God is not now mending or curing the bad qualities of an evil nature. He has tried man over and over again, and always proved him to be very bad—"only evil and that continually." Not only is he a sinner by practice, never having done any good, for "there is none that doeth good, no, not one," but his nature is irremediably bad, and cannot be made better. Yet how few believe this,—how many entirely deny it I What multitudes are trying to make themselves better as they say, hoping to be good, and to get fit at last for God's presence, by what they can do, adding, that they look to God for His help, in order to do it. What a soul-destroying delusion! What vast numbers are victimized by this net of Satan's! They work, and work, and work, and boast too of their good intentions and sincerity, notwithstanding it is most plainly declared by the living God, and written in His most true and infallible word, that "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Rom. 8:88So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:8)) Can anything be plainer? How sad. the thought, that so many are setting at naught this divine declaration, and Pharisee-like working hard to "cleanse the outside of the cup and platter," vainly trying to commend themselves to God by their good works only, in our day, the delusion is more refined, because they acknowledge that they need God's help to accomplish it, or, that they need the Savior to be a patch, a new piece, to mend the old rotten garment of the natural man. The Scripture, however, meets all this, for it assures us that the old garment cannot be mended. "No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the old, and the rent is made worse." (Matt. 9:1616No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. (Matthew 9:16)) Observe, dear reader, "the rent is made worse"—the garment is not really mended with all the well-meant attempts, but "the rent is made worse;" that is, a man is in a worse state before God, who uses Christ as a patch to mend up his own rags of self-righteousness, than, a man simply in his sins; and, for this reason, he is taken in the Devil's snare, under a special delusion, caught in the fowler's net, like the fly in the spider's web.
Oh! dear reader, be assured that God will have no mending. He pronounces man to be so bad that do what he will, he "cannot please God." His case then is utterly hopeless as to mending, or trying to make the old nature better, or seeking to use Christ to fill up the rent, or to a mere make-weight of human deficiencies. Oh no! What you want, dear reader, to enable you to stand in peace in God's presence is the knowledge that your sins have been judged, and put away, and that He has given you a perfect righteousness in which to stand in acceptability before Him. And blessed be God, these two things the Lord Jesus has secured for us. "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)) There is no patching here—it is deliverance in judgment from the old guilty state and standing, and being brought into a new state and standing in perfect acceptance in Christ, before God.
Christ died for sinners. On the cross He bare our sins, "suffered for sins the just for the unjust;" sins were thus judged upon Him instead of us, and so unsparingly judged by God in righteousness, that we are not only told that He "purged our sins," but that God was so satisfied with that work as to say of us, "Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more." The believer's sins then having been judged on Christ, how can they ever be judged again? But more than this, the old nature, not being capable of bringing forth good fruit, has been judged. The old, rotten, filthy garment of self-righteousness, being found too bad to be mended, God declares that in the death of His Son, He " condemned sin in the flesh," that is, He judged the root of evil, the" old man," in the cross where Christ was our substitute—" made sin for us. "Thus our" old man"—the nature from which all evil fruit proceeds—"is crucified with Christ." Precious deliverance! There is no mending here, but righteous judgment, thus vindicating all, the just and holy claims of the throne of God. Well might Paul say, "I am crucified with Christ"—"dead to the law"—"dead to sin"—"dead with Christ." But this is not all. He gives us, so to speak, a new garment—a new life—a new nature—a new standing in righteousness and peace before God. Christ is risen from the dead, and gone into heaven; and in Him God gives us eternal life: "The gift of God is eternal life." Observe, it is a gift; and being "born of God" we have a new nature, and Christ being our righteousness as well as our life and peace, it can now be most truly said of the believer, "But NOW in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off ARE made nigh by the blood of Christ." (Eph. 13.) It is all in Christ, and by His precious blood. What a salvation! What a standing! What nearness to God! Oh! dear reader, There is no mending here. Blessed be God, the vilest sinner who receives Jesus the Son of God as His Savior, is now in Christ, "made nigh," "accepted in the beloved;" for "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." (Rom. 10:44For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. (Romans 10:4).)
The believer then is now spoken of in Scripture as "not in the flesh," but as "in Christ Jesus;" but while having a new nature, "that which is born of the Spirit," he still has the old nature, "that which is born of the flesh;" but instead of hoping in any amendment of it, he is told "through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body," to reckon himself to be dead, and to know all His springs and strength in a risen and ascended Christ. This is not mending, but mortifying. How very different!