Grace of God

We are miserable mistakers of the great grace of God in Christ, and of the nature and value of his gift to us, when we suppose that it could ever become a debt to us by any thing we can do to deserve it, or contributing in the least towards it.—As you would be believers, rejoicing in the hope and comfort of the Gospel, never give way to this proud presumptuous thought. The Scripture requires no such thing at your hands, for you could as soon make a world; but tells you, as plainly as words can do, that it is Christ, “who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”—Consider what your condition was, and what was to be done for your recovery from it, and you will be convinced at once, that it must be as the prophet says, “his own arm brought salvation to him,” not for himself; he did not need it; but to him for us. And it is a marvellous opening of his gracious heart towards us, that he would speak of what he did for our sakes, as if it had been wrought for himself. We are under a sentence of death by the sin of our first parents, as well as our own numberless actual transgressions. Can you make full satisfaction to the eternal truth and justice of God, and stay his hand from executing the punishment he has once decreed? The law he has given us, and by which we are to be judged, is a law of absolute perfection; can you fulfil it? Can we, who are by nature dead in trespasses and sins, work out such a righteousness of ourselves as will ensure our title to heaven? Our lost inheritance is to be recovered; our souls must be qualified for it, by being renewed to the image of God, and our bodies raised out of our graves to take possession of it. —Can you do this by any might or power of your own, or by any ability which God giveth, when you have done all you can, and the very best you ever will do? Thomas Adams