Robert Traill (Sermons on Galatians 2:21), Works 4:218:
Our Lord Jesus Christ did not die to make hard things easy, to make a hard way to heaven easy; but Christ died to make impossible things certain. He did not die to make it more easy to get to heaven than it was before; but he died to make certain a way to heaven, that was impossible before. What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, Rom. 8:3. And again, If there had been a law that could have given righteousness, verily righteousness had been by the law, Gal. 3:21. But because there was no law that could give righteousness to man, therefore Christ came to bring about that which was altogether impossible. How unworthily do they think of Jesus Christ, and the grand concern of his death, that look upon it only as purchasing a new law, whereby men might come to heaven on easier terms than they could by the old! Christ came to purchase a new way to heaven: a way that none could make but he: a way without which none could ever have come to heaven.
Our Lord Jesus Christ did not die to make hard things easy, to make a hard way to heaven easy; but Christ died to make impossible things certain. He did not die to make it more easy to get to heaven than it was before; but he died to make certain a way to heaven, that was impossible before. What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, Rom. 8:3. And again, If there had been a law that could have given righteousness, verily righteousness had been by the law, Gal. 3:21. But because there was no law that could give righteousness to man, therefore Christ came to bring about that which was altogether impossible. How unworthily do they think of Jesus Christ, and the grand concern of his death, that look upon it only as purchasing a new law, whereby men might come to heaven on easier terms than they could by the old! Christ came to purchase a new way to heaven: a way that none could make but he: a way without which none could ever have come to heaven.
