God is impartial. He does not make a difference in judgment or mercy because of what He finds in any man. In judgment, He judges all men equally, strictly according to His law, strictly by what He finds in them (Rom. 2:11; 6:23; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; 1 Pet. 1:7). If God condemns us, it will be for what we have done. But if He justifies us, it will be for what Christ has done. In giving mercy, God is gracious because of what He is in Himself (Ex. 34:7). He shows mercy out of His own sovereign will, without respect to us in any way (Rom. 9:11-16). If God gives us eternal life, it will not be for what we have done, but for what Christ has done as one man for “the many” given to Christ in eternal election (Rom. 5:19, 21; Eph. 1:4).

Therefore, if God punishes me or you in hell, it will be for our own sin. But if He gives us eternal life, making Himself known to us in Christ, and receiving us to eternal glory, it will be because of His own righteousness, for the obedience and death of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one for the many, given to us out of sheer grace (Rom. 5:17-21; 6:23; Php. 2:6-8; Heb. 10:7-14). The righteousness of God is the only righteousness by which God justifies ungodly sinners. God’s righteousness is the obedience of Christ in His life and sufferings and death (Heb. 2:10; 5:7-9; Php. 2:6-8; Rom. 10:4; 2 Cor. 5:21). God gives Christ’s righteousness to us by His grace alone, without any regard to what He finds in us, either good or bad (Rom. 5:17-19; 9:11-13; Eph. 2:1-9). It is an act of sovereign crediting to us what Christ has done, because from eternity He made Christ our Head and made us His own (Eph. 1:4).

Thus, we are saved, humbled and overjoyed before God. We deserve wrath. Yet, for Christ’s sake, we are received by God as He receives Christ, with all of the blessings God has given to Him (2 Cor. 1:20; Gal. 3:16, 19, 29; 4:28; Eph. 1:3; 1 Cor. 3:21-23; Rom. 8:17, 32; Eph. 4:32). “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21-22).

At his first cry, the crowd rebuked Bartimaeus. Isn’t it ironic that in all of that large crowd of seeing people who followed Jesus, there were none who cried to Him for mercy except this unclean, blind beggar? Why did none in the faceless crowd cry? Wasn’t it because they did not see their blindness (John 9:39-41)? Why didn’t they want to hear the cries of a blind sinner? Wasn’t it because they never knew his need? They did not fellowship in the burden of the anguish of his soul. When we find Christ to be our all, we have fellowship with those rescued from the same sinking ship who have found Christ to be their only Rock and salvation (Psalm 62:1-2)! We ache for others to see their need, to cry to Christ and find Him to be their all! And we want to talk about it to them. But the crowd seemed to know nothing of a need for mercy, nothing of eyes of darkness opened to see the light. With the Psalmist, Bartimaeus could say, “I cried unto the LORD with my voice...I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul” (Ps. 142:1-4).

Though the crowd scolded him to hold his peace, “he cried the more a great deal” (Mark 10:48)! Oh, see here the work of the Spirit of Christ in this needy sinner! “As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice” (Ps. 55:16-17)! By God’s grace, Bartimaeus could find no rest until Christ gave Him sight to rest in Him!

The crowd rebuked Bartimaeus at his crying, but Jesus stood still! See this miracle of grace! The LORD said that when the sun and moon stood still at Joshua’s command, there was never a day like it before or since that God hearkened to a man (Joshua 10:12-14). But here is a much greater miracle! It was not noble Joshua who cried out here, but an unclean, blind beggar: a sinner! He cried out of his emptiness! Jesus came to do the eternal will of God (Heb. 10:7). He set His face like a flint to keep that eternal appointment (Isa. 50:5-7). He would not be deterred or kept back. His chief business from eternity was to give Himself a ransom for many and bring them to God. And He was about to accomplish that work (John 12:27; Matt. 20:28)! But see a great miracle of mercy here! A sinner cries to the Sun of Righteousness out of the depths, and the Lord of glory hears his cry and stands still (Ps. 130:1)!

Why did Jesus hear this man’s cry and stand still? Why did He have compassion on him? The crowd showed him no mercy. Yet the One whom Bartimaeus had offended by his sin stopped in compassion to grant him mercy! Why does the Lord Jesus show compassion to helpless sinners?! Because He delights in mercy (Micah 7:18). Because He is rich in mercy! Because of His great everlasting love to His people. “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened [made us alive] us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph. 2:4-5)!

Jesus hears the cry of His own Spirit in the cry of needy sinners. “The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he [Christ] that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27)! The mind of the Spirit is the will of God for the salvation His elect! “This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). 

Moreover, the Lord Jesus had compassion on this blind man who cried out of his darkness for mercy, because the Lord Jesus Himself cried for mercy out of anguish of soul (Psalm 69:13)! He cried out of the darkness on the cross, “My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring” (Ps. 22:2)! And in Lamentations 3:8, the prophet speaks of Christ when he says, “When I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer” (Lam. 3:8)! 

Does not the Lord Jesus show compassion to sinners because as our Substitute He felt the full burden of our sins in His own body and soul (1 Pet. 2:24)?! He who is all compassion was denied compassion that He might have compassion on His beloved Bride, who were guilty sinners (Isa. 53:3-12; 54:5; Eph. 5:25)! When He was made sin and bore the curse of God in His body and soul on the cross, the sun in the sky did not shine on Him! For salvation’s light to shine on us, the Light of the world bore the darkness of the loss of God’s presence in His own soul! “O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent” (Ps. 22:2)! Is this not God’s glory, that He hears and shows mercy to sinners (Ex. 34:7; 2 Cor. 4:6; John 12:23; 17:1-5; Heb. 1:3)? Jesus came and passed through, and then left Jericho, that cursed city. Just before going to Jericho, He said He came to give His life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28-29). He paid the ransom of Himself that God demanded to redeem cursed sinners from the curse of His law (Gal. 3:13). But then the Lord Jesus paused on His mission at the urgent cry of a desperate sinner! It was all predetermined. What a blessing of Providence to blind this man, that he might know his need, that he might find himself near as Jesus passed by, and so hearing of Him, find Christ alone to be his all (Mark 10:52)!

Redemption’s work was finished on the cross! But it must be applied to the redeemed! A king may pardon a prisoner from punishment, but that prisoner knows no peace and joy until the news of the pardon is delivered to him. The ransomed must be released! “Through this man is preached the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39). Christ and His redemption is preached because the release earned by His ransom must be preached to the redeemed! When it is thus preached, God’s Spirit gives chosen sinners faith to see and know that liberty (Acts 13:48)! Jesus came and passed through, and left the cursed city. Yet He granted to His redeemed the liberty His ransom purchased: forgiveness of all our sins with the gift of perfect righteousness, and faith to see it all in Him (Rom. 5:17; Eph. 1:7, 13)! This is the Gospel! “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us…[therefore, shall] the blood of Christ...purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb. 9:12,14). Redemption purchased is now redemption applied! From enslavement to sin, to freedom in our soul that we might serve God with a pure conscience! That’s why Jesus came to Jericho to open the eyes of this blind man! That is why the Spirit of Christ moved him to cry: to obtain the application of the redemption Christ purchased by the offering of Himself to God (Acts 20:28). That is why Christ comes with the Gospel. It is the power of God unto salvation. “For this I will be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them!” As Jesus restored Bartimaeus’ sight, God gives His people faith to see Christ their Redeemer and the redemption that He obtained for them by His own blood!

In Ezekiel 20 and Psalm 106, the LORD recalls the history of His dealings with the nation of Israel. In so doing, He shows them their abominable sin and idolatry. He reminds them that many times He said He would pour out His fury and wrath upon them. But He did not pour it out. Why? The answer is the reason behind our salvation. He did not destroy them “for His name’s sake,” (Psa. 106:6-8), because of His covenant (Psa. 106:44; Ezek. 20:9, 14, 17, 22, 42-44).

The leaders of Israel came to Ezekiel to inquire of the LORD (Ezek. 20:1-4). But the LORD told Ezekiel to show them their abominations (v4). This is always the first and necessary step. We will despise free grace until we know nothing but grace will save us. It is necessary for God to humble us that He might lift us up (1 Sam. 2:6-7). This is the work of God, His operation to produce faith in Christ in the heart of sinners. Jesus told the Pharisees that opposed Him for healing the man born blind, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind...Some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9:39-41).

If the LORD saves me, if He saves you, He will do it for His name’s sake. The idols to which we hold so dearly are the works of our own hands, the pride of our own will and self. But when the LORD shows us our abominations, we will know that we have no one to plead for us to God but Christ our Savior. Idols need men to save them (Judges 6:31). Idols need men to plead for them. But the LORD saves and pleads for His people (Micah 7:7-9).

If the LORD had destroyed Israel for their sin and unbelief, the heathen could have charged Him with failure, that He was unable to save them, that He did not anticipate what was required, that He could not meet the impossibility of their case. In other words, if God promised to save Israel but then destroyed them, it would have been because, like their idols, He required the help of sinners. But the LORD is the true and living God. He is the alone “just God and a Savior” (Isa. 45:21).

When the LORD saves us, we know that He alone did it. And we will know that He did it for His name’s sake, in spite of our opposition. Our salvation is therefore as certain as God is God, as certain as Christ sits on the throne of glory at His Father’s right hand (Heb. 6:13-20)!

Rick Warta