Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

September 25– Morning

 by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“[He is both] righteous and the One who declares righteous the believer.” 

—Romans 3:26

Everyone that God justifies (i.e., declares righteous) has peace with him. The Judge now decides for the sinner instead of against him. Memory looks back upon past sins with deep sorrow for the sin but yet with no dread of any penalty to come. That’s because Christ has paid the debt of his people to the last jot and tittle. And, unless God can be so unjust as to demand double payment for the same debt, no one for whom Jesus died as a substitute can ever be cast into hell. We know, of course, that God is just. This causes us, at first, to be afraid. But isn’t it magnificent that this very same knowledge becomes afterwards the pillar of our confidence and peace!

If God is just, then I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished; this is clear. But, after Jesus stands in my place and is punished for me, I’m a sinner standing in Christ, and I can never be punished again. God must change his very nature before one soul for whom Jesus died can ever by any possibility suffer the lash of the law. Therefore, the believer can shout, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Certainly not God, for he has declared us righteous; not Christ, for he has died and risen again.

My hope lives– not because I’m not a sinner but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; I don’t trust that I am holy, but that, being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith doesn’t rest upon what I am or shall be or feel or know but in what Christ is and what he has done for me. [M&E]