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The True Foundation (Romans 3:28)
Posted : 13 Mar, 2011 08:16 PM
Before man can be reconciled to God, before man can know God, this
sin of his must be removed. God has said that He will punish sin,
and that the punishment of sin is death and banishment from the face
of God. This has to be dealt with. And what has happened? Well,
says Paul, God has set Him forth as a propitiation. That is the
means which God has employed. His being the propitiation for our sins
means that God has made Him responsible for our sins. They have been
placed upon Him and God has dealt with them and punished them there,
and therefore because He has punished our sins in Christ, in His body
upon the Cross, He can justly forgive us. You see this is high
doctrine. It is a daring thing for the Apostle to say, but it has to
be said and I repeat it. God, because he is righteous and holy and
eternal, could not forgive the sin of man without punishing it. He
said He would punish it, so He must punish it, and, blessed be His
name, He has punished it. He is just, therefore, and the justifier
of them that believe in Jesus. The sin has been punished, so God,
Who is just and righteous, can forgive sin.
How then does it work?
It works like this. God accepts this righteousness of Christ, this
perfect righteousness face to face with the Law which He honoured in
every respect. He has kept it and given obedience to it, He has
borne its penalty. The Law is fully satisfied.
God's way of salvation. says Paul, is that He gives to us the
righteousness of Christ. If we have seen our need and go to God and
confess it, God will give us His own Son's righteousness. He imputes
Christ's righteousness to us who believe in Him, and regards us as
righteous, and declares and pronounces us to be righteous in Him.
THAT, is the way of salvation, the Christian way of salvation, the
way of salvation through justification by faith.
So that it comes to this.
That I see and I believe and I look to nothing and to no one except
to the Lord Jesus Christ. I like Paul's way of putting it. He
asks: 'Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of
works? Nay, but by the law of faith'. You foolish Jews, says Paul,
you are boasting about the fact that you have been circumcised, that
you have the oracles of God and that you are God's people. You must
cease to do that. You must not rest upon the fact that you have this
tradition and that you are children of your forefathers.
There is no boasting, you have to rest exclusively upon the Lord Jesus
Christ and His perfect work. The Jew is not superior to the Gentile
in this respect. 'All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.'
We look to Christ, and to Christ alone, and not to ourselves in any
respect whatsoever.
To make it quite practical let me say that there is a very simple way
of testing yourself to know whether you believe that.
We betray ourselves by what we say. The Lord Himself said we should
be justified by our words, and how true it is.
I have often had to deal with this point with people, and I have
explained the way of justification by faith and told them how it is
all in Christ, and that God puts His righteousness upon us. I have
explained it all to them, and then I have said: 'Well, now are you
quite happy about it, do you believe that? And they say, 'Yes'.
Then I say: 'Well then, you are now ready to say that you are a
Christian'. And they hesitate. ANd I know thay have not
understood. Then I say: 'What is the matter, why are you hesitating?'
And they say: 'I do not feel good enough'. At once I know that in a
sense I have been wasting my breath.
They are still thinking in terms of themselves; their idea still is
that they have to make themselves good enough to be a Christian,
good enough to be accepted with Christ. They have to do it!
'I am not good enough.' It sounds very modest, but it is the lie of
the devil, it is a denial of the faith. You think that you are being
humble. But you will never be good enough; nobody has ever been good
enough. The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that HE is
good enough, and that I am in Him!
As long as you go on thinking about yourself and saying:
'Ah, Yes, I would like to, but I qm not good enough; I am a sinner, a
great sinner,' you are denying God and you will never be happy. You
will continue to be cast down and disquieted in your soul. You will
think you are better at times and then again you will find that you
are not as good as you thought you were.
You read the lives of the saints and you realize that you are nowhere.
So you keep on asking: 'What can I do? I still fell that I am not
good enough'. Forget yourself, forget all about yourself.
Of course you are not good enough, you never will be good enough.
The Christian way of salvation tells you this, that it does not
matter what you have been, it does not matter what you have done. How
can I put this plainly? I try to say it from the pulpit every Sunday
because I think it is the thing that is robbing most people fo the
joy of the Lord. It does not matter if you have almost entered the
depths of Hell, if you are guilty of murder as well as every other
vile sin, it does not matter from the standpoint of being justified
with God. You are no more hopeless than the most respectable
self-righteous person in the world. Do you believe that?
There is another good way of testing yourself. Do you believe that
from the stand point of salvation and justification with God that all
our customary distinctions are abolished at a stroke and that what
determines whether we are sinners or not is not what we have done,
but our relationship to God?
I say, therefore, that this is the test, that you acknowledge readily
and say clearly that you look to Christ and Christ alone and to
nothing and no one else, that you stop looking at particular sins and
particular people. Look at nothing and nobody but look entirely to
Christ and say:
'My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness,
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
ON Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.'
You must so believe that as to be able to go further and say with
holy boldness:
'The terrors of law and of God
With me can have nothing to do,
My savior's obedience and blood
Hide all of my transgressions from view.'
Would you like to be rid of this spiritual depression?
The first thing you have to do is to say farewell now once and forever
to your past. Realize that is has been covered and blotted out in
Christ. Never look back at your sins again. Say: 'It is finished,
it is covered by the blood of Christ'.
That is your first step. Take that and finish with yourself and all
this talk about goodness, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is only then that true happiness and joy are possible for you.
What you need is not to make resolutions to live a better life, to
start fasting and sweating and praying. NO! you just begin to say:
'I rest my faith on Him alone
Who died for my transgressions to atone.'
Take that first step and you will find that immediately you will
begin to experience a joy and a release that you have never known in
your life before.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual Depression
its causes and its cure
In Christ,
James
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