Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.
The fortunate ones are those whose wrongdoings are pardoned and hidden from reckoning, because the Lord refuses to charge their sin against them. That pardon is justification by faith, which means full remission of deserved punishment, acceptance into divine favor, being treated as righteous, and freedom from condemnation. It rests entirely on Christ bearing the sinner's guilt, curse and penalty as blameless Substitute and Redeemer, suffering in the sinner's place and shedding His blood to atone. Through faith His perfect obedience and merits are imputed and credited to the repenting believer, so the sinner stands before God uncondemned, faultless and clothed in spotless purity. This gift is received by the penitent, contrite sinner who surrenders and takes Jesus as personal Saviour by faith, passing from rebel to loyal adopted child, and the one so forgiven is changed to resist sin, keep God's law and grow in holiness.
Forgiveness Through Christ's Righteousness
Blessed are those whose law-breaking is forgiven and whose sins are covered, for the Lord does not count sin against them, a blessedness received through grace and redemption by faith and the sinner's hope when charged with breaking the law. That forgiveness is justification by faith, and pardon and justification are one and the same thing. It is remission of deserved punishment, reception into favor with God, being treated as righteous, freedom from condemnation, and the very opposite of condemnation. It rests on Christ bearing the sinner's guilt, curse and penalty as blameless Substitute, Surety and Redeemer, being made a curse, suffering in the sinner's place, shedding His blood to atone, and healing by His stripes. He so redeemed humanity sold into bondage in low estate through inexpressible love, with guilt to be laid at Calvary.
Through faith His righteousness, perfect obedience and merits are imputed and credited to the repenting, believing sinner, and counted to those who believe in Him for pardon and peace. Though guilty and deserving punishment, people go free through faith in His merits because He suffered bearing their guilt when He Himself was blameless, and He imputes His own righteousness to them so He can present them to the Father as innocent with iniquities forgiven and sins covered. Thus the sinner stands before God uncondemned, faultless, innocent and precious for Christ's sake, clothed in garments of spotless purity. That imputed perfection also covers the defects of those who trust God and whose sincere, contrite efforts to obey are accepted, with His perfection covering their defects. It alone gives righteousness without blemish, and with His merits and intercession as Mediator it alone makes the worship of the repentant, believing soul acceptable to God, through whom alone mercy and salvation are granted, as symbolized by approaching God by blood for continual atonement and by incense for perpetual intercession.
In this God vindicates His justice while justifying the sinner who comes to Him by Christ, for Christ's sacrifice fully satisfies the demands of justice without abolishing the law, since the law cannot cleanse. His death for transgression proves the law unchangeable, for His sacrifice came because the law was transgressed. Sins forgiven and covered means the Father lays human sins on Christ, where none but His own eyes can discern them, and then hides His eyes from the guilt of the believing sinner because of imputed righteousness laid upon him, just as He hid His face from the innocence of Christ when Christ bore human sins, griefs and sorrows in His own body on the tree, as made manifest in the pardon of the dying thief. This imputed righteousness draws the most precious blessings in this life and bestows everlasting life in the kingdom of God. Like the ladder Jacob saw reaching fully from earth to heaven with the light of God on every round, Christ bridges the gulf. God gave His only begotten Son to a life of shame and humiliation, mockery and insult, and death, to redeem and to give moral power to repent of transgression and sin.
Receiving and Living Forgiveness
Blessed forgiveness is for the penitent sinner, contrite before God, who surrenders to Him and remains loyal to Him, who discerns Christ's atonement made in his behalf and accepts it as his only hope in this life and the life to come. By faith he takes Jesus as personal Saviour, laying hold upon imputed righteousness with the only genuine saving faith that rests on the perfection of Jesus as Surety, hungering and thirsting for that righteousness. Through that faith he passes from the position of a rebel, a child of sin, to the position of a loyal subject and adopted child, not because of any inherent goodness but because Christ receives him as His own child. Christ as Substitute and Surety bears his guilt, takes his place and suffers for his sins, reprieves him from the condemnation of death, gives him eternal life, and brings the guilty transgressor into favor with God and into strong hope, counted precious for Christ's sake.
No one has strength of his own, and no one can take one step toward God unless His grace first works on the heart and draws him. Yet as soon as the first step toward His mercy is made, God advances with pardon and grace, takes away sin and counts His own righteousness to the sinner. Those who feel their great need obtain it by asking the Lord in earnest united prayer offered in faith, and God accepts them, His blessing rests upon them, and His Spirit gives assurance of pardon. This blessed pardon is received and kept by faith, not by feeling, for faith and feeling are entirely distinct, faith resting on God and His promises and doing duty according to His expressed will whether feeling is present or absent.
Clear and distinct ideas of this imputed righteousness are greatly needed and have been dwelt upon far too little. Neglect of it leaves souls in the shadow of darkness, hopeless, faithless, and without moral power to resist the tempter. Clearer spiritual eyesight is needed to grasp it and to endure in faith.
The forgiven sinner is changed and enabled to resist sin and keep God's law, brought by credited righteousness into conformity to God's will, with Christ leading and His followers obeying, since sin and holiness cannot unite. Through living, active faith sanctification transforms people into Christ's image and likeness, advancing from strength to strength, cooperating with divine power to subdue sin and become holy. This brings peace apart from priests or outward forms, and a vital connection with God rather than satisfaction with the form of godliness and outward ceremonies while denying the power. Clothed with humility, believers bring forth love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness and goodness, with the object of glorifying God day by day.
Through this provision people today can fulfill the same requirement of perfect obedience to God's law that was given to Adam in Eden before the fall, that imputed righteousness alone giving righteousness without blemish. God gave His only begotten Son to a life of shame and humiliation, mockery and insult, and death, to give moral power to repent of transgression and sin, and to make it possible for the Lord to receive forgiven sinners into His kingdom as a loyal, obedient, loving people. This hope requires putting away impurity and dishonesty and teaching children the way of the Lord, for no progress in spiritual grace or success against the enemy is possible without Christ's grace.
Those who have received this imputed righteousness have entered the strait gate to eternal life, and they are to point souls to Jesus Christ and show them how to believe and receive it. It is the doctrine of the cross, truth greater and more precious than that brought by Moses descending with face glorified by communion with God, by the high priest reappearing from within the holy of holies, or by Isaiah fresh from beholding the Lord high and lifted up with His glory filling the temple. It comes not in word only but in the power of God to every one that believes, and must be borne by messengers whose lips are touched with a live coal from the altar, who are imbued with the Holy Spirit, who first meet with Christ in private prayer and bring no self into the work, who derive efficiency from God, and who become co-laborers with Christ bringing souls back to God by representing in actions the character of God.
The blessing belongs to the returning sinner whose wrongs are forgiven and covered because Christ Himself is working for him, not counting his sins against him but counting His own righteousness to him. God alone by His own power brings back His lost sheep when no eye pities and no hand is stretched out to save. To neglect such a soul, to pass by like the priest and Levite, to dishearten and discourage him instead of seeking him with self-denying love like the good Samaritan and the true Shepherd, is to oppose Christ's forgiving work, and God will require it and repay such injustice and un-Christlikeness. This forgiveness belongs to practical godliness and living out faith by practicing the truth in preparation for the coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven.
The fortunate ones are those whose wrongdoings are pardoned and hidden from reckoning, because the Lord refuses to charge their sin against them. That pardon is justification by faith, which means full remission of deserved punishment, acceptance into divine favor, being treated as righteous, and freedom from condemnation. It rests entirely on Christ bearing the sinner's guilt, curse and penalty as blameless Substitute and Redeemer, suffering in the sinner's place and shedding His blood to atone. Through faith His perfect obedience and merits are imputed and credited to the repenting believer, so the sinner stands before God uncondemned, faultless and clothed in spotless purity. This gift is received by the penitent, contrite sinner who surrenders and takes Jesus as personal Saviour by faith, passing from rebel to loyal adopted child, and the one so forgiven is changed to resist sin, keep God's law and grow in holiness.
Forgiveness Through Christ's Righteousness
Blessed are those whose law-breaking is forgiven and whose sins are covered, for the Lord does not count sin against them, a blessedness received through grace and redemption by faith and the sinner's hope when charged with breaking the law.
That forgiveness is justification by faith, and pardon and justification are one and the same thing. It is remission of deserved punishment, reception into favor with God, being treated as righteous, freedom from condemnation, and the very opposite of condemnation.
It rests on Christ bearing the sinner's guilt, curse and penalty as blameless Substitute, Surety and Redeemer, being made a curse, suffering in the sinner's place, shedding His blood to atone, and healing by His stripes. He so redeemed humanity sold into bondage in low estate through inexpressible love, with guilt to be laid at Calvary.
Through faith His righteousness, perfect obedience and merits are imputed and credited to the repenting, believing sinner, and counted to those who believe in Him for pardon and peace. Though guilty and deserving punishment, people go free through faith in His merits because He suffered bearing their guilt when He Himself was blameless, and He imputes His own righteousness to them so He can present them to the Father as innocent with iniquities forgiven and sins covered. Thus the sinner stands before God uncondemned, faultless, innocent and precious for Christ's sake, clothed in garments of spotless purity.
That imputed perfection also covers the defects of those who trust God and whose sincere, contrite efforts to obey are accepted, with His perfection covering their defects. It alone gives righteousness without blemish, and with His merits and intercession as Mediator it alone makes the worship of the repentant, believing soul acceptable to God, through whom alone mercy and salvation are granted, as symbolized by approaching God by blood for continual atonement and by incense for perpetual intercession.
In this God vindicates His justice while justifying the sinner who comes to Him by Christ, for Christ's sacrifice fully satisfies the demands of justice without abolishing the law, since the law cannot cleanse. His death for transgression proves the law unchangeable, for His sacrifice came because the law was transgressed. Sins forgiven and covered means the Father lays human sins on Christ, where none but His own eyes can discern them, and then hides His eyes from the guilt of the believing sinner because of imputed righteousness laid upon him, just as He hid His face from the innocence of Christ when Christ bore human sins, griefs and sorrows in His own body on the tree, as made manifest in the pardon of the dying thief. This imputed righteousness draws the most precious blessings in this life and bestows everlasting life in the kingdom of God.
Like the ladder Jacob saw reaching fully from earth to heaven with the light of God on every round, Christ bridges the gulf. God gave His only begotten Son to a life of shame and humiliation, mockery and insult, and death, to redeem and to give moral power to repent of transgression and sin.
Receiving and Living Forgiveness
Blessed forgiveness is for the penitent sinner, contrite before God, who surrenders to Him and remains loyal to Him, who discerns Christ's atonement made in his behalf and accepts it as his only hope in this life and the life to come. By faith he takes Jesus as personal Saviour, laying hold upon imputed righteousness with the only genuine saving faith that rests on the perfection of Jesus as Surety, hungering and thirsting for that righteousness. Through that faith he passes from the position of a rebel, a child of sin, to the position of a loyal subject and adopted child, not because of any inherent goodness but because Christ receives him as His own child. Christ as Substitute and Surety bears his guilt, takes his place and suffers for his sins, reprieves him from the condemnation of death, gives him eternal life, and brings the guilty transgressor into favor with God and into strong hope, counted precious for Christ's sake.
No one has strength of his own, and no one can take one step toward God unless His grace first works on the heart and draws him. Yet as soon as the first step toward His mercy is made, God advances with pardon and grace, takes away sin and counts His own righteousness to the sinner. Those who feel their great need obtain it by asking the Lord in earnest united prayer offered in faith, and God accepts them, His blessing rests upon them, and His Spirit gives assurance of pardon. This blessed pardon is received and kept by faith, not by feeling, for faith and feeling are entirely distinct, faith resting on God and His promises and doing duty according to His expressed will whether feeling is present or absent.
Clear and distinct ideas of this imputed righteousness are greatly needed and have been dwelt upon far too little. Neglect of it leaves souls in the shadow of darkness, hopeless, faithless, and without moral power to resist the tempter. Clearer spiritual eyesight is needed to grasp it and to endure in faith.
The forgiven sinner is changed and enabled to resist sin and keep God's law, brought by credited righteousness into conformity to God's will, with Christ leading and His followers obeying, since sin and holiness cannot unite. Through living, active faith sanctification transforms people into Christ's image and likeness, advancing from strength to strength, cooperating with divine power to subdue sin and become holy. This brings peace apart from priests or outward forms, and a vital connection with God rather than satisfaction with the form of godliness and outward ceremonies while denying the power. Clothed with humility, believers bring forth love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness and goodness, with the object of glorifying God day by day.
Through this provision people today can fulfill the same requirement of perfect obedience to God's law that was given to Adam in Eden before the fall, that imputed righteousness alone giving righteousness without blemish. God gave His only begotten Son to a life of shame and humiliation, mockery and insult, and death, to give moral power to repent of transgression and sin, and to make it possible for the Lord to receive forgiven sinners into His kingdom as a loyal, obedient, loving people. This hope requires putting away impurity and dishonesty and teaching children the way of the Lord, for no progress in spiritual grace or success against the enemy is possible without Christ's grace.
Those who have received this imputed righteousness have entered the strait gate to eternal life, and they are to point souls to Jesus Christ and show them how to believe and receive it. It is the doctrine of the cross, truth greater and more precious than that brought by Moses descending with face glorified by communion with God, by the high priest reappearing from within the holy of holies, or by Isaiah fresh from beholding the Lord high and lifted up with His glory filling the temple. It comes not in word only but in the power of God to every one that believes, and must be borne by messengers whose lips are touched with a live coal from the altar, who are imbued with the Holy Spirit, who first meet with Christ in private prayer and bring no self into the work, who derive efficiency from God, and who become co-laborers with Christ bringing souls back to God by representing in actions the character of God.
The blessing belongs to the returning sinner whose wrongs are forgiven and covered because Christ Himself is working for him, not counting his sins against him but counting His own righteousness to him. God alone by His own power brings back His lost sheep when no eye pities and no hand is stretched out to save. To neglect such a soul, to pass by like the priest and Levite, to dishearten and discourage him instead of seeking him with self-denying love like the good Samaritan and the true Shepherd, is to oppose Christ's forgiving work, and God will require it and repay such injustice and un-Christlikeness. This forgiveness belongs to practical godliness and living out faith by practicing the truth in preparation for the coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven.