"Cursed... Blessed"

"Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin" - but cursed was the Man to whom He did (Romans 4:6)

"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13).

Having eternally been His Father's chief delight, the Lord Jesus Christ became on the cross of Calvary the object of His Father's utter rejection. Our Savior was "made to be sin for us," and cursed by God so that we might blessed with the love, acceptance, and favor of the Father heretofore reserved for His beloved Son (II Corinthians 5:21).

"I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them"(John 17:26).

The enormity of this prayer, and of the cost required for its answer, drives us to our knees upon any serious consideration. The love of God was made resident in believers because it was forcefully taken away from the One who was so worthy of it We cannot imagine what it meant for the fabric of the triune God to be rent when our Lord died upon the cross of Calvary, but it had to be the most horrible grief and loss ever known. Little wonder that the Lord Jesus is declared by Scripture to be the "man of sorrows," and little wonder that He is now anointed with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows" (Isaiah 53:3; Hebrews 1:9).

Of great wonder, however, is the aforementioned love, acceptance, and favor that are now ours because of our Lord's suffering. In proportionate degree to His rejection, born again believers are now received into the heart and blessedness of His Father, and our Father. We are "accepted in the Beloved," and "have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus"(Ephesians 1:3; Hebrews 10:19). So long as we come by this way, we can always approach God in confidence of being received because, again, He loves us as He loves the Lord Jesus. Our Lord's person, merit, and work are the basis of our access, and His cursing purchased our blessing. Love, faith, and devotion to His glory and will must be our responses to such grace, and the determination to avail ourselves more and more to the presence of God made possible by the absence of God known so sorrowfully upon the cross of Calvary.

"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

(Matthew 27:46)