If there is any character more especially marked in the Scripture accounts of Christ's advent among men, it is that of a Restorer. He comes to purify some presupposed corruption, to repair some antecedent ruin, to satisfy some preexisting wants. It is the feeling of these wants which in the minds of men perpetuates the corresponding feeling of the necessity of remedy which supports the character and claims of Christianity in the world; while, at the same time, it is the slowness of men to embrace with sincerity and practical earnestness the proffered remedy thus felt to be required, and felt to be real, which renders the faith in the crucified Saviour inoperative and unfruitful.
I. The faith in the Christian sacrifice and its attendant revelation of the Divine character alone answer the demands of the heart and reason of man for a higher state of moral perfection. Men do weary of the wickedness of the world as really, though not indeed so frequently, as of its disappointments. The pre-eminent character of our faith is to reveal before our eyes a kingdom wherein immortally dwelleth righteousness. Is not its great sacrifice the corner-stone of the equity of the whole moral universe, the sacrifice that enables God to be at once just and the Justifier of Him that believeth in Jesus?
II. Christianity offers to maintain a communication between this world and that eternal world of holiness and truth. Here is another want satisfied; the inspiration of weakness made not merely a privilege but a duty. We for ever seek a happiness beyond the reach of chance; Christian prayer beseeches. We seek repose from incessant troubles; Christian prayer is the stillest exercise of soul. We ask even by blind impulses of nature for pardon in the wretched consciousness of depravity. Christian prayer encourages our timidity into confidence.
III. Another particular in which this blessed faith commends itself to our wants, is in its confirmation and direction of that principle of hope which even in our daily and worldly life we are perpetually forced to substitute for happiness. It leaves the tendency, but it alters the object.
IV. But above all its recommendations to the wants and solicitudes of man, the Gospel commends itself by the adorable object which it presents to our affections. The devotion with which we are encouraged to regard the great God and Saviour of the New Testament, the affection with which He has contemplated us, create a new and holy and eternal bond of love, such as in its fulness indeed our fallen humanity could never have anticipated, yet such as becomes an answer to many of the profoundest wants of the soul.
W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical,2nd series, p. 133.
Reference: Jeremiah 30:17. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1753.