GOOD NEWS FOR LAWBREAKERS
Romans 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
There is just no way to wriggle out of it. The facts stare us in the face. None of us can look into the mirror of God's Law and feel good about ourselves. Not if we are honest. Along with everyone else, we are accountable to God. His holy standard makes us painfully aware of the fact that we are lawbreakers.
FACING OUR CONDITION
The Law of God was not given to save us. The Ten Commandments do not serve as a stepladder up which we climb to heaven. Rather, as we have discovered, God's Law was given to pinpoint sin, to define it, to bring it out of it's hiding place. We are confronted by the seriousness of sin. It is an offense against God. His Law is broken by our disobedience. By our rebellion we despise His authority. As a result, we find ourselves alienated and condemned. The wrath of God is "revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness" (Romans 1:18).
We should not think of God's wrath in terms of the volatile arbitrary outbursts of Human emotion. In The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges writes of God's wrath: "This is not the mere petulance of an offended deity because his commands are not obeyed. It is rather the necessary response of God to uphold His moral authority in the universe." This explains statements like these in the Psalms: "The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong"(Psalm 5:5). "God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day" (Psalm 7:11).
The gravity of our condition is brought home to us not simply by realizing the extent of our predicament but by pondering the length to which God went in order to rescue us. Only in the death of the Lord Jesus on behalf of sinners could God's justice be served and God's love conveyed.
God's Provision
How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How deep the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
And wounds that mar the chosen one
Bring many sons to glory.
In this wonderful hymn Stuart Townsend captures the essence of God's intervention on behalf of sinners. We stand condemned before the Law, rebels running from a Holy God. What are we to do? What can we do? The apostle Paul answers these questions. Having described the bad news of our condition, he goes on to declare the good news of God's provision.
"But now a righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known" (Romans 3:21). Here is good news indeed! What we are not able to accomplish, God has accomplished for us. This refers to the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus. In His life Jesus obeyed perfectly all the precepts of the Law, and in His death He bore fully all the punishment our sins deserve. In the Cross, sin has been fully dealt with and God has been fully satisfied.
Does this mean that because Jesus died upon the cross men and woman are automatically forgiven? The apostle answers that crucial question in the next verse. "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe" (Romans 3:22). It is by trusting in Him as our Savior that we become the beneficiaries of all that He has accomplished. the essence of this divine transaction is this: "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). In this great exchange God took our sin and charged it to Christ and took all of His righteousness and credited it to us. "To put it in a very contemporary form, God treated Christ as we deserved to be treated, so that He might treat us as Christ deserved to be treated."
PERSONAL RESPONSE
When we moved to the United States twenty years ago we did something that we had never done in the previous eight years of marriage, we bought a house. It was a new, frightening, wonderful experience involving terminology with which I was to that point unfamiliar. I remember that all the discussions and inspections led to what is referred to as THE CLOSING. On a particular day the papers were signed and the transaction completed. Becoming a Christian is not dissimilar. In fact the Puritans spoke in terms of "closing" with Christ.
The answer to our condition as lawbreakers is Jesus Christ Himself. It is to come to Him and accept the currency of blood He has offered to purchase our freedom. It means recognizing the futility of attempting to please God by our own good deeds. It involves coming to Him, saying:
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
--Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871)
It remains for me to ask: Do you have a relationship with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe in Him? Have you entrusted your life to Him? Are you trusting in Him alone to save you? Have you "closed" with Christ? Is so, you will have come to the point of praying:
Lord Jesus Christ, I stand exposed as a lawbreaker. I cannot hide form You; help me to hide in You. All of my efforts to better myself and fulfill the law have proved futile, only You can save me. You have died to bring forgiveness. Forgive me and cleanse me from the guilt and power of sin.
Have you ever prayed like that?
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
God accepts us for Christ's sake and now we stand in grace (Romans 5:2). This will always be the case. We do not make ourselves more acceptable to God avoiding certain sin or performing Christian duties. Every day we are dependent on the perfect righteousness of Christ. As B. B. Warfield wrote:
There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest
So when the devil tempts us to despair by reminding us of the evil in our hearts, we do not respond by listing our achievements but by looking away to Christ and wrapping around ourselves the undeserved robe of righteousness which is ours in Him.
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song.
This cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm thru' the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
C.H. Spurgeon encouraged his congregation along these lines when he wrote:
It is ever the Holy Spirit's work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan's work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He insinuates, "Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus." All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: he tells us we are nothing, but that "Christ is All in All." Remember, therefore, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you--it is Christ; it is not your joy in Christ that saves you--it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, thought that be the instrument--it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to your hand with which you art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to your hope, but to Jesus, the source of your hope; look not to your faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by "looking unto Jesus." Keep your eye simply on him; let his death, his sufferings, his merits, his glories, his intercession, be fresh upon your mind; when you wake in the morning look to him; when you lie down at night look to him. Do not let your hopes and fears come between you and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never fail you.
Enough said!
---Alistair Begg
Pathway to Freedom
How God's laws guide our lives.
Romans 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
There is just no way to wriggle out of it. The facts stare us in the face. None of us can look into the mirror of God's Law and feel good about ourselves. Not if we are honest. Along with everyone else, we are accountable to God. His holy standard makes us painfully aware of the fact that we are lawbreakers.
FACING OUR CONDITION
The Law of God was not given to save us. The Ten Commandments do not serve as a stepladder up which we climb to heaven. Rather, as we have discovered, God's Law was given to pinpoint sin, to define it, to bring it out of it's hiding place. We are confronted by the seriousness of sin. It is an offense against God. His Law is broken by our disobedience. By our rebellion we despise His authority. As a result, we find ourselves alienated and condemned. The wrath of God is "revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness" (Romans 1:18).
We should not think of God's wrath in terms of the volatile arbitrary outbursts of Human emotion. In The Gospel for Real Life, Jerry Bridges writes of God's wrath: "This is not the mere petulance of an offended deity because his commands are not obeyed. It is rather the necessary response of God to uphold His moral authority in the universe." This explains statements like these in the Psalms: "The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong"(Psalm 5:5). "God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day" (Psalm 7:11).
The gravity of our condition is brought home to us not simply by realizing the extent of our predicament but by pondering the length to which God went in order to rescue us. Only in the death of the Lord Jesus on behalf of sinners could God's justice be served and God's love conveyed.
God's Provision
How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How deep the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
And wounds that mar the chosen one
Bring many sons to glory.
In this wonderful hymn Stuart Townsend captures the essence of God's intervention on behalf of sinners. We stand condemned before the Law, rebels running from a Holy God. What are we to do? What can we do? The apostle Paul answers these questions. Having described the bad news of our condition, he goes on to declare the good news of God's provision.
"But now a righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known" (Romans 3:21). Here is good news indeed! What we are not able to accomplish, God has accomplished for us. This refers to the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus. In His life Jesus obeyed perfectly all the precepts of the Law, and in His death He bore fully all the punishment our sins deserve. In the Cross, sin has been fully dealt with and God has been fully satisfied.
Does this mean that because Jesus died upon the cross men and woman are automatically forgiven? The apostle answers that crucial question in the next verse. "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe" (Romans 3:22). It is by trusting in Him as our Savior that we become the beneficiaries of all that He has accomplished. the essence of this divine transaction is this: "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). In this great exchange God took our sin and charged it to Christ and took all of His righteousness and credited it to us. "To put it in a very contemporary form, God treated Christ as we deserved to be treated, so that He might treat us as Christ deserved to be treated."
PERSONAL RESPONSE
When we moved to the United States twenty years ago we did something that we had never done in the previous eight years of marriage, we bought a house. It was a new, frightening, wonderful experience involving terminology with which I was to that point unfamiliar. I remember that all the discussions and inspections led to what is referred to as THE CLOSING. On a particular day the papers were signed and the transaction completed. Becoming a Christian is not dissimilar. In fact the Puritans spoke in terms of "closing" with Christ.
The answer to our condition as lawbreakers is Jesus Christ Himself. It is to come to Him and accept the currency of blood He has offered to purchase our freedom. It means recognizing the futility of attempting to please God by our own good deeds. It involves coming to Him, saying:
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
--Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871)
It remains for me to ask: Do you have a relationship with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe in Him? Have you entrusted your life to Him? Are you trusting in Him alone to save you? Have you "closed" with Christ? Is so, you will have come to the point of praying:
Lord Jesus Christ, I stand exposed as a lawbreaker. I cannot hide form You; help me to hide in You. All of my efforts to better myself and fulfill the law have proved futile, only You can save me. You have died to bring forgiveness. Forgive me and cleanse me from the guilt and power of sin.
Have you ever prayed like that?
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
God accepts us for Christ's sake and now we stand in grace (Romans 5:2). This will always be the case. We do not make ourselves more acceptable to God avoiding certain sin or performing Christian duties. Every day we are dependent on the perfect righteousness of Christ. As B. B. Warfield wrote:
There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest
So when the devil tempts us to despair by reminding us of the evil in our hearts, we do not respond by listing our achievements but by looking away to Christ and wrapping around ourselves the undeserved robe of righteousness which is ours in Him.
In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song.
This cornerstone, this solid Ground,
Firm thru' the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
C.H. Spurgeon encouraged his congregation along these lines when he wrote:
It is ever the Holy Spirit's work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan's work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He insinuates, "Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus." All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: he tells us we are nothing, but that "Christ is All in All." Remember, therefore, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you--it is Christ; it is not your joy in Christ that saves you--it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, thought that be the instrument--it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to your hand with which you art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to your hope, but to Jesus, the source of your hope; look not to your faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by "looking unto Jesus." Keep your eye simply on him; let his death, his sufferings, his merits, his glories, his intercession, be fresh upon your mind; when you wake in the morning look to him; when you lie down at night look to him. Do not let your hopes and fears come between you and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never fail you.
Enough said!
---Alistair Begg
Pathway to Freedom
How God's laws guide our lives.
