Daily DevotionalsReading: “That will by no means clear the guilty,”—Exodus 34:7

Pause over these solemn words! Will Jehovah clear the guilty? And are you not guilty? How then will you come before God, either now or hereafter?

Hear what God has also said: “Deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom” (Job 33:24). Oh, soul-reviving, soul-comforting words! Yes, Jehovah found a Ransom: Jesus became my surety, took my guilt, and bought me out of the hands of law and justice. God has not therefore cleared the guilty without taking ample satisfaction on the person of the sinner’s surety. Hence now the double claim of justice and grace demands the sinner’s pardon.

Here then, my soul, rest your present and everlasting peace on this. Keep up a daily and hourly remembrance of it at the mercy seat. While Jesus lives—and lives there as your advocate—never doubt your acceptance in the beloved: guilty as you are, yet spotless in Him.  The same God which made Jesus to be sin for you, who knew no sin, makes you the righteousness of God in Him.

Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that “the just shall live by his faith.” Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”

—Martin Luther

Taken from The Poor Man’s Evening and Morning Portions by Rev. Robert Hawker, Works, Vol. 8; 1830. Edited by Aaron Dunlop for thinkgospel.com ©2013.