How God Saves Sinners
(Or)
How God Justifies the Ungodly
Romans 4:5
God saves sinners by Jesus Christ. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of which I am chief.” (I Timothy 1:15) Some may be puzzled by Paul calling himself the chief of sinners; the puzzle is solved in I Corinthians 15:9 where the Apostle declares “For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” And in Galatians 1:13 “For ye have heard of my conversation (manner of life) in time past in the Jews religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it:” Since God has saved the chief of sinners; all and everyone may have hope, that since Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and has saved the chief of sinners, what doeth hinder that he might save even that sinner who thinks himself the chief?
God saves sinners by the Satisfaction of Divine Justice
We know from the scriptures that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and we know that “…the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ezekiel 18: 4, 20) and we know that “the scripture hath concluded all under sin” (Galatians 3:22); now since all of our race “…are sold under sin” (Romans 7:14). How can God be true to his justice, truth, and holiness and yet receive convicted felons (who in themselves are guilty, and sentenced to death) as just persons. How can the guilty be received as not guilty? How is Psalm 85:10 fulfilled “Mercy and truth are met together; (in agreement) righteousness and peace have kissed each other”? Truth and righteousness demand the execution of the sentence of death upon the guilty; while mercy and peace desire the release of the prisoners. “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?” (Isaiah 49:24). “For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, neither doeth God respect any person: yet doeth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.” (II Samuel 14:14).Jehovah the Son has declared “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18) What means then has God devised that his banished be not expelled?
Grace Reigns Through Righteousness.
Since every attribute of God’s character must be satisfied in his motions toward the objects of his mercy, his infinitely holy law and justice must be satisfied before any deliverance can be established. Therefore a suitable surety must have been found for those to whom God would show him self gracious. Therefore one of perfect virtue, and of infinite innate worth must be found, one absolutely holy, and without spot or stain of sin must be found to bear the sin of God’s banished. This person was provided in the everlasting covenant of grace, for God saith “deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.” (Job 33:24). This surety (who is able to pay the redemption price and thereby in righteousness deliver the lawful captives) is the surety of the New Testament; Jesus Christ “By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.” (Hebrews 7:22) The surety-ship of the everlasting covenant of grace was imposed upon our most lovely Lord Jesus by God the Father before any of the worlds were made; and lovingly accepted and assumed by Jehovah the Son before his works of old; for “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” (Proverbs 8:23; in this proverb our Lord is personified as wisdom) and; in I Peter 1:20, speaking of Christ Jesus, Peter says “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you;” and John the beloved apostle writes in the Revelation of Jesus Christ “And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, (who represent the ministers of the gospel) and in the midst of the elders, (who represent the members of the church universal) stood a lamb as it had been slain, (Jesus Christ the Lamb of God, John 1:27) having seven horns (complete and perfect power; to bring the banished children to their Father) and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth ( the fullness of the Holy Spirit in his various gifts and graces in the hand of Christ for his church and people who were banished in Adam). John has reference to the same person in Revelation 13:8 “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, (antichrist, the beast of Rome) whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” As surety of the everlasting covenant; Christ Jesus stood as slain from all eternity, and was slain in fact and in time at mount Calvary. The virtue of his death therefore covered the Old Testament saints as well as the New Testament saints.
His Banished
Who are His banished? In David’s case it was his son Absalom, it was his child, in the case of God the Father; his banished are his children. It is a specific group, the entire race of man was banished in the fall of Adam, and the elect were banished with the rest. God did not make it his business to redeem all the banished, by Jesus Christ, but only His banished. His banished are those he chose in Christ from all eternity and ordained to eternal life, (Ephesians 1:3-9; Psalm 65:4). Those who say that Christ came into the world to save all the banished or to give them a chance to be saved contradict the Holy Ghost who is the author of the scriptures; “All scripture is given by inspiration of God…” (II Timothy 3:16) And of such are the preachers of Matthew 7:21-23. The Apostle Paul writes in II Thessalonians 2:13 “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:” Notice dear reader; it is salvation to which these are chosen. The choice is not of persons to some office in the church, but of individuals to eternal salvation. And as many as God has chosen to salvation, he causes them to pass under the hearing of the gospel, and at the time appointed by God the Father, as many as are ordained to eternal life believe; for it is written “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”(Acts 13:48) “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”(Romans 8:30) God the Father predestinated the elect to salvation by Jesus Christ from everlasting: that is the testimony of the Holy Ghost as given in the Holy Scriptures, to deny his testimony is to call his witness into question; which was the first serpentine move in the fall of man. This introduces the question; how did God justify those whom he predestinated, called, and glorified; seeing they are fallen creatures, sinners, and under the curse of his most holy and righteous law? Blessed be his most holy name, the Word of the Lord has come unto us saying, that is speaking the mind and will of the Father; as he did in old time, to the patriarchs, and by the prophets,. (John 1:18)
How God Justifies the Ungodly
Romans 4:5
First, in order to justify his banished, God chose his Son as the Covenant, and Federal head of the elect, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth;” (Isaiah 42:1) Next in the order of nature the work in hand was to ordain his Son mediator, of the everlasting covenant of grace; and to give the objects of his eternal love into the mediation of his Son, and thus establish the union of the federal head and mediator with the objects of his mediation “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;” and “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.” (I Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 8:6) All these things took place before the worlds were framed; and they presuppose the everlasting love of God for his elect; which is the moving cause of the whole blessed transaction (Jeremiah 31:3 compared with Romans 8:39) a counsel of peace concerning the elect, (Zechariah 6:12,13) and the establishment of the everlasting covenant of grace concerning them, (Hebrews 13:20) between the persons in the Godhead,(Titus 1:1,2 compared with II Timothy 1:9). Very blessed indeed are these wonderful acts of God in the favor of his elect for it is written “Many, Oh Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” (Psalm 40:6).
Next, in the fullness of the time “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that are under the law, that they might receive the adoption of sons.” (Galatians 4:4, 5) “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree: (Galatians 3;13) Again, “For he (God the Father) hath made him (Jesus Christ the Son of God) to be sin for us, (us; those who the Father gave the Son as the objects of his mediation) who knew no sin; (Jesus Christ) that we (the same group as before, who have interest in the mediation of Jesus Christ) might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (Might have the wedding garment put upon them; [Matthew 22:11-13] the wedding garment is described in Isaiah 61:10 it is the royal priestly garment of Jesus Christ’s righteousness) (II Corinthians 5:21) Reader, pause and reflect upon these things; those for whom Christ bore the curse of the law, surely they shall never bare it, and those for whom Christ was made to be sin, surely their sin is no more, it is put away, “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”(Hebrews 9:26) and God has sworn “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more. (Hebrews 8:12). Christ Jesus redeemed his elect from the curse of the law by suffering the vengeance of the law which was against his own; Christ “loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Revelation 1:5). And not this alone but; Christ lived in complete obedience to the law of God every moment of his life as man and mediator. Jesus Christ stood in public office for his elect as mediator, and all he suffered and did in that office is imputed to those who were committed to his trust and mediation, through his Priestly intersession; which introduces the step next in God’s justifying the ungodly.
Christ the Great High Priest
Next, upon finishing the work which the Father had imposed upon his Son in his office of mediation on earth, (John 17:4) which included every thing through his blood shedding and death, his burial, and lying in the grave for a time under the dominion of death (Romans 6:9). God raised up Christ to sit at his own right hand and thereby declared him both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36 and Revelation 3:21) And declared him justified in all that he did, and justified from all the sin that was imputed to him as the Lamb of God, (John 1:29; Isaiah 53:6). When our Lord was crucified and buried, it was with the sins of the elect laid on him, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; (notice dear reader; it is the sins of many, not all, and that many; is, as many as are ordained to eternal life Acts 13:48, John 17:2) and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”(Hebrews 9:27). When our Lord Jesus died, he (according to the purpose of the Father)gave death dominion over his body, for “no man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” (John 10:18, compared with Romans 6:9). Jesus Christ died because sin was imputed to him through the grace and mercy of God. God’s justice demanded the full retribution, punishment, and satisfaction for the sin of all who are under the federal head-ship of Jesus Christ; while, God’s mercy delighted in, and longed for, the release of the objects of his everlasting love. God’s grace and wisdom found a means for the clearing of his banished who were sentenced to death by strict law and justice. The justice of God found satisfaction and rested in the death of Christ as the vindicating agent of the honor of God’s law. When Christ died with the sins of all his elect laid on him, (Isaiah 53:6) he at that time “bare our sins in his own body on the tree”(I Peter 2:24)and passed under the dominion of death for those sins that he bore though they were the sins of others (his elect). When God raised up Christ from the dead, God raised Christ up because he had paid the penalty that the law demanded, the sin debt that Christ stood under was paid in full, he had died according to the demand of the law, now the law was satisfied, because its demands had been met. God had pored out his fury for sin on his own Son. (Isaiah 27:4) Christ Jesus had put the sins of his own away for guilt of the sins that were laid to his charge, since those sins had been put away the elect whose sins they were, were justified by the blood of Christ, therefore the Israel of God has no sin in his sight (Jeremiah 50:20).
When the Lord Jesus died, his death was in the stead of his beloved church and people as individual persons. Christ Jesus died as the official, God appointed, mediator, substitute, and surety of his own; his own are those individuals, as individuals, who were chosen in Christ from all eternity as members in their federal head, they are his mystical body of which he is the head, (Ephesians 1:23). They are his branches, he is the vine, (John 15:5). Christ’s work as the Great High Priest of his people goes on now in the upper world, in the true sanctuary, where he ministers in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man, (Hebrews 8:2) his ministry there involves his intersession for his elect, that they might receive all that he purchased for them in his death. And when Christ Jesus intercedes for those given and beloved of the Father, the Father will never and can never refuse. All spiritual blessedness belongs to the elect children of God in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:3).
A.J. Ison
