The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 416

;

JUSTIFICATION

376

brethren, and again, no

!

It

not

is

so,

and

may

it

not so be pre-

sented; for then there would be no justification on God's part.

You have a bill to collect from a man who failed in business, but who was accepted as the partner of a rich banker, who discharged all his debts. Is there now the slightest mercy or goodness on your part, when you indorse that man's check? Doing otherwise, would you not

flatly contradict solid

and tangible

facts?

No, the Lord God does not act that way.

Christ does not blot

out the debt, and obtain us treasure outside of

ungodly enter, through

faith,

Jesus independently of the Father

God nor does ;

the

into partnership with the wealthy ;

neither does God, being informed

who already had become For then ther« would be no honor for God, nor praise for His grace it would be not the ungodly, but, on the contrary, a believer that was justified. The matter is not transacted that way. It was the Lord God, first of all, who, without respect of person, and hence without respect to faith in the person, according to His sovereign power, chose a portion of the ungodly to eternal life not as Judge, but as Sovereign. But being Judge as well as Sovereign, and therefore of these transactions, justify the ungodly,

a believer.

;

;

incapable of violating the right,

He who

Triune God, has also created and given quired for salvation

;

all

has chosen, that that

is

is,

the

necessary and re-

so that these elect persons, at the proper time

and by appropriate means, may receive and undergo the things by which in the end it will appear that all God's doing was majesty and all His decision just. And, therefore, this whole ordering of the Covenant of Grace and in this Covenant of Grace the ordering of the Mediator; and in the Mediator that of all satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness; and of that satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness, first the itnputation, and after that the gift. Wherefore God does indeed declare the ungodly just before he This believes, that he may believe, and not after he believes. justifying act is the creative act of God, in which is also deposited the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, and from which flow also the imputation and granting of all these to the unWherefore there is in this act of justification not the slightHe alone is declared just who, being est mistake or untruth. ungodly in himself, by this declaration is and becomes righteous in godly.

Christ.

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