The Bleeding Christ

In this season of Lent, William Gurnall (a solid English Puritan) provides us with excellent words about the work of Jesus: 

Faith finds that Christ has made full payment to the justice of God having poured out his blood to death upon the cross. All of his previous acts of humiliation were but preparatory for this. He was born to die; he was sent into the world as a lamb bound with the bonds of an irreversible decree of sacrifice. 

Jesus' was the Suffering Servant, who did not come to be served, but to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). 

Without this [namely, his sacrificial death], all he had done would have been labour undone. There is no redemption but by his blood. Christ did not redeem and save poor souls by sitting in majesty on his heavenly throne, but by hanging on the shameful cross, under the tormenting hand of man's fury and God's just wrath. 

Jesus died so that he could save us from the wrath of God that sinners deserve. God's justice demanded that the penalty be paid, but God's love offered his Son, Jesus, to bear that penalty. His work for us is not a cheap thing. Christ's work for us was not a trifle enacted by a mere turn of a royal hand, but a work of suffering accomplished through pierced hands. 

And therefore, the poor soul that would have pardon of sin, is directed to place its faith not only on Christ, but on a bleeding Christ, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood (Rom. 3:25).

The work Christ accomplished, which the Easter season draws particular attention to, is one that beckons us to place our hopes for today and tomorrow in his scarred hands. The bleeding Christ, the Slain Lamb, who was also resurrected, bids us now to trust in the sufficiency of his suffering for us. 

William Gurnall, Works, 11:3-6; quoted in Richard Rushing, Voices from the Past, 85. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2009).