Eliphaz to Job: "Call out now; Is there anyone who will answer you? And to which of the holy ones will you turn?" (Job 5:1)
Job's response: "how can a man be righteous before God? If one wished to contend with Him, He could not answer Him one time out of a thousand." (9:1)... "For He is not a man, as I am, That I may answer Him, And that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his hand on us both." (v 32-33)
Job gets right to the heart problem very succinctly. Man cannot be reconciled to God; nor God to man without an appropriate mediator. Man cannot do this. Man cannot contend, or argue with God. Nor can man act as a mediator.
But, there is One who is a Mediator between both - "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." (1 Tim. 2:5)
To answer Job's question: "how can a man be righteous before God?" Justification requires the work of the God-man, Jesus.
Only Christ is both God and Man - and able to "lay His hand on both."
We cannot answer God; another man cannot be the arbiter between He & us; it required Christ the God-man.
There is only one Mediator the text says. There is no other.
Showing posts with label Justification. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justification. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Justification Outlined by Dr. George B. Fletcher
Introduction
"How then can man be justified (counted righteous) with God? (Job 25:4). God has given the answer to this universal question in the Holy Scriptures, the Christian's perfect lamp and never-failing light. We need not be cast afloat upon the waves of modern thought, nor drift with human speculation. The doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ is a doctrine of great importance. It is the fundamental article of the gospel, the basis of Christianity. It was the great doctrine of the Reformation—what our first reformers made their chief study, and by it cut the sinews of popery, the anti-Christian doctrines of penance and purgatory, pardons and indulgences, of the merit of good works, works of supererogation.
Luther called it The Article of the church by which it stands or falls. As this is, the church is; if this obtains, the church is in a well-settled and prosperous state; but if this loses ground and is rejected, it is in a ruinous state. If this is a rule to judge by, it may be easily discerned in what case the church, and interest of religion, now are.
"How then can man be justified (counted righteous) with God? (Job 25:4). God has given the answer to this universal question in the Holy Scriptures, the Christian's perfect lamp and never-failing light. We need not be cast afloat upon the waves of modern thought, nor drift with human speculation. The doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ is a doctrine of great importance. It is the fundamental article of the gospel, the basis of Christianity. It was the great doctrine of the Reformation—what our first reformers made their chief study, and by it cut the sinews of popery, the anti-Christian doctrines of penance and purgatory, pardons and indulgences, of the merit of good works, works of supererogation.
Luther called it The Article of the church by which it stands or falls. As this is, the church is; if this obtains, the church is in a well-settled and prosperous state; but if this loses ground and is rejected, it is in a ruinous state. If this is a rule to judge by, it may be easily discerned in what case the church, and interest of religion, now are.
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