July 27
Isaiah 43: 25: I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.
God needs no book of remembrance. But like debts owed to a creditor, written
down in a ledger, never to be forgotten until full payment be made, God’s holiness
will not permit God to forget the transgression and sins of his people until
full payment be made. The payment is eternal death. Since God is just this payment must, and
shall, be paid in full by every sinner. (Ex 34: 7)
Yet, here is amazing grace! For his own sake—his own glory, his own Son,
his own people—God, even the very God we owed, is he, who sent his own only
begotten Son to settle our debt by restoring that which he took not away. His Son was perfect, owing nothing, yet Christ
took all his people’s shameful debt himself. When he had paid to Justice that
living, hellish death his people owed then with his own precious blood—o how
precious!—with his own precious blood, Christ blotted out all record of all transgression
of all his people. Before the all-seeing eye of Justice no record of our transgression
exists. Therefore, God remembers our sin no more.
Justification is not by anything we
do. It is God that justifieth; it is Christ
that died and is risen again. “Now to
him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on
him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Rom
4: 4-5)