6; Hebrews 9:26). He still speak to us:

Let us think of Jesus as the gospel history exhibits Him to our view. He is the same in grace now as when He said to the man sick of the palsy, “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee”; the same as when the “woman, who was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, touched the hem of His garment,” and heard Him say to her, “Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole”; the same as when the two blind men cried as He passed, “Thou son of David, have mercy on us,” and He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it unto you,” and their eyes were opened; the same as when He put His hand on the leper, saying, “I will, be thou clean, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed”; the same as when “all the publicans and sinners drew near to hear him”; the same in grace is Jesus still as He was when He “went about doing good,” and “died for our sins according to the scriptures” (Matthew 9:2-6; Luke 8:44-48; Matthew 9:27-28, 8:3; Acts 10:38; 1 Corinthians 15:3).

“He is still the same Lord, and purposes to be so. He has not retired within the veil again, nor bound up that which was rent from top to bottom. He has not built again that which He destroyed. It is not ‘a worldly sanctuary’ that He fills and furnishes again, nor ceremonies and observances and rites and practices, under which He is again concealing Himself. He has descended from heaven to earth, He is abroad among men, in the ministry of His precious gospel and by His Spirit, beseeching sinners to be reconciled.” This is the Christ of God, the Friend of sinners, the Savior of the lost. This is the Jesus Who says to you, O anxious one, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.”The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when rightly understood and truly believed, supplants and utterly sets aside all the elements of a fleshly religion, in which man is so prone to trust (Matthew 27:51; Hebrews 10:20; Matthew 11:28).

Fourth, fleshly religions: Superstition is the religion of many. Millions have a superstitious dread of God, and they use various quick methods to remove the object of their terror. To keep Him at a distance, that He may not pour out the vials of His wrath upon them, is their only desire. God has sent His Son in grace, but most men have not yet heard of it. They live and die in dread and darkness. But most of those who have heard of Jesus Christ have such mistaken notions regarding Him and His loving mission and work, so far are they from recognizing Him as “full of grace and truth,” or as one “who can have compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way,” that they foolishly erect a creature like themselves into a mediator to come between them and Him. When we realize the precious truth that Jesus, the Son of Man, has power on earth to forgive sins, and is the same still in His grace that He was when He said to the poor sinful woman who washed His feet with tears, “Thy sins are forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace,” there is a period put to all such pagan sentiments and idolatrous practices(John 1:14; Hebrews 5:2; Luke 7:50). 

Sacerdotalism (the religion of using a priest to represent you to God) is also set aside by true faith which apprehends Jesus as a Savior ever near. Many have no other religion than that of priests. But that is not the religion of the New Testament. There was, indeed, a divinely appointed priesthood, those by whom the worshippers under the Old Testament economy approached God. They had to come by the consecrated path, and have their affairs transacted by a consecrated priesthood, or else they could not be accepted. But this served only as a shadow of good things to come, and was entirely set aside when the great Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, entered into heaven itself with His own blood, there to appear in the presence of God for us (Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 9:11-24). 

Christ having come, there can be no priests needed now, and there are none but man-made ones, who are acting directly in the face of the gospel and the genius of the present dispensation (the new covenant of God’s grace). God appoints no priests now, and all who know Jesus as that blessed Priest Who has power on earth to forgive sins, trust to no human priesthood—because, having Jesus, they feel their need of no other priest, and are convinced by Scripture that the age of priests is past. The terrible power of human priests has its origin in the superstitious dread of God that haunts those who employ them; but wherever Jesus draws near and says, “Be of good cheer; it is I, be not afraid,” “Peace be unto you,” priest-craft is supplanted by faith, and its power comes to a sudden end (Mark 6:50; John 20:19-21).

Religiousness is also set aside by faith in Jesus ever near. It is sad to think that many are the victims of religiousness as well as of worldliness. There are millions whose ideas of Christianity are so low and erroneous, that they believe the Church, with all its various appointments, to be an institution equipped with machinery for making people religious, just as a factory is equipped with machinery for turning out the goods made by it. Most people seem to have no realization of the great leading truth of Christianity, that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners;” their conduct seems to indicate that they have imbibed the notion that Christ came not “to seek and to save that which was lost,” but to put the stamp of His approval upon such as were using their best endeavors to improve themselves; for religiousness, which is the only gospel known to the generality of professors, evidently proceeds upon this understanding (1 Timothy 1:15; Luke 19:10). 

The religious “man thinks that the worship makes the worshipper, and therefore we must set diligently about worship, in order to get ourselves accepted. The main idea that man has in connection with worship (such as prayer and praise and service) is, that it is the means of securing acceptance, and effecting reconciliation with God. He brings his gifts as the bribes or payments of the criminal, not as the thank-offerings of the forgiven. He worships in order to pacify God, and persuade Him to extend His favor towards him. But God cannot own a religion whose aim is to buy His love, to persuade Him to be gracious, and to accept the person of the worshipper on account of the multitude or excellence of his services.”

Fifth, true Christianity is Christ. How different from all this are the doings of Jesus! He says, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee” (Mark 2:5-9), and never breathes a whisper about any service the man had rendered to earn it, nor did He lay him under any obligation to serve Him for the future. He left him free, and sent him to his house, well knowing that, from gratitude, he would consider himself “free to serve, but not to sin.” Jesus drawing near, and freely dispensing His grace to sinners of every sort, cuts up religiousness by the roots.

It is sad, indeed, when men are taught to regard God with a merely natural veneration as “the great and dreadful God,” Who dwells “in the thick darkness,” far removed from the perishing and needy sinner. This is not the God of the gospel; for Jesus, Who is God-man, is really as near to poor sinners—as condescending and as ready to supply all their need—as He was when “manifest in the flesh” as “the Son of man” Who came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Daniel 9:4; 1 Kings 8:12; 1 Timothy 3:16; Luke 19:10).

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