RAISE the Lord; with exultation

My whole heart my Lord shall praise

Midst the upright congregation,

         Loftiest praise we raise.

All His works are great and glorious,

Saints review them with delight;

His redemption all victorious

We sing day and night.

For His grace stands fast forever,

His decrees the saints secure;

From His oath He turneth never,

Every promise is sure.

Therefore be His praise unceasing,

Be His name forever blest;

And with confidence increasing,

Let  us on Him rest!

FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS

od forgave sin and imputed righteousness at the same time, and upon the sole condition of the obedience of Christ (Rom. 5:19).  The two-fold act was inclusive of all the elect, immutable and outside their will.  God looked away from the sins of Abraham and imputed righteousness through His attribute of “forbearance” (Rom. 3:25), but He actually dealt with Abraham’s sin at the cross, Hebrews 9:15.

In Romans 4:24, “believing” is not a cause or condition for imputed righteousness and the verse doesn’t assert that.  I suggest “the ones believing” are those chosen in eternity, justified at the cross, and revealed the gospel by effectual calling in time.  Paul defined the essential doctrine of Christ in Romans 4:25.  Christ our Lord…”was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (NKJV).  God acted as Judge delivering His perfect Son to judgment as a result of the trespasses of the elect.  As a result of them being justified, God raised Him out of death.  The verse alludes to an equal and simultaneous transfer:  God charged the sin of the elect to Christ’s account and He charged the righteousness Christ established to their account.  By discharging sin from their accounts, God forgave them.  By charging (imputing) righteousness, He declared them righteous.  Before Christ left the cross the elect were justified.  The next verse reads:  “Having been declared righteous, then, by faith, we have peace toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Young’s Literal Translation).  Faith is not the condition of being “declared righteous” but the God-given means of “peace toward God”.                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                        DAVID SIMPSON

THE PERFECT LAMB OF GOD

“Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.  He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” 

                                                                                                   Hebrews 10:8-10

 real perfect man’s body had to be prepared.  He was made to be sin for His people; their sin laid ON Him, Isaiah 53:6.  Yet, He never was made sinful in His person being the Perfect Lamb of God, Hebrews 7:26.  His body had to be broken, crushed under the weight of God’s wrath on behalf of elect sinners for whom He died, Isaiah 53:10.  Yet, not a bone of His body could be broken in fulfillment of the law-John 19:36.  Real blood had to be shed (Heb. 9:22).  It was the blood of a real man in the place of sinners, and yet it is described in Acts 20:28 as God’s blood, because it had everything to do with satisfying God the Father, that He might be just in justifying those Christ redeemed.

A real man had to obey every jot and tittle of the law (Matt. 5:17).  A real man had to satisfy infinite justice, and He did (John 19:30).  An angel could not do it (Heb. 1:4-14).  Ten thousand physical lambs could not do it (Heb. 10:4).  A death had to be accomplished.  Real work had to be finished (John 4:34).  The law had to be completely fulfilled both in precept and penalty, and He did it.  Sin had to not be imputed to God’s elect, and imputed to Another, the Substitute, the Lord Jesus.  That Other had to bear their sins in His body, and the Scripture says that He did bear it away once for all, WHEN he offered up himself – Hebrews 7:27.  Yes, Christ was purposed as the Surety of God’s elect in eternity, but Scripture says he was MADE (became) that Surety in His death on the cross (Hebrews 7:22), dying the just for the unjust, and God the Father, then and there redeemed, justified, and forgave all the sins of all the elect at one moment.  He had to finish the transgression, make an end of sins, and make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness, and that He did!  Daniel 9:24.

This is the glorious work of redemption, justification, and the salvation of sinners that Jesus Christ the perfect Lamb of God did accomplish and finish for His sheep.  Beloved! “If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for fins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries,” Hebrews 10:26,27.  Look to the Lamb alone who finished the work! 

KEN WIMER

FACING DEATH

ELIVERS have a trusty good Friend before them in the other world.  Jesus Christ, their best Friend, is Lord of the land to which death carries them.  When Joseph sent for his father to come down to him to Egypt, telling him, “God had made him lord over all Egypt, “ Gen. 45:9, “And Jacob “saw the wagons Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob revived,” verse 27.  He resolves to undertake the journey.

                I think, when the Lord calls a godly man out of the world, He sends him such glad tidings, and such a kind invitation into the other world, that, he has faith to believe it, his spirit must revive, when he sees the ‘wagon of death’ which comes to carry him there.  It is true; indeed, he has a weighty trial to undergo – after death the judgment.  But the case of the godly is altogether hopeful; for the Lord of the land is their husband, and their husband is the judge.  “The Father has committed all judgment unto the Son,” John 5:22.  Surely the case of the wife is hopeful, when her own husband is her judge, even such a husband as hates divorce.  No husband is so loving and so tender of his spouse, as the Lord Christ is of his.  One would think it would be a very bad land, which a wife would not willingly go to, where her husband is the ruler and judge.

                Moreover, their judge is the Advocate, I John 2:1, “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  Therefore they need not fear their being put back, and falling into condemnation.  What can be more favorable?  Can they think, that he who pleads their cause, will himself pass sentence against them?

                Yet further, their advocate is their Redeemer.  They are “redeemed with the precious blood of Christ,” I peter 1:18, 19.  So when he pleads for them, he is pleading his own cause.  Though an advocate may be careless of the interest of one who employs him, yet surely he will do his utmost to defend his own right, which he has purchased with his money – and shall not their advocate defend the purchase of his own blood?

                But more than all that, their Redeemer is their head, and they are his members, Eph. 5:23, 30.  Though one were so silly as to let his own purchase go, without standing up to defend his right, yet surely HE will not part with a limb of His own body.  Is not their case then hopeful in death, who are so closely linked and allied to the Lord of the other world, who holds “the keys of hell and of death?”                                                                                        COPIED