BLESSED BY THE UNCHANGING GOD

God’s elect are said to be loved before they ever actually existed. He loved us with an everlasting love. They are said to be “chosen” before they actually existed. God chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world. They are said to be “blessed” by God before they ever actually existed. “Blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ… before the foundation of the world.”

Not only were they loved, chosen and blessed before they actually existed, they were loved, chosen and blessed before Christ actually came into this world and before He suffered the death of the cross. How can a holy God love the unholy? How can a perfect God chose the imperfect? How can a just God bless the unrighteous? God can do anything that He wants as long as He acts in ways consistent to who He is and with what He says. He must and always does act as the holy and just God that He is! He has done all these things for and to His people before the world began by doing them to them and for them IN CHRIST. He justified them all in Christ when He put them in union with the righteous One. He loved them, chose them and blessed them with all spiritual blessings in the immutable Surety and Savior, Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday and today and forever! He did all these things to assure their salvation, to show it clearly all of His grace and to assure all glory to be His. Rather than diminishing the glory of Christ and His cross work, this exalts the confidence which God has always had in His Son being the one who “first trusted in Him.” It exalts the faithfulness of Christ and the impossibility of His failing to do all He pledged for them in that everlasting covenant. It shows how sure the Surety made it when He assumed all responsibility for our salvation. It shows the one way that the holy and just God of heaven could declare such sinners as we are to be righteous, “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:24 does not show when we were justified by an act of the free and sovereign will and grace of God the Father but it does say how: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:” God justified His people “through” the redeeming work of Christ. Not by our works or our faith but through His shed blood as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” I am thankful that God trusted His Son and His faithfulness so as to bless us with ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS in Him before the world began. Isn’t justification a spiritual blessing?

Gary Shepard

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Hebrews 9:12

This shows the truth of his human nature, and the virtue of its blood, as in union with his divine Person; by which he opened the way into the holiest of all, as the surety of his people, and gives them boldness and liberty to follow him there; he carried his blood not in a basin, as the high priest carried the blood of goats and calves, but in his veins; and by it, having been shed by him, he entered not into the holy place made with hands, but into heaven itself; and that not every year, as the high priest, but "once" for all, having done his work; or as follows, having obtained eternal redemption; for us, from sin, Satan, the law, and death, to which his people were in bondage, and which he obtained by paying a ransom price for them; which was not corruptible things, as silver and gold but his precious, blood: in the original text it is, "having found eternal redemption"; there seems to be an allusion to Job 33:24. “Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.” This was what was sought for long ago by the Old Testament saints who were wishing, waiting, and longing for this salvation; it is a thing very precious and difficult to find; it is to be had nowhere but in Christ, and when found in him, is matter of great joy to sensible sinners; God found it in him, and found him to be a proper person to effect it; and Christ has found it by being the author of it: this is called an eternal redemption, because it extends to the saints in all ages; backwards and forwards; it includes eternal life and happiness; and such as are sharers in it shall never perish, but shall be saved with an everlasting salvation; it is so called in opposition to the carnal expiations of the high priests, and in distinction from temporal redemptions, deliverances, and salvations.

John Gill

Many times true heretics expose themselves by being the first to label others as heretics. Like wolves in sheep’s clothing they cry first and loudest, “Wolf!” They expose themselves because they charge others as heretics on the basis of something they do. They make the standard to be agreement with them not God! Knowing the weakness, continuing plague of unbelief and the error of us all, I am hesitant to label a man as such. I might be wrong. I rest in this fact: “The Lord knoweth them that are His…” I desire to preach the truth of Christ and I will leave it to Him to apply the labels.

GS

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness; that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Ro 3:23-26

THERE are two points that every gospel preacher should never cease to enforce upon the consciences of those who desire to fear God. One is, the utter fall of man; and the other, the complete salvation of the elect through the blood and righteousness of Immanuel. In these two points there must be no trifling, no compromise. On the one hand, the fall of man is never to be set forth in any other way but as thorough and complete; and on the other, the recovery by the mediation and work of the Son of God must be set forth as entire and as complete as the fall. If the fall be half way, the recovery will be but half way; but if the fall be to the very deepest centre of ruin, guilt and misery, then the recovery will be to the very highest point of glory, salvation and bliss. Thus, like tendon and mortise, they fit into each other, and the one moves side by side with the other. So that in preaching we cannot separate the utter fall of man from the complete salvation of those who are interested in covenant love and blood.