Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Thee Have I Seen Righteous



Thee Have I Seen Righteous

Genesis 7:1

            “And the Lord said to Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the arch; for thee have I seen righteous in this generation.”

            Notice Dear Reader, it is not written, thou art righteous; but, thee have I seen righteous. There is a very great difference, for if the Lord had said; Noah, thou art righteous before me; it would have been a righteous person that had caught the eye of Jehovah. Isaiah nullifies all such notions in 64:6 of his prophecy. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Reader, have you been taught of God that you are a miserable sinner from the top of your pitiful sinful head to the sole of  your corrupt foot? Those whom the Lord of life has loved he teaches that lesson. In very faithfulness Jehovah of Hosts allows his covenant children to experience their sinner-hood and the effect is always to drive them to their eternal Father through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
 Noah and all his house had suffered the effects of the fall along with the rest of Adam’s sons and daughters. “For there is not a just man upon the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not,” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). Isaiah did not write; but you are all as an unclean thing, and all your righteousnrsses are as filthy rags, no, even the great prophet of Messiah, included himself when he wrote; all we like sheep have gone astray. Daniel the Prophet confessed “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even in departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments,” (Daniel 9:5). The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome, “…I am carnal, sold under sin,” (Romans 7:14). The Psalmist wrote “Enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified,” (Psalm 143:2). Sad but true “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps,” (Jeremiah 10:23). Our Lord said to the Jews “…ye will not come to me that ye might have life,” (John 5:40). Noah might have said, as did David, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me,” (Psalm 51:5).
How then could God, who cannot lie, say of Noah, “thee have I seen righteous”? How is the Lord our God, “a just God and a savior” (Isaiah 45:21)? How is God just, while he “justifieth the ungodly” (Romans 4:5)? Can you explain how “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed other” (Psalm 85:10)? Do you know what means God hath devised “that his banished be not expelled from him” (II Samuel 14:14)? The answer to these questions lies in the person and finished salvation of the “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” (Jeremiah 23:6)
The God of holy writ looked upon Noah dressed in the royal priestly garments of salvation purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ; for Isaiah’s prophecy runs thus “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul, shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels” (Isaiah 61:10). Noah along with all the children of promise (Galatians 4:28; Romans 9:7, 8) had been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, and had been predestined to the adoption children, according to the purpose and grace of God; in Jesus Christ, (Ephesians 1:3-5; 3:11; II Timothy 1:9). All the children of promise, have been given to Christ, of the Father, from everlasting, (I Corinthians 1:30; Jeremiah 31:3; John 17:2, 6-10) they have been in federal union with Christ from all eternity, all that Christ did while here on the earth he did as the federal head of the children promise, and in their name and all that he did is laid to their account, or imputed to each individual of the group at the time appointed of the Father. When that everlasting righteousness is laid to the account, of the covenant children, life eternal must ensue, for, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord,” (Leviticus 18:5).  
All that our Lord Jesus Christ did, he did, while in union with his elect, and all that the individual members of the church ever did; they did while in that same union. Because of the federal union that has been in existence since the elect were chosen in Christ: which was before the world was made, there is a just transference from the one to the other. The holiness of the federal head Jesus Christ, may justly be imputed to the body and the sins of the body may justly be imputed the head. For, “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (II Corinthians 5:21). And “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).
Noah, like all the chosen of the Father, are predestinated to receive all the blessings of the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ. All the elect including Noah, are predestined to be made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, Noah was made, not righteous, but Noah was made righteousness; Noah was made the righteousness of God in Christ. Therefore, when God looked upon Noah in Christ; he did not see Noah dressed in a righteous garment of his own making, but he saw Noah dressed in the robe of righteousness established by Jesus Christ, which is the righteousness of God. It is the righteousness that Jesus Christ established, it is the righteousness that God the Father provided for the children of promise through the mediation of Jesus Christ, it is the righteousness that God the Father requires, it is the only righteousness that God the Father will accept as the justifying righteousness for any individual, and the righteousness of God is only received by faith.
Persons who believe themselves righteous through their own works of righteousness, are only self righteous; and shall find that “the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself upon it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it,” (Isaiah 28:20). In our day, as in the past there is great “zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” For persons, “being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth,” (Romans 10: 2-4). We must be clothed in the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus, who is “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 23:6), and he is, the very righteousness of God, or we must perish to all eternity.
   Oh, Spirit of Christ, our most sovereign and glorious LORD, would you turn the hearts of many of those who are lost in the blindness of free-will works religion to the Sovereign Christ of the scriptures. In the day of thy power make thy people willing, according to thy word: in the Name of Christ; Amen.

A.J.Ison

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Transgressions Blotted Out


   
Transgressions Blotted Out

Psalm 51:1

“Have mercy upon me Oh God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”

            Personal sin being past and irrevocable; brings consternation upon the awakened soul of the sinner who at last realizes that he must meet the God against whom he has sinned; and answer for his affront to the perfect holiness of his creator. Further; by the word of truth, he may find that he is a helpless sinner, (having sinned in his federal head, Adam) and that because of participation in federal union in Adam he has received a fallen, corrupted, and ruined nature; and that, because of what he is by nature he is only obnoxious to eternal destruction in the sight of God. So that as he stands in the flesh and under the law of God; he is punishable in the sight of God to eternal ruin, the everlasting burnings, eternal contempt in the sight of God, and sentenced to ceaseless, unbearable and intolerable misery. But such a person may; through the providence of God, find that there is mercy in the Lord. Oh, glad day; when hope of peace with God is found for those who are and have been offenders of his holiness and truth.
            David knew of the mercy of God; he knew that our God delights to show mercy, and therefore betook himself to beg for mercy, seeing it was his only hope. He asked for mercy according to the tender mercies of God; and according to the lovingkindness of God; attributes that are in God as he is in himself. Though our God is a God of great mercies; yet he will not show mercy at the expense of his truth, and holiness, his law must be satisfied in its penalty and fulfilled in its precept: Therefore, God sent his Son; The Son of God, and God the Son, into this world to fill up the breach created by the sin of man.
            Christ would fill the breach by taking our nature into union with His Divine person; and in our nature, fulfill the Surety-ship engagements He had agreed to in the covenant of grace in old eternity. By His blood He would satisfy the penalty of the law; for we who were the subjects of his Surety-ship had sinned, and the sin of those for whom Christ is Surety was laid on him. In His Humanity He would obey the law to its jot and tittle and thus for His covenant people fulfill the precept of the law. Therefore; in the Surety of the covenant those who are the children of the covenant, are without fault before the law of God, for Christ Jesus has fulfilled all the law of God in the room and stead of His people. Therefore rejoice, Oh, believer, for thy sin is blotted out with the blood of Jesus Christ; and that blot, is a blot, that the judicial eye of God will never penetrate.
A.J. Ison