March 16

How then can man be justified with God? - Job 25:4.

LET us consider the question as implying a perfect negation. This is evidently what the speaker intended. “How then can man be justified with God?” as though it were an utter impossibility that it could be effected. And if we view man without any reference to the Lord Jesus, or the economy of grace, it is apparent that his justification with God is impossible. There are two things to be considered in a man,-his sins and his services,- his worst and his best things.

Now, it is evident that he cannot be justified by his worst things; but it is equally apparent that he cannot be justified by his best, for his obedience is imperfect. If not defective in principle, it often is in spirit. There is such a mixture of motive, so much coldness of feeling, so much worldliness of thought and carnality of desire, that a Christian can never refer, with any composure or complacency, to that obedience to the will of God which he is enabled to render. We make our appeal to the provision which God has made in the gospel of his Son, in order to show that it is impossible for a man, without reference to Christ, to be justified before God. Never would Christ have descended from heaven, assumed our nature, submitted to poverty, experienced every indignity, endured inconceivable sufferings, and eventually bled and died on the cross, if man’s justification with God could have been effected without his intervention.

We may refer to the express decisions and testimonies of Scripture to illustrate that a man without Christ cannot be justified with God. And in relation to the doctrine of justification, it is evident that a man can gain a clear and satisfactory reply to the question of the text from no other quarter than the word of God; and its statements on this subject are precise, minute, full, and most satisfactory.