Spurgeon Meditations

 

Just, and the justifier of him which believeth.

Rom 3 26

Being justified by faith we have peace with God. Conscience accuses no longer. Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him. Memory looks back upon past sins with deep sorrow for the sin but yet with no dread of any penalty to come; for Christ has paid the debt of His people to the last jot and tittle and received the divine receipt; and unless God can be so unjust as to demand double payment for one debt no soul for whom Jesus died as a substitute can ever be cast into hell. It seems to be one of the very principles of our enlightened nature to believe that God is just; we feel that it must be so and this gives us our terror at first; but is it not marvellous that this very same belief that God is just becomes afterwards the pillar of our confidence and peace! If God be just I a sinner alone and without a substitute must be punished; but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now if God be just I a sinner standing in Christ can never be punished. God must change His nature before one soul for whom Jesus was a substitute can ever by any possibility suffer the lash of the law. Therefore Jesus having taken the place of the believer-- having rendered a full equivalent to divine wrath for all that His people ought to have suffered as the result of sin the believer can shout with glorious triumph Who shall layanything to the charge of God's elect? Not God for He hath justified; not Christ for He hath died yea rather hath risenagain. My hope lives not because I am not a sinner but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy but that being unholy He is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am or shall be or feel or know but in what Christ is in what He has done and in what He is now doing for me. On the lion of justice the fair maid of hope rides like a queen.


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