To Borrow from His Wounds

John Calvin wrote quiet forcefully against the Adultero-German Intrim in his tract The True Method for Giving Peace to Christendom and Reforming the Church. However, in reading much of the Interim, I found some really great nuggets. For instance, in the description of redemption in the tract is really great:

3. And though God is propitious to us freely, (Rom. 3.,) and for his name’s sake, and wipes away our iniquities for his own sake, yet that he might not remit sins without any price of sanctification, he, for the display of his righteousness, of his incomprehensible wisdom and boundless goodness, mingled righteousness with mercy, and was pleased that a price for redeeming us should be paid by the blood of his own Son, that the punishments which we sinners ought to have suffered, the same that most innocent Lamb should endure on the cross, and we might be able to borrow from his wounds the price of redemption, which we miserable could not pay, and use it for our deliverance and salvation, that while our most gracious Father pities us freely, he does not, however, pity without the intervention of the blood of his own Son, that what is here bestowed on us freely we ought to ascribe to the merit and righteousness of Christ, that whosoever glories may glory in the Lord our Redeemer and Saviour. (Jer. 9.; 1 Cor. 1.)

John Calvin and Hendry Beveridge, Tracts Relating to the Reformation, Volume 3 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 195-96.

I love that line, “and we might be able to borrow from his wounds the price of redemption, which we miserable could not pay.” What a beautiful reminder of God’s gracious kindness to us.

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