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"Put Me in remembrance" (Isa. 43:25-26)

12/19/2017

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When the LORD tells us to put Him in remembrance, He instills this soul-saving, God-honoring truth in our thinking and prayers to Him: what He thinks of what Christ has done is all of our acceptance before Him. That is what He said in Isaiah 43: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isa. 43:25).

By the blood of Christ, God made remission of our sins (Heb. 10:14-18; Matt. 26:28). That is how our sins were blotted out. He did it. Christ shed His blood. It is done. The LORD tells us what He did. Now He says, “Put me in remembrance!” Bring it before me. Tell me of it! Speak of it often! Bring Christ’s sin-atoning blood to God every time you come. Talk of Christ one to another (Mal. 3:16). In doing so, know that it is what Christ did, and because God received Him, that He blotted out the sins of His people. We are “justified by His blood” (Rom. 5:9). “He was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Therefore, make this your prayer. Come to God in your heart now by the sin-atoning, sin-blotting out, sin-remitting, justifying blood of Christ (Heb. 10:14-19). "Remember not against us former iniquities" (Ps. 79:8). Ask Him to consider Christ alone, and so receive you for His sake. God considers only Christ for His people. And all that He thinks of His people is what He thinks of His Son. God sees His Son and His people as one (Luke 18:13; 1 Cor. 1:30; Jer. 23:5-6; Php. 3:9; Heb. 7:22; Eph. 5:30).

It is God who designed that Christ should bear the sins of His people (Isa. 53:6). It was for His Father’s sake that He bore their guilt and shame, and paid the debt their crimes accrued at the accounting of God’s justice (Ps. 69:7; Rom. 2:5). It was God who provided Christ. It was God who laid the iniquity of His people on Him (Isa. 53:6). It was God who poured out His wrath on His Son when He bore their sins as the sin-bearing Lamb of God, God’s Chosen and anointed to save (Ps. 89:19; 1 Pet. 2:24). It was God who received His payment as compensation for them (Isa. 53:5; Matt. 20:28). It was God who raised Him from the dead. It was God who sent His messengers with this glad news to sinners far and wide (2 Cor. 5:20-21). And it is God who now tells us to put Him in remembrance of what He did in Christ (Isa. 43:26).

God cannot forget His Son. He cannot forget the covenant that He made with Christ, and all who were given to Him as their covenant Head, with whom that covenant was made in His blood (Ps. 89:3; 106:45; Jer. 14:21; Rom. 5:19; Heb. 13:20; Matt. 26:28). No, He cannot forget those He gave to Christ (Isa. 49:15; John 10:29). He cannot forget which sins He laid on His Son. It was all the sins of those He gave to Christ to save (Isa. 53:5-8; Matt. 1:21; 10:28; John 10:15, 1 John 1:7). He cannot forget the wrath His justice demanded and which He poured out on His Son (Ps. 85:1-3; Isa. 12:1-3; Rom. 5:9; 8:32). He cannot forget the loving obedience of His Son, which, when He was made  sin and a reproach because of the sins of His people, and when God poured out His just wrath on Him, He trusted His God (Job. 13:15; Ps. 22:8; Matt. 27:43; 1 Pet. 2:23-24). He cannot forget Christ’s prayers for His sheep, those the Father entrusted to Him to save, to keep, to feed, to bring and to give eternal life (John 17). He cannot forget His promises that He made to Christ, and to whom those promises were made in Christ before the foundation of the world (2 Tim. 1:9). He cannot forget His people (Isa. 49:15-16). Now, though our great God and Father cannot forget, yet He tells us to put Him in remembrance in order that we might not forget that He considers Christ alone; that He looks only to Christ for His people. He tells us this that we would put our trust in Christ alone, to look only to Christ, and confess that we are sinners, and that God’s perfections are so magnified in the death of His Son, that nothing in all of creation and eternity could be more resplendent than the glory of God that we see in our Savior’s substitutionary, sin-atoning, justice-satisfying, God-pleasing obedience unto death (Eph. 5:2; Php. 2:6-11; 2 Cor. 4:6).

It is what God thinks that makes all the difference. He will do all His thoughts (Isa. 14:24; Ps. 33:11). And it is knowing what God thinks of His Son, that for Christ’s sake alone He receives sinners to His great joy, that believing sinners enjoy eternal comfort and unspeakable joy.

Christ crucified is thus the only object and food of God-given faith (John 6:35, 47-58). Therefore, the thief on the cross prayed to Jesus, saying, “Lord, remember me!” He thought, “If Christ thinks of me in saving love and grace, that will be enough, beyond all that I could think or ask” (Ps. 79:8-9; 106:4-5; 139:17; Isa. 49:15-16; Eph. 3:20; 1 Cor. 2:9-10)!

Knowing that the Lord of glory tells me, a sinner, to put Him in remembrance of Christ’s redeeming blood, and to come to Him with Christ, as it were, in this hand of God-given faith, according to His word (1 Pet. 1:18-25; 1 Cor. 15:1-4), makes me love Him in adoring wonder and worship (Ps. 116:12-13)!

Eternal days and eternity itself will be too short to praise our glorious Savior that He remembered and that He remembers, and pins all of the hopes of poor sinners on Christ in His redeeming sufferings and death, by which He blotted out all of our sins! Blessed be His glorious name forever and ever!
Rick Warta
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Don't go beyond Christ

12/16/2017

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As we look to our God and Savior to give us another year from the hand of His grace, it is my prayer that you and I would not go or grow beyond Christ (2 John 1:7-9). Abide in Him as everything in your salvation, as the one purpose and only pursuit of your life. Do not transgress by going outside the boundary of God’s salvation in Him alone. Do not grow beyond the fact that, in yourself, you are nothing but a great sinner, nothing, no, nothing at all. But go to God and confess that Jesus Christ is your all in all (1 Tim. 1:15; 1 Cor. 1:23-24; 2:2). Growth in grace shrinks confidence in self while increasing our assurance in Christ, because God-given faith sees what God sees: that Christ alone is all of my salvation (John 3:30; Php. 3:3; Luke 2:30; Acts 4:12; John 14:6; Gal. 2:21).
Rick Warta
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Precious faith

12/16/2017

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Faith comes and faith grows by hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:16-17). And faith grows in trouble (Rom. 5:1-5; 1 Pet. 1:3-11). Faith works by love (Gal. 5:6). It evidences itself outwardly in love for Christ’s people. Faith that does not love is not faith in Christ. Love that does not look to Christ with God-given faith, and worship Him as a sinner saved by grace (John 20:28), rises no higher than human love. And there is nothing commendable in mere human love, because when human love is alone without faith in Christ, it rejects the love of God in Christ. Love that does not have its spring in the love of God to us in Christ, and does not come to God looking to Christ in adoring worship and complete dependence, is a self-serving, man-created thing that does not honor Christ as all, and therefore does not honor Him at all. Faith that God gives looks only to Christ crucified, risen, reigning and interceding ,as all my salvation, to save me to the uttermost (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25). The faith of God’s elect loves Christ and loves those for whom He gave Himself to God in sacrifice for their sins. Such faith is God-given and precious beyond the best works of man and all the treasures of this world (Rom. 8:34; Eph. 5:25; Acts 20:28; 1 John 4:19, 9-10).

“Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet (right), because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth” (2 Thessalonians 1:2-3).
Rick Warta
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Without an excuse, left to sovereign grace

12/8/2017

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“Thou are inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things” (Rom. 2:1). When we do what we condemn in others, we are witnesses against ourselves: we condemn our own selves.

“Thinkest thou this, O man that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God” (Rom. 2:3)? If we, who are sinners, thus condemn ourselves, how much more shall God, who is just and holy in all His ways, condemn us?!

“Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Rom. 2:4)? To despise God's goodness is to have a low opinion of it. The reason we think we will escape the judgment of God, even though we condemn others for what we do, is that we have a low opinion of God’s goodness towards us.

God does good to all men. He gives them life and breath and all things, filling our hearts with good things (Acts 14:15-17; Acts 17:24-25). But because of our sinful nature, we take God’s goodness for granted. We falsely presume on the goodness of God, imagining that He will be good to us no matter how we think or act. Solomon the preacher said, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11). The sun keeps shining. We have plenty to eat. With these and other things, the world unwittingly bears witness against themselves when they admit, “life is good.” Yet men suppress the truth God has showed them (Rom. 1:19), that all things come out of God’s good providence (Acts 14:17; 17:24-25).

The goodness of God in providence is a witness against our evil nature. Rather than turning from our sin, we take His goodness for granted and go further in our rebellion with growing hardness of heart against His truth. God uses the Jews throughout the OT to show us what we are by nature (Rom. 3:9).

God’s goodness has to go beyond mere outward influence. It has to penetrate this adamant heart. The Lord, according to His covenant of grace, has to take away the stony heart and put in us a heart of flesh, that is, a heart on which the Gospel of His grace is written by the Spirit of God, according to His everlasting covenant of grace to His elect (Ezek. 36:26; 2 Cor. 3:2-3, 6; Heb. 8:10-12).

Many are called, but few are chosen (Matt. 22:14). The Gospel is broadly declared, to many. Many hear it with physical ears. They hear outwardly. But the Gospel comes in power to God’s elect alone. They hear with God-given spiritual ears. They hear the inward call of the Spirit of God, because they are Christ’s sheep, given to Him in eternal election (John 10:26-27).

No man can come to Christ unless God the Father draws him -- as one draws a net full of fish to land -- in persuasion that cannot be resisted (John 6:44). The Father draws His adopted sons by teaching them of Christ and Him crucified (John 6:45, 65). Christ is the Lamb of God, whose sacrifice of Himself made a justice-satisfying compensation to God, a propitiation by His blood. He removed the just cause of God’s wrath against His people by enduring that wrath in Himself (Rom. 5:9-10; Ps. 88:3, 5, 7; Jonah 2:1-3; Matt. 12:40).

Now, the  Gospel of Christ crucified is preached to men far and wide (Col. 1:6). When it is God’s time to reveal His love to His people, He calls them by His grace (Ezek. 16:8; Gal. 1:15-16; John 10:16, 27). God’s call of His elect to Christ is a call of separation from the darkness of spiritual deception and ignorance and unbelief, from the philosophies and religion of the world (Acts 9:1-20; Gal. 1:15; 2 Cor. 4:6). That call is referred to in scripture as “sanctification of the Spirit” (1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Thess. 2:13). The Spirit of God calls us by His grace through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ (2 Thess. 2:14).

God’s inward call makes those He calls obedient (Rom. 1:5; 10:16-17; 16:25-26; 1 Pet. 1:22). With His call, He grants them grace to see the truth of Christ crucified as the whole truth about the way things are between me and God (John 3:33; Heb. 1:3; Rom. 8:34). This call turns us from unbelief to faith in Christ. God gives us faith to see and faith that persuades us that Christ is all of our salvation, all of our hope, all of our life (Col. 2:3, 9-10; 3:4). He draws us to Christ (John 6:44-45). None so drawn to Christ are cast out (John 6:37). All who thus come to Christ by the call of the Spirit of God, are born of God (1 Pet. 1:23; James 1:18). Though before their birth from above they could neither see nor enter the kingdom of God, now they see and believe Christ (Lk. 2:30; John 6:40; 9:39-41; 2 Cor. 4:6). This sight and persuasion and dependence on Christ for salvation is the evidence that they are the sons of God (John 3:3-15; Gal. 3:13-14, 26-29; 4:4-6, 28).

Now, God teaches these things in the two thieves on the cross. The thief on the cross believed the Lord Jesus Christ. He believed He was the Son of God. Therefore, when the other thief blasphemed -- as he himself had done only moments before he believed (Matt. 27:44; Luke 23:39 - ‘railed’ = blaspheme) -- he rebuked that blasphemer, saying, “Dost not thou fear God?”

To blaspheme is to speak against God. The unbelieving thief blasphemed God when he “railed” on Christ, saying, “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us” (Luke 23:39).

By his own words he condemned himself, because he understood that Christ saves sinners. Yet he had no interest in Christ or His salvation. He wanted to get out of his temporal punishment. This blasphemer poured out his contempt for God on Jesus. Though he deserved to die and though he now faced eternal condemnation; and though he died next to the Lamb of God, yet he cast off the words of the prayer of the one Mediator between God and men (Luke 23:34). He was neither humbled nor awed when he heard that Jesus was the Son of God (Matt. 27:43; Luke 23:34). He found no interest in hearing Christ’s enemies admit that Jesus saved others (Matt. 27:42; Luke 23:35). Nor that Jesus trusted in God His Father (Matt. 27:43). And while dying under the condemnation of his own sin, he showed contempt for the Lamb of God, even while Jesus shed His sin-atoning blood for God’s elect (Isa. 53:8; Heb. 9:22, 24-28; Rom. 5:6-10; John 10:11, 15, 26-27; Rom. 8:32).

His blasphemy continued to propagate the devil’s temptation. By this he gave evidence that he was the devil’s son, and proved that fact when he died in unbelief. The devil tempted Christ by saying, “If thou be the Son of God, turn these stones to bread.” And the blaspheming thief echoed the same sentiment, saying, “If thou be the Christ, save thyself and us!”

The devil told Jesus to prove who He was, and prove His words, by obeying the devil’s directive. The blaspheming thief told Jesus the same thing. “Prove you are Christ by saving us from our present affliction!”

But sinners never savingly come to Christ challenging Him to prove His words. Those whom God calls with life-giving grace come to Christ worshipping Him because they believe His words, that He is the Son of God, the one Mediator between God and men, the Lamb of God (Matt. 8:2; 9:18; John 9:35-38; 20:28). Believing sinners worship Christ as the Lord of all, the one Mediator between God and men, the Lamb of God, the King of glory, even as the believing thief did.

And believing sinners never assume that because Jesus is the Christ He must save them. That is what the blaspheming thief did. “If you are Christ,” he said, “save thyself and us!” But why? Why would you assume that if Jesus is the Christ He must save you? He is holy. You are sinful. What does Light have to do with darkness?
When Jesus filled Peter’s net with fish, and Peter understood who Jesus truly was, he said, “Depart from me, I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). All of Peter’s former comeliness, his best works, was turned to corruption (Dan. 10:8)! This thief knew nothing of that.

Those to whom God grants repentance to acknowledge the truth know that mercy from Christ is His prerogative (2 Tim. 2:25). But the blasphemous thief took the proud man’s road to Christ. He must save me, said he, because it would be unfair for Him to pass me by, unfair to condemn me to eternal perdition. He had a low view of God’s goodness! He thought in his heart, “I have lived in His goodness all my life. I expect to continue to receive good from Him,” even though he deserved damnation!

That is what despising God’s goodness amounts to. It is failure to recognize that God’s goodness towards us in our lives by His providence -- though it ought to lead us to repentance -- has the opposite effect because by our sinful nature we become more rebellious and grow in the hardness of our unbelief. We bring greater condemnation on ourselves, because our failure to repent proves that we despise His goodness.

And yet, here is the astounding, unexpected and incredible grace of God: the other thief, though in every way the same as the first, did believe! He was “before a blasphemer” even as the other (Eph. 2:3)! He too had “cast the same in Jesus’ teeth” (Matt. 27:44)! They both died for the same crime. Both heard Jesus pray. Both heard the unwitting admission of the crowd that Jesus was the Son of God, Christ, the Chosen of God, who saved others. As the unbelieving thief is a mirror of all that we are in our natural, sinful, hard heart of unbelief, the believing thief is the pattern of all whom the Lord saves by His unmerited grace! The apostle Paul said that he was a pattern in this way. Paul, the blasphemer, was called when it seemed good to God, by His free and sovereign grace (Gal. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:13-15; Acts 9:1-20).

Men say today that God loves everybody. They tell sinners, “God has done all that He can. It is up to you to accept Jesus.” But the truth of scripture is quite the reverse. The truth is, we have done all that we can to rebel against God. We have opposed our own salvation (2 Tim. 2:24-26). The truth is, it now rests on the sovereign mercy of God to save whom He will and as He will, by doing what only He can do, by calling us on the basis of what He did in Christ! He has reconciled His sinful people to Himself by the death of His own Son (Rom. 5:10). He has justified them freely by His grace on the ground of Christ’s redeeming blood (Rom. 3:24). He now sets forth Christ as the propitiation for the sins of His elect that we might look to Him, and in so looking, find Him to be the propitiation to God for our sins (Rom. 3:25).

Man has done all he can, and he is unwilling and helpless to change himself (Jer. 13:23; Rom. 8:7). In himself, his case is hopeless. But God be thanked, our great God and Savior has done what only God could do! The Son of God (John 9:35-38), the Lord of all (Acts 10:36; Zech. 6:5) and King and Lord of glory (Isa. 6:5; John 12:41; 1 Cor. 2:8), made Himself of no reputation, so that He could die and accomplish all that God required for our eternal salvation, to have a people for Himself, holy and without blame, before Him in love (Eph. 1:4; Eph. 5:25-27; Jude 1:24; Ps. 17:15)!

God’s saving grace to sinners is unchanging and unfailing. He must bring all of His sheep (John 10:16; Ex. 10:26). Christ came to do the will of God, to bring all those the Father gave to Him to eternal glory (John 6:37-40). Neither His word nor His work can fail (Isa. 42:4; Matt. 24:35). His people shall be willing in the day of His power (Ps. 110:3).

Don’t despise God's goodness. His goodness in providence ought to lead us to repentance, but providence alone is not enough to turn a sinner! The unbelieving thief would not turn. He would not believe Christ even though he faced eternal judgment. He blasphemed Christ even as he was punished for his crimes (Rev. 16:9, 11). Though he heard the same words as the other thief did, and though he died next to the Son of God, the only Savior of sinners, yet he died in hard-hearted unbelief. He died as he lived; he died in his sins!

Lest we take God’s goodness for granted, let us, as the believing thief, confess our sins, agree that we are justly condemned, and call upon Christ to save us by His power and grace (Ps. 79:8; Ps. 106:4-5). Let us ask Him to remember us with His people, according to His everlasting covenant of grace, that He would not remember our sins anymore, but that He would remember Christ’s sin-atoning blood for the remission of our sins, and receive us for Christ’s sake (Ps. 79:8-9; Heb. 9:22; 10:14, 17-18; Isa. 43:25-26)!
Rick Warta
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"But now..." (Rom. 3:21-24)

12/1/2017

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These words mark the great transition in the book of Romans that draws back the curtain of revelation to see the light of God's Gospel shining into the darkness of man’s sin. The Gospel only makes sense and can only be seen against the dark backdrop of man’s sin. When we read Romans 1:18-32, and then continue through Romans 2 and on to Romans 3:20, our natural response is to condemn those horrible, wicked, proud, idolatrous, perverts, both men and women, for their willful disobedience against the clear light of God in nature, the light of their own conscience and the light of God’s holy law! We naturally grow more and more indignant against the hypocrisy of those proud, religious Jews! But the Spirit of God through Paul expertly brings us to this question: “What then, are we better than they” (Rom. 3:9)? And his answer is now clear, “No, in no wise, for we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin” (Rom. 3:9). The remaining few verses from chapter 3:10-20 are the seal of condemnation upon all of us: “There is none righteous, no, not one.” And it ends at this God-declared, impassable barrier of man's impotence to earn righteousness for himself before God by his own personal obedience: “Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20)!

This is the context for the Gospel. God’s wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (1:18). Every man, woman, boy and girl is guilty. “We know that whatsoever the law says, it says to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). At first we side with God's word against great sinners. But then we realize that we are the sinners God’s word condemns! And we find that we are no better by our efforts to please God. We find that we are worse than others if we recognize sin in them, because that sin is also in us (Rom. 2:1). We condemn ourselves because we are able to see our sin in others, and yet, we are unwilling and unable to compensate for our crime or repair our ruin. We are left guilty, ruined, condemned, helpless and hopeless. This is the intended result of Romans 1:18 - Romans 3:20. And it is very effective. I don’t know how many times I have read through those first two chapters as a believer and have come under a deep sense of my own guilt and shame and condemnation, because I knew that God’s word was describing me (Heb. 4:12)! But it is comforting beyond words to realize this is the result designed by God. God’s law is designed to discover and expose our sin to us as God’s view of ourselves (Rom. 3:19-20; 5:20; 1 Tim. 1:9).

And that is why the Gospel that is declared in Romans 3:21-ff is such good news! These words, “But now,” introduce the great transition from despair to unbounded, overflowing joy, as the light of Christ shines into the darkness of the void and ruin of my own nature and mind (Gen. 1:2). Truly, “every man at his best state is altogether vanity” (Ps. 39:5). Have you ever felt it? Do you feel it even now? If not, do not despair. There is a blessed, “But now” for every shortcoming! Though helplessly, deservedly dying and hopeless to do one thing to remove our just condemnation, we are called to look away to that One who hung on Calvary’s tree, who was made sin, cursed under God’s law, in order that He might redeem us from the curse we deserve, for the wrath we earned by our sinning (Rom. 6:23; Ezek. 18:4, 20).

Many verses are spent building up to this point. But listen to the very condensed cordial poured out from the throne of grace in Romans 3:21-26. As in Hebrews, 1:1-3, in these few verses in Romans 3, there is the greatest condensation of heavenly truth to be found in scripture! The first part of Romans draws back the curtain on the wasteland of man’s righteousness. The second part draws back the curtain on the blazing light of God's grace in Christ’s sin-atoning blood and righteousness, and the free, sovereign grace of God that saves the most sinful of men, to the glory of His grace and justice...

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 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; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus…” (Rom. 3:21-26).
​

I highly recommend that you read and re-read these verses. Read from Romans 1:18 through Romans 3:20. See yourself described there. Then see that where sin abounded in you, grace did much more abound from God in Christ (Rom. 5:20-21)! The righteousness of God is set forth here in contrast to the righteousness of man. Man has no righteousness (Rom. 3:10). That is the point. But though man is void of righteousness, the righteousness of God is now revealed. And where is this righteousness seen? In the Gospel. And in what does this righteousness consist? The righteousness of God is the obedience of Christ in His life and death. This is the righteousness witnessed by the law and the prophets (Gen. 15:6; Ps. 71:16; Isa. 45:24-25; 54:17; Jer. 23:5-6; 33:16; Isa. 53:1-12). His righteousness is made ours by God’s free gift (Rom. 5:17-18). All who believe Christ are righteous in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30). Look carefully at Romans 3:24-25. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). That is good news from heaven to sinners! First, God was only moved to justify us by His free and sovereign grace, and not by any work on our part; not by our deserving, but only by His uninfluenced and uninfluenceable grace, which neither looked nor looks for anything in us to move Him, but found all reasons in Himself to be gracious to hell-deserving sinners! Second, God justifies sinners according to His righteousness (Dan. 9:16), on the ground of “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” This, dear brother and sister in Christ, is the Gospel of God’s grace in which God is both just and the justifier of the ungodly man or woman who looks to Christ for all of their salvation (Rom. 3:26)! May we know our guilt and condemnation and helplessness and hopelessness before God in ourselves, so that we take "no confidence in the flesh," yet find every reason for confidence and assurance in Christ crucified (Php. 3:3; Heb. 10:19-23)! And, most importantly, may we look away from ourselves to Christ crucified, in whom and by whom God is seen to be just when He justifies sinners by the blood of His own dear Son (Rom. 5:9; 1 Cor. 1:26-31)!

This grace, this redemption, this righteousness that is in Christ, this free and gracious justification grounded on Christ’s sin-atoning blood and righteousness, is the present possession of every one that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, reigning and interceding. Our sin is not a barrier to God’s grace. Until we see that God who was offended has reconciled sinners to Himself in the death of His own Son, and that our sin is the great evidence of our need for this great grace, we will never come to God by Him (Rom. 5:9-10; Ps. 25:11). Our sin is the evidence of our need of grace. Our knowledge of sin shows us that God’s law is doing its job to reveal to us what we truly are: poor and plagued, blind and naked, needy and helpless because of our sin (Rev. 3:17)! The second big point is that our personal obedience counts for nothing (Rom. 3:20). In fact, it counts against us, because our best is really bad. “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses (the best that we do) are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isa. 64:6). Grace convinces us that we are sinners, but grace does not stop there! Thank God, it does not stop there! Grace also convinces us that Christ has accomplished the salvation of His people, great sinners with a great many sins. And grace convinces us that we must flee to Christ alone for refuge. May we be given grace to do so today and every day until we lie in the bosom of our Savior, and proclaim with His blood-bought people:

“Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood...be glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 1:5).

“Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, tongue, people and nation” (Rev. 5:9)!
“Jesus paid it all;
all to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain.

He washed it white as snow!”
Rick Warta
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