The passage which met my eye was the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter of Romans. On reading it I received immediate power to believe. The rays of the Sun of Righteousness fell on me in all their fullness. I saw the complete sufficiency of the expiation which Christ had wrought for my pardon and entire justification. In an instant I believed and received the peace of the Gospel. If the arm of Almighty God had not supported me I believe I should have been overwhelmed with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears; transports choked my utterance. I could only look to heaven in silent fear, overflowing with love and wonder.
These words are from William Cowper, the English poet, on the verse of Scripture which brought him out of a state of deep depression. Martyn Lloyd-Jones includes the lengthy quote in his sermon on Romans 3:25-26, entitled “The Vindication of God.” The Doctor states:
We can be certain that there is nothing that the human mind can ever consider which is in any way as important as these two verses. The history of the Church shows very clearly that they have been the means that God the Holy Spirit has used to bring many a soul from darkness to light, and to give many a poor sinner his first knowledge of salvation and his first assurance of salvation.
In Romans 3:25-26, Paul writes about Christ:
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Cowper would famously include the following words, which became the first verse of the hymn “There Is a Fountain”:
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Christ is our sin offering, Christ is our satisfaction, Christ is our righteousness, Christ is our life. Praise be to Him!
