Safety in him

...it is significant that the exhortation of the author of Hebrews to approach God in full assurance of faith (Heb. 10:22) is ultimately based on his exposition of the humanity of Christ as a merciful and sympathetic high priest, who has taken our frail flesh in a fallen world, shared our infirmities, experienced our temptations, and known what it is to pray with loud crying and tears. Those who are of a melancholic spirit and are prone to doubt need to have their minds steeped in the assurances of divine grace that are to be found in such a Savior fully clothed in the garments of his gospel. Such believers often feel Christ to be distant, so what Hebrews does is bring him near. The one whose penultimate recorded words in the frailty of pre-resurrection humanity began with an interrogative “My God, why?” is the God who is near enough to those who feel themselves distant from him to bring them into assurance of his grace. Christ, says Calvin, not only takes our flesh; he “is our flesh.” Knowing that he knows us enables us to know our safety in him all the better.

 

Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance: Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2016), 219-220