God has given to man the law of the Ten Commandments as a perfect rule of obedience in this life. The moral law is not an arbitrary law devised by God to bind man but is a transcript of the divine nature. It reveals the moral perfection of the God of eternity and as the law of God for man requires of him “perfect, entire, exact and perpetual obedience” as the Westminster Confession states.
Man as created by God could keep the moral law of God in its entirety. Man as fallen cannot keep that law perfectly but, as the Shorter Catechism points out, “doth daily break them (the Commandments) in thought, word and deed”. Consequently man is constantly acquiring guilt and so exposes himself to the just and holy displeasure of the God of heaven. The Shorter Catechism also warns men of the consequences of sinning against God in breaking the law of God. It states “that every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come.” How solemn then is man’s state and condition when he cannot cease from sinning nor deliver himself from the penalty which his sins deserve. Anything less than perfect and perpetual obedience to the law of God, God will not accept.
God is to bring man into judgment at last. He is to be called to account for all the deeds done in the body whether they be good or evil. That judgment is certain and will be unerring. No sin in that day will be overlooked for all have been marked in God’s book. How are poor sinners to face a God of inflexible justice and of infinite holiness in a sin-defiled state? Surely nothing can be more terrible than facing the God of eternity as an angry God, a God who is a consuming fire against sin, and who in justice will cast the sinner into hell fire for ever!
In the light of the infinite rectitude and holiness of Jehovah, what hope is there for a poor sinner who is under the condemnation of the broken law? If he cannot fulfil it himself, is there One to whom he may look who is able to fulfil this law for him? This is the great wonder of redemption — there is One who did fulfil the law of God in its entirety and with whose obedience God is well pleased. This is God’s Beloved Son, the Divine Redeemer and the only Saviour of sinners. But if there is One who has been able to fulfil the law of God perfectly, is there One who can take away the stain of sin completely? Is there One who can give infinite satisfaction to Divine Justice for the dishonour done to the holy law of God by the sinner’s transgression of it? Again the answer is the same. There is One — even the Lord Jesus Christ who gave infinite satisfaction to the divine law in the room and stead of the guilty. It is in this One alone that the sinner’s hope lies, “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” but the name of the Lord Jesus.
It is to this One, the glorious and glorified Redeemer, that we must look if we are to be saved. Out of Him there is no salvation. We must find a hiding place in Him for our needy and never-dying soul. Multitudes of this lost and fallen race of ours have looked to Him in all their lostness and undoneness and have found in Him the shelter which their soul needed. It is not by making themselves better that poor sinners are to be saved and be acceptable to God. We must come with all the load of our sin and guilt to the One whose blood can cleanse from all sin. He is the Physician of souls who has balm to heal the needy soul. He declares in His Word — “I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He is exalted “a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” Let us come to the fountain fulness of blessing and good that is in Him in order that our soul may be healed. He invites poor sinners to come and encourages them to come saying: “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.”