THE things which are for us of God are perfect and absolute. Let us for a moment consider a few of them. For example—Our justification.
Can a believer be more perfectly justified than he is? This short text alone, "It is God that justifieth" (Rom. 8:33), answers all questions on the subject. God's work is perfect. He Himself has wrought His people's justification; therefore, since God justifies us who believe, neither addition to, nor diminution from, our justification is possible.
We are justified by the blood of Christ, (Ch. 5:9.) The blood of God's Son has perfectly magnified God respecting our ungodliness and our unrighteousness. That blood is the full and absolute satisfaction to God for all the sins of all the persons who believe. That blood brings to God glory and honor in relation to His righteousness. In the perfection of the blood we are now justified. Nothing can be added to nor taken from the value of the blood of our Redeemer. Every loyal heart utterly repudiates the very shadow of a thought that the value or the power of the blood of his adorable Saviour could know any change, or that God's justifying work by that blood could fail.
“It is God who justifieth." It is God who declares His righteousness through the blood of His Son. It is the blood which perfectly answers God's righteous demands for our sins and also proclaims God's righteousness in having required full satisfaction for our sins. God justifies in grace, but on the basis of His own fulfilled righteousness. The sins of sinners are not passed over, but are perfectly answered for according to the requirements of divine justice. The very thought of justification brings before us God in His righteousness, in His justice, dealing with sin and sinners. We are now justified by the blood of Christ.
Liberty to enter into the holiest is now the believer's, and the liberty is perfect. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness (or liberty) to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19) is a blessing which is ours, and which is ours solely of God. The liberty is God-made. Man could not make it. The holiest is the divine dwelling-place; with that, man can have nothing to do save as God pleases. The blood of Jesus! What part has man in the shedding of that blood?
“Him ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." (Acts 2:23.) Man's part therein was his deepest guilt, but in that blood we see God's deepest grace.
The most terrible sin of man has been the occasion of the shedding of the precious blood, whereby the Lord, risen from the dead, has entered into the holiest on high. As we read, "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. 9:12.)
We contemplate with wonder this exceeding grace of God. None on earth or in heaven, save God, could fashion such a way into the holiest, and since this wondrous way is made, who shall change it, or add to its perfection? With thankful and adoring hearts it is ours to tread it by faith. The holiest is the dwelling-place of God, which in the figures of Judaism was entered but once every year by the high priest, and then not without blood shed for the sins of himself, and of the people. The holiest is now where God is, and into this place of light and glory the humblest believer is invited by His gracious God to draw near. As we consider these things, we again say, who shall add to, or take from, the perfection of these blessings which are for us, but which are solely of God?
The believer is now accepted or taken into favor in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:6.)
Now who takes the saint into this wondrous favor? Our God Himself. And who is the Beloved? The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father! Can a believer be more perfectly accepted than this? The favor of God is unchangeable; heaven and earth will pass away, but God knows no variableness nor shadow of turning.
As we meditate upon our justification, our sins, and indeed Satan and his accusations, are in our view, but with them our God, who in His absolute grace, acting for His own glory and that of His Son, has set poor hell-deserving sinners before Himself without a sin to be laid to their charge. When we meditate upon the favor into which we are taken in the Beloved One, no creature can by any possibility have a stand-point whence to rise up and say one word as to what God may deem it His pleasure to perform. Of His own good pleasure He has been pleased that His saints should be accepted, graced, taken into His favor in the excellence, the sweetness, the loveliness of Christ. They are not simply secured by His power and majesty, but brought into favor in the Beloved One—the Beloved of the Father, the Beloved One of God. This unutterably wonderful choice of God is exclusively of God. This grace stands and shines in its own sublime glory; we wonder and adore. God's thoughts are our admiration; let us worship Him for His unchangeable grace.