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Morning and Evening

September 25, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Just, and the justifier of him which believeth." — Romans 3:26 · KJV

Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Conscience accuses no longer; judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him. Memory looks back on past sins with deep sorrow for the sin, yet with no dread of any penalty to come; for Christ has paid His people's debt to the last jot and tittle and received the divine receipt, and unless God could be so unjust as to demand double payment for one debt, no soul for whom Jesus died as substitute can ever be cast into hell. It seems one of the very principles of our enlightened nature to believe that God is just; we feel it must be so, and at first this gives us our terror. But is it not marvelous that this same belief — that God is just — afterward becomes the pillar of our confidence and peace? If God is just, then I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished; but Jesus stands in my place and is punished for me; and now, if God is just, I, a sinner standing in Christ, can never be punished. God must change His nature before one soul for whom Jesus was a substitute could ever suffer the lash of the law. Therefore, since Jesus has taken the believer's place — rendering a full equivalent to divine wrath for all His people ought to have suffered because of sin — the believer may shout with glorious triumph, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Not God, for He has justified; not Christ, for He has died, "yea rather, hath risen again." My hope lives, not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that, being unholy, He is my righteousness. My faith rests not on what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but on what Christ is, on what He has done, and on what He is now doing for me. On the lion of justice the fair maid of hope rides like a queen.