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“The Manifold Wisdom of God”

“A Ransom Found.”

Job 33:14-24

Our great God, in infinite wisdom and superabundant grace, found a way to make guilty sinners completely innocent and perfectly righteous. The triune Jehovah contrived a way to make sinful men and women not guilty in his sight. To men, this seems to be an impossible contradiction. How can anyone who is guilty become not guilty? How can sinners become totally innocent? No man could ever have devised a means to accomplish this. All men and angels combined could never accomplish such a great thing. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25).

Substitution

There is only one way for guilty sinners to be made completely innocent. And God found it. It is substitution (John 11:47-52; Job 33:14, 22-30). The Lord God sent his dear Son to die, the Just for the unjust, that he might redeem us and purify us. Jonathan Edwards wrote…

“He hath accomplished that men, though sinners, should be without guilt, in that he hath found out a way that the threatenings of the law should be truly and properly fulfilled, and punishment be executed upon sin, and yet not on the sinner. The sufferings of Christ answer the demands of the law, with respect to the sins of those who believe in him; and justice is truly satisfied thereby.”

Those men and women who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, those sinners who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are pure, without spot, or blemish, or any such thing in the sight of God himself. Our Lord himself says, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair!” — “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee” (Song of Solomon 1:15; 4:7).

Would you be completely innocent of all sin before God? Then believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is written, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!”

Sinful Righteous

Not only has God found a way to make guilty sinners innocent before his law, he has in infinite wisdom found a way to make sinful men and women perfectly righteous in his sight.

It is not enough that we be free from guilt. If we would be accepted with God, we must be perfectly righteous. You and I must be perfectly, completely, absolutely holy in the eyes of God himself (Hebrews 12:14; Matthew 5:20; Genesis 17:1; Leviticus 20:7; 22:21; Psalm 24:3-4; 1 Peter 1:15-16; Revelation 21:27).

It is utterly impossible for a sinful man to make himself holy. An unrighteous man cannot make himself righteous. But God can bring a clean thing out of an unclean. God found a way to make you and me perfectly righteous in his sight. How can such a thing be accomplished? Only by divine imputation (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

As Christ was made sin for us by the hand, the work, the operation of God, so we have been made the righteousness of God in him by that same hand, and work, and operation of God. As Christ was rewarded for our sins when they were made to be his, with death, we are rewarded for his righteousness, which is made to be ours, with eternal life. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us in justification. The righteousness of Christ is imparted to us in regeneration. By this imparting of righteousness, we are made “partakers of the divine nature!” And the righteousness of Christ shall be perfected in us in glorification, when our bodies are raised and made like unto his glorious body. Then, we shall be “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” — Oh, blessed hope!

Would you be perfectly righteous in the sight of God? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and perfect righteousness shall be yours by the free gift of God’s grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 4:3-9, 22-25). — “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound!”

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s