Thy mercy, my God, is the theme
of my song. The vastness of God cannot be
fathomed by such mortals as we are. He alone inhabits eternity
and hath immortality while we are but creatures of a span.
The only thing we can possibly know about Him is in those things
which He sees fit to reveal to us, or else they should forever
remain a secret. He is infinite, we are finite.
He is high and lifted up, and his train fills the temple, while
we are mere beggars and maggots. It is with this in mind that
the psalmist wrote, when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy
fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what
is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that
thou visitest him? In this same vein, Job said,
what is man that thou shouldest magnify him, and that thou shouldest
set thine heart upon him? He was aware of the utter separation
that existed between him who was higher than the heavens and
those men which he had created. Before Adam disobeyed the Lord
and plunged his posterity into death and destruction by those
actions, he enjoyed an idyllic existence in the Garden of Eden.
Yet he was but a servant of God and enjoyed none of the fruits
of sonship, even though the tree of life was at his disposal.
Many look at his existence as probation, which he failed. Yet
it seems clear in the scriptures that as all things were appointed
by God to occur according to his purpose, so too was Adam's
existence. Before there was ever a sinner,
there was a Savior. The Son of God was the righteousness
of God from the beginning. In fact, before the foundation
of the world, the Father gave a people to the Son, even before
they ever had an existence which occupied time and space. He was
their righteousness then, and they were His delight and the
apple of His eye and were joined to Him in a mystical union, which
His glory is to contemplate, as He determined to plunge them
into the darkness of guilt in order that He might manifest
His grace in their redemption and bring many sons to glory.
Though they were by virtue of their subsequent disobedience
the subjects of His wrath, even as others, they were never the
objects of His wrath. For it has been His purpose from
the beginning to deliver them and clothe them in the righteousness
of Christ as new creatures, conforming them to Christ and setting them
free from the law of sin and death. The carnal mind rejects
the notion of Christ being the only means of righteousness with
God. Men are convinced that their religions are fine, one being
just as good as another. They are sure that the comparative
good deeds of men will count for something when all shall
give an account in the day of judgment. It does not seem reasonable
to the flesh to conclude that there is not one thing that a
man can do to enhance his standing with God. Nor does it seem quite
fair to him to consider that men could be morally upright
and workers of good deeds, and yet be found as reprehensible
in God's sight. Yet the scripture plainly says,
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags, and we do all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away. If our righteousnesses
are as a minstrel's cloth before God, how must our sin appear
to Him? There is not one speck of acceptability
in us which is ever the product of ourselves, or even one shred
of righteous behavior that can be discovered in us, which is
not the result of His performance as He works in us both the will
and to-do of His good pleasure. Our only acceptability with a
sin-hating, holy God is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ,
wherein He has taken the guilt and punishment due to us because
of sin upon Himself, and justified us by His own satisfaction of
the law, being our sin-bearer and substitute. Our sin became
His. His righteousness became ours.
Through the ages to come, the subject of rejoicing for the
blood-bought sons of God shall be to magnify the glory of His
grace and to praise Him for His substitutionary work in their
behalf. Just as He has been their righteousness
before the foundation of the world, and their righteousness
in the present age is their justifier, so He shall be their righteousness
in the ages to come. Christ is the sum of all of their
righteousness forever. John tells us of his vision of
heaven. And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and
the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the
sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it. For the glory of
God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the
nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it,
and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into
it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for
there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory
and honor of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise
enter into it anything that defile it, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination or maketh a lie, but they which are written in
the Lamb's book of life. If you would like a free transcript
of this broadcast, email us at forthepoor at windstream.net.