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The uniqueness of the gospel

What though th’accuser roar
Of ills that I have done
I know them well, and thousands more;
Jehovah findeth none.

His be the Victor’s name
Who fought our fight alone;
Triumphant saints no honour claim;
Their conquest all his own.

By weakness and defeat
He won the meed and crown;
Trod all our foes beneath his feet
By being trodden down.

He hell in hell laid low;
Made sin, he sin o’erthrew;
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death, by dying, slew.

Bless, bless the Conqueror slain –
Slain by divine decree –
Who lived, who died, who lives again,
For thee, his saint, for thee!

This hymn by S W Gandy is one of the marvellous distillations of the gospel I have seen in verse. It really gets at the uniqueness of the gospel by showing how nothing else apart from the gospel solves the incredible tension that arises out of our need we all feel to justify our existence and the sum total of our lives. As my pastor reminded us this week, attempting to justify oneself before men is the ‘heresy of the ages’, but to man without Christ this method is simply the only option.

But praise be to God who has provided a substitute, representative and champion to do for me what I can only fail at and (most likely) die cursing God for my failure. I curse because I am cursed… but Christ took that curse on himself and crushed it on my behalf by being cursed and crushed himself. This is a unique message. This is the only system whose logical outworking is humility and glory at the same time; like the Trinity itself, it is utterly other-person-centred. This is what Christians with the Spirit of Christ are beginning to look like day by day.

…Triumphant saints no honour claim, their conquest all his [Jesus'] own.

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