How Could It Possibly Happen?
Song number 425 clarifies this. Fellow named Philip Bliss wrote these words.
Free from the law, O happy condition, Jesus hath bled, and there is remission. Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall, yet grace hath redeemed us once for all.
Now we are free. There’s no condemnation. Jesus provides a perfect salvation. Come unto me. Oh, hear His sweet call. Come, and He saves us once for all.
Children of God, oh, glorious calling. Surely His grace will keep us from falling, passing from death to life at His call. Blessed salvation.
Once for all, once for all, O sinner, receive it. Once for all, O brother, believe it. Cling to the cross, thy burden will fall. Christ hath redeemed us once for all.
Stop pretending that you’re your own Savior.
Romans 4, verse 7, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven.
That’s a state of redemption.
And whose sins are covered. They are covered by the blood. They are covered by the blood.
My sins are all covered by the blood.
Verse 8, blessed. He’s trying to get you to want to be blessed. Do you want to reach a state, a condition, a dwelling, where you don’t have to be nervous about it?
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not deposit, input, sin.
Why? The record is sealed, it’s solidified, it’s filled up, it’s overflowing.
It’s not just a thousand dollars because the righteousness of Christ has been imputed into our bank.
He filled up my checking account. He filled up my savings account with His righteousness. He filled up my Roth IRA and my investment long-term. He filled up every single account I had at the bank with His perfect, pure works and righteousness.
It’s the inheritance. Did we earn it? No. Someone else earned it and He wrote in His will that He would deposit all that He has earned into my record and therefore there’s no room to hold the sin.
It’s not just a thousand or ten thousand or ten million or ten billion or ten trillion.
It’s above the measure of human metrics. It’s beyond contemplation. It’s past the bounds of comprehension.
You cannot calculate the worth of the inheritance of Christ on your record.
Verse 9, cometh this blessedness. Notice it’s a state. It’s a condition.
People say, I can’t feel saved. I can’t recognize a peace with God. I can’t have the blessed assurance that Jesus is mine in this world. I have to wait and hope that maybe God might like me.
Well, God doesn’t like your righteousness and God does not like your sin. God likes His plan of salvation, which does not include you as one of the payment mechanisms.
You’re not the credit card or the debit card. You don’t have the purchasing power to pay your way into an eternal home.
Verse 9, cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, like the special people, only those set apart by God, that are part of a certain bloodline, or a certain gender, or a certain denomination, or upon the uncircumcision oath also.
For we say, the faith was reckoned. The word reckon means recognized.
Faith. What did Abraham put his faith in? The Messiah, because the Bible clearly says that the Scripture preached the Gospel to Abraham.
What is the Gospel? It’s that someone bigger than you is going to pay your way. The Gospel is transfer of trust onto God’s plan instead of man’s plan. The Gospel is the Messiah will be the innocent Lamb of God and He will carry the sin of the world. You need to trust that God will redeem, deliver.
Faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness, which means he received righteousness. It was not his own. God reckoned the righteousness of the true Redeemer.
The word redeem means to purchase. It means to have the power to purchase.
I need God’s purchasing mechanism to buy my unworthy soul. Why am I trying to pay my own way? I do not carry a card that strong. My credit record is not approved by heaven.
How was it? That’s the righteousness of Christ. How was the righteousness of Christ then reckoned when he, Abraham, was in circumcision or in uncircumcision?
So when God met Abraham, what was his condition? Well, the Bible says in Isaiah that he was wandering in the waste howling wilderness. He was alone. He didn’t have things figured out, yet he had simple faith.
Verse 10, not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. He was a heathen and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had yet being uncircumcised.
So he had faith before ritual.
So ritual did not transmit any righteousness. Ritual, this cutting of the flesh, was an outward symbol of an inward transaction that God had made based upon the simple faith of Abraham to believe in the coming Messiah.
Why? That he might be the father of all them that believe.
Now, is that you? Are you one that believes?
If you’re one that believes, then you’re following the pattern of your great-great-grandfather, Abraham, that he, Abraham, might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, though they be not a part of a certain religion, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.
