December 17 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

" ... and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (Rom. 3:24–25).

Devotional

Christ becomes "the LORD our Righteousness" (Jer. 23:6) by a change of place with the church, and in him we ... become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). There is the transfer of sin to the innocent. And, in return, there is the transfer of righteousness to the guilty.

This method of justification does no violence whatever to the moral government of God. So far from a shade obscuring its glory, that glory instead beams forth with a brightness that must have remained forever veiled except for the redemption of man by Christ. God never appears so like himself as when he sits in judgment upon the person of a sinner and determines his standing before him upon the ground of that satisfaction to his law rendered by the Son of God in the place of the guilty. Then he appears infinitely holy and at the same time infinitely gracious, infinitely just and at the same time infinitely merciful. Love, as if it had long been panting for an outlet, now leaps forth and embraces the sinner; while justice, holiness, and truth gaze upon the wondrous spectacle with infinite complacency and delight.

And shall we not pause and bestow admiration and gratitude upon him, who was constrained to stand in our place of degradation and woe, that we might stand in his place of righteousness and glory? What wondrous love and stupendous grace that he was willing to have taken upon himself our sin, and curse, and woe! How humiliating was the exchange to him! He could only raise us by his own stooping. He could only emancipate us by wearing our chain. He could only deliver us from death by himself dying. He could only invest us with the spotless robe of his pure righteousness by wrapping around himself the leprous mantle of our sin and curse.

Oh, how precious ought Jesus to be to every believing heart! What affection, what service, what sacrifice, what devotion, he deserves at our hands! O Lord, incline my heart to yield itself supremely to you!

But in what way does this great blessing of justification become ours? In other words, what is the instrument through which the sinner is justified? The answer is at hand, in the text, "to be received by faith." Faith, and faith alone, makes this righteousness of God ours. "By him everyone who believes is justified" (Acts 13:39).

And why is it solely and exclusively by faith? The answer is at hand, "it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace" (Rom. 4:16). If justification is through any other medium than by trusting, then the perfect freeness of the blessing will not be secured.

God's Word says, "justified by his grace as a gift"—that is, freely, gratuitously, absolutely for nothing. Not only was God in no sense whatever bound to justify the sinner, but also both the sovereignty of his law and the sovereignty of his love alike demand that, in extending to the sinner the greatest boon of his government, he should do so upon no other principle than as a perfect act of grace on the part of the Giver, and as a perfect gratuity on the part of the recipient—"without money and without price" (Isa. 55:1).

Therefore, whatever is added to faith as an instrument of the sinner's receiving the verdict of justification—whether it be baptism, or another rite, or any work or condition performed by the creature—renders the act entirely void and of no effect.

The justification of the believing sinner is as free as the God of love and grace can make it.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure,
cleanse me from its guilt and pow'r.

(Augustus M. Toplady, 1776)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.