And can there be any communion, any friendship, between such? “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amo 3:3). In a word: he an infinitely and incomprehensibly glorious majesty, and we poor sinful dust and ashes, who have sunk and debased ourselves by sin below the meanest rank of creatures, and made ourselves the burden of the whole creation. He “a consuming fire,” and we but dried stubble (Isa 6:3, with Gen 3:5 1Jo 1:5, with Eph 5:8 Rom 7:18). He is all beauty, we nothing but deformity. In him nothing that is evil, in us nothing that is good. In him is nothing but light, in us nothing but darkness. Hear the old Puritan, William Witaker, describe our plight apart from Christ:Īnd, indeed, considering what God is, and withal what man is how vastly disproportionable, how unspeakably unsuitable our very natures are to his how is it possible there should be any sweet communion betwixt them, who are not only so infinitely distant, but so extremely contrary? God is holy, but we are sinful.
Who could adequately represent man to God, and God to man, so that the two parties might be reconciled? In short, what hope could there ever be without a mediator, just as Job lamented. (Job 9:32-33)Īn insurmountable impasse, a gap too wide to ever be crossed – this was our plight. Nor is there any mediator between us, who may lay his hand on us both. What confidence could there be that God would be inclined to show favor toward humanity even if a perfect man arose to stand as their representative?įor He is not a man, as I am, that I may answer Him, and that we should go to court together. Since the Garden there had not been one to arise from any generation, or in any nation, but even if one were to come forth, how could their merits be credited on your behalf? Salvation belongs to the Lord. You would not need merely a righteous man you would need a perfect man – a sinless man. Supposing you could find a righteous man among the forlorn sons of Adam, could he speak efficaciously to God on your behalf? Even the virtue of Noah, Job, and Daniel are said to be only sufficient to save themselves when judgment is in the land (Ezekiel 14:14). What deliverance could you ever find from yourself? How could your very being be undone, as it were, and you become something that you are not now? Depravity produces in you an odious proclivity such that even though your guilt will swell all the more, you desire iniquity. Your whole being is corrupt through and through.
It is not merely that you have done bad things, you are bad.
Even now, why are you not swept away in the wrath of the Just One? How much longer will your punishment tarry? Should it not fall upon you like a snare this night? Yet even supposing you might find some means of acceptable sacrifice great enough to expunge these offenses, there remains another problem. Innumerable willed transgressions against your Maker since you left the womb and began to forge your way in the world will soon be due for fierce judgment. Wonder at how sad your condition, how grim your prospects, and how utterly impossible the problem of your sinful estate truly was.įirst, there is the problem of your guilt. Consider just how helpless and hopeless your sorry lot would have been. In other words, dare to ponder what life would have been like before the coming of the Christ our Lord. Imagine, for a moment, if instead of living in the present hour of history in which we find ourselves, you had been born around 100 B.C. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope.(1 Tim.
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