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ÒHe shall restore double.Ó

Exodus 22:4

 

The law of God demanded that anyone wronged by another should not only have the wrong repaired, but also be made to benefit and gain by the injury done. It is God primarily who has been wronged in all his rights by sin. Yet, man too has been wronged. But the Lord God has, in infinite wisdom, fixed it so that both he and his people shall be made gainers by the injury done. As the fall of Israel has been overruled by our heavenly Father for the riches of the world and the glory of his own great name (Romans 11:33-36), so the fall of Satan and the entrance of sin into the world by the fall of our father Adam has been, is being, and shall yet be made to redound to the everlasting riches of GodÕs elect and the glory of his great name.

 

Superabounding Grace

Here is the glory of the cross. — ÒWhere sin abounded, grace did much more abound!Ó Yes, the God of glory works all things — (All Things!) — together for the good of his people and the everlasting glory of his own great name. Satan will gain nothing by the havoc he has wrought in the world. He will achieve absolutely nothing! Both God and his elect have gained more by the forgiveness of sin through the blood of Christ than was lost by the sin and fall of our father Adam.

 

Gain from the Fall

The Lord God has arranged all things, even the sin and fall of our father Adam, for the everlasting good and happiness of his people. We shall lose nothing, but only gain, by what happened in the Garden. The gain is obtained not by sin but by redemption. Indeed, the sin and fall of Adam was itself, by divine purpose, a picture of redemption by Christ (Romans 5:12-20; Isaiah 40:1-2).

Martin Luther rightly said, with regard to AdamÕs sin in the Garden, ÒO blessed fall!Ó Had there been no fall, no sin, no condemnation, we could never have known the wonders of redemption. Had there been no fall, no sin, no condemnation, we could never have known the glories of grace. Grace not only cuts up sin by the roots and ultimately destroys it. — Grace makes chosen sinners to be eternal beneficiaries of SatanÕs work!

Still, there is more. The holy Lord God has gained more by redemption than ever he lost (if I can be permitted to use such language) by the fall. The Lord God reaps a richer harvest of glory in the fields of grace than he could ever have reaped in the Garden of innocence (Ephesians 1:3-14; 2:7). The sons of God raise a loftier song of praise around the empty tomb of the crucified Christ than we could ever have raised in the Garden of Eden. The injury done by sin has not only been perfectly atoned for and remedied by the blood of Christ, but God has gained by the cross the praise of the glory of his grace.

This is a stupendous truth. God, the eternal, triune, holy Lord God, has gotten himself great gain by the work accomplished by our all-glorious Christ at Calvary.

Who could ever have conceived such a thing? When we see man and the creation over which he was lord laid in a heap of ruins at the feet of Satan, how could we ever imagine that from amid those ruins the great God of Glory would gather a crown for his holy head which could not be gotten in any other way? But it was ever the immutable purpose of the all-wise God to glorify himself and reveal his glory to all creation by the accomplishments of his darling Son at Calvary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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