The Sanctifying Power of the Gospel: Part 4 | Ep. 21 – Looking Unto Jesus | Paul Washer

Edward Payson: “In his epistles to the Corinthians, St. Paul informs us that he determined to know or make known, nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified (I Corinthians 2:2). Did he then intend so to confine himself to the doctrines of the cross, as to say nothing, in his preaching of moral duties? By no means. All his epistles prove that he did not. But he intended to illustrate and enforce moral duties in an evangelical manner, by motives and illustrations derived from the cross of Christ.” (The Complete Works of Edward Payson, Vol.3, p.136)

Charles Simeon: “There were two particular views in which Paul invariably spoke of the death of Christ; namely, as the ground of our hopes, and as the motive to our obedience… Strongly as he enforced the necessity of relying on Christ, and founding our hopes of salvation solely on His obedience unto death, he was no less earnest in promoting the interests of holiness. Whilst he represented the believers as ‘dead to the law’ and ‘without law,’ he still insisted that they were ‘under the law to Christ,’ and as much bound to obey every tittle of it as ever (I Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 2:19): and he enforced obedience to it, in all its branches, and to the utmost possible extent. Moreover, when the doctrines which he had inculcated (i.e. instilled) were in danger of being abused to licentious purposes, he expressed his utter abhorrence of such a procedure (Romans 6:1, 15); and declared, that ‘the grace of God, which brought salvation, taught them, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live righteously, soberly, and godly in this present world’ (Titus 2:11-12). A life of holy obedience is represented by him as the great object which Christ aimed to produce in all His people: indeed the very name, Jesus, proclaimed, that the object of His coming was ‘to save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:21). The same was the scope and end of His death, even to ‘redeem them from all iniquity, and to purify unto