THE "due time" was when man had been fully tried and found worse and worse. The nations had all along gone after false gods. The favored nation, called to bear witness of the one true God, had proved more guilty than any, not only in rebellion against Him, but eager to follow any and every strange god. Having therefore one Son, His Well-beloved, He sent Him also last unto them, a remnant brought back from Babylon for the purpose. Surely they would reverence His Son, their Messiah! But no: man, the Jew, after all his experience, and in the face of the prophets, would not have God at any price, not even when He came as Immanuel among them. This is the Heir, said the husbandmen among themselves come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.
This is the great truth for you, dear reader, if you have not already learned it from God. You are no better than any. You are verily guilty, living in your sins, and in danger of dying in your sins, till you receive Christ. And here is the great sin which far exceeds other sins. For it means rejecting God when He came down in the person of His Son, deigning to partake of humanity to reconcile you to God, in compassionate love. But man would not be reconciled; he scorned and hated Christ. It was not transgression of law only, but contempt of grace, when “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Jew and Gentile would have none of Him. On the contrary, the Jews, by hand of lawless men, the Gentiles, crucified and slew Him who came in light and love to bless them.
How are you treating the Lord of glory? How have you till now requited the love of Him Who died for you? For to this the grace of God turned His death. Instead of regarding it as nothing but deadly affront to God and the worst sin of man, God made Christ, Who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become His righteousness in Christ. That is, God made Him to be the bearer of sin, in suffering its judgment at His own hand, that we might be objects of His justifying righteousness. Christ was identified with our evil to remove it out of His sight for those who believe; and we are identified with Him, Who from God is made to us righteousness as well as wisdom, and sanctification, and redemption.
How worthy of God that our time of evident and utter ruin should be the "due time" of His salvation When man was at his worst, God did, showed, and gave His best, in grace: His Son became not only a Man but a sacrifice, the only efficacious sacrifice, for men however vile and powerless. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."
On the ground of man's righteousness, you have no standing, you are lost. Christ dead for you is the ground of God's righteousness, Who so values that one offering for sins that He can and does justify freely every soul that believes the gospel. Oh! then repent and believe. Doubt not that God is by Christ work just and the justifier of him that believes. To condemn even an ungodly tine who believes in Christ' would slight His work. This God never does; yea, He justifies him. May it be your portion now and forever!