The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 401

XXXI. Our

Status. "

And

he believed in the Lord

counted

it

— Gen. XV.

to

him

:

and he

for righteousness."

6.

The right touches a man's status. So long as the law has not proven him guilty, has not convicted and sentenced him, his legal But as soon as his status is that of a free and law-abiding citizen. guilt is proven in court and the jury has convicted him, he passes from that into the status of the bound and law-breaking citizen. The same applies to our relation to God. Our status before God is

that either of the just or of the unjust.

not condemned or

we

In the former,

are released from condemnation.

He

we

are

that

is

under condemnation occupies the status of the unjust. Hence, and this is noteworthy, a man's status depends not upon what he is, but upon the decision of the proper authorities regarding him; not upon what he is actually, but upon what he is counted still

to be.

A clerk in an office is innocently suspected of embezzlement, and accused before a court of law. He pleads not guilty but the suspicions against him carry conviction, and the judge condemns him. Now, tho he did not embezzle, is actually innocent, he is counted guilty. And since a man does not determine his own status, but his sovereign or judge determines it for him, the status of this clerk, altho innocent, is, from the moment of his conviction, ;

that of a law-breaker.

And

the contrary

may

occur just as well.

In the absence of convicting evidence the judge

may

honest clerk, who, altho guilty and a law-breaker, status of a law-abiding

and honest

citizen.

acquit a dis-

still

retains his

In this case he is dis-

Hence a man's status deis counted honorable. pends not upon what he actually is, but what he is counted \.o be. The reason is, that man's status has no reference to his inward being, but only to the manner in which he is to be treated. It would be useless to determine this himself, for his fellow citizens would honorable, but he

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