It is that time of year when many people will make many resolutions. Our past experiences doing this in former years ought to show us how foolish the whole notion of “man’s free will” really is. Our resolutions are just our “willing” not to do something in the coming year or to do something. How many will resolve to lose weight in the coming year? How many as I have failed to do so in the past? How many, like myself, will probably not do it? The words of Christ come to my mind: “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” (Mt 6:27) If we cannot lose weight by simply willing to do so, how impossible it must be in spiritual matters. Christ again said, “Ye will not come to me that you might have life.” (Jn. 5:40) That is, you will not will to come to Me! We say we will do this or that in the coming year but the apostle James warns: “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” (Jas 4:13-15) Even the things God commands us to do we cannot do apart from His enabling grace and power! So remembering our weakness and our need for God’s grace and strength, we pray for divine help that we would abide faithful to God, to His gospel and to His people in the coming year. That we would seek to read and study His word more diligently in the coming year. That we might pray more, being aided by the Spirit, seeking God’s will and thanking Him for His many mercies to us. That we might cease our murmuring and makes our voices the instruments of His praise and glory. That we might lift up, encourage and help our brethren rather than criticize, speak ill of or divide with them. Oh for grace that we might be faithful to the public worship of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Lord, make us willing in the day of Your power! Lead us, quicken us, watch over us and give us more grace, more faith, causing us in the coming year to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ!

GS

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Romans 8:29

Our text begins by the expression, "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate," and many senses have been given to this word "foreknow" though in this case one commends itself beyond every other. Some have thought that it simply, means that God predestinated men whose future history ho foreknow. The text before us cannot be so understood, because the Lord foreknows the history of every man, and angel, and devil. So far as mere prescience goes, every man is foreknown, and yet no one will assert that all men are predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus. But, it is further asserted that the Lord foreknow who would exercise repentance, who would believe in Jesus, and who would persevere in a consistent life to the end. This is readily granted, but a reader must wear very powerful magnifying spectacles before he will be able to discover that sense in the text. Upon looking carefully at my Bible again I do not perceive such a statement. Where are those words which you have added, "Whom he did foreknow to repent, to believe, and to persevere in grace?" I do not find them either in the English version or in the Greek original. If I could so read them the passage would certainly he very easy, and would very greatly alter my doctrinal views; but, as I do not find those words there, begging your pardon, I do not believe in them. However wise and advisable a human interpolation may be, it has no authority with us; we bow to holy Scripture, but not to glosses which theologians may choose to put upon it. No hint is given in the text of foreseen virtue any more than of foreseen sin, and, therefore, we are driven to find another meaning for the word. We find that the word "know" is frequently used in Scripture, not only for knowledge, but also for favor, love, and complacency. Our Lord Jesus Christ will say, in the judgment, concerning certain persons, "I never knew you," yet in a sense he knew them, for he knows every man; he knows the wicked as well as the righteous; but there the meaning is, "I never knew you in such a respect as to feel any complacency in you or any favor towards you." See also John 10:14-15, and 2Ti 2:19. In Romans 11:2, we read, "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknow," where the sense evidently has the idea of fore-love; and it is so to be understood here. Those whom the Lord looked upon with favor as he foresaw them, he has predestinated to he conformed to the image of his Son.

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The safety of all God’s elect rests in Christ and that work of righteousness which He accomplished in His sufferings and death. When we look away from Him, all peace is lost. When we rely upon our feelings for assurance of salvation, all rest of soul ends. When we rely for an instant on what we’ve done or are doing, conscience can only condemn us. When we think about what we’ve not done, hope fades away, for even what we’ve not done becomes the enemy of what He has done! No, “it is Christ that died..” It is His blood that God looks to and peace, assurance and joy can only be ours when we look to the One that God has looked to. “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but WHOLLY lean on Jesus’ name.”

GS

OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS IN HEAVEN SITS

By faith we look to heaven’s throne,

And see our glorious dress.

There in the holy Son of God,

The Lord our Righteousness. (Repeat)

Let change what will, let come what may.

He ever sits the same.

And all who plead His blood alone,

Are called by that great Name. (Repeat)

Through falls and fears and every doubt,

Unchanging He abides.

Our Righteousness in heaven sits.

All hope in Him resides. (Repeat)

Accepted in God’s Son beloved.

By free grace justified.

And saved from all the wrath to come,

In Christ the Crucified. (Repeat)

Oh God be praised, and all ye saints,

Remember and recall.

The righteousness we call our own,

Is not our own at all! (Repeat)