Must God be condemned for you to be justified? —Timothy Keller

"Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?" —Job 40:8

"Look at verse 8. Do you see the place where God asks this question? Literally he says, “Must I be condemned that you be justified?” See that? That’s a question where he’s coming after Job, is he not? He’s saying, “How dare you vilify me and say, ‘Well, I’m living a good life, so I don’t know what the heck God is doing here’?”

God says, “In order to justify yourself, you’re condemning me.” He says, “Must I be condemned for you to be justified?” In the micro at that moment, the answer, of course, is “No.” Job needs to be quiet. Job needs to rest in the will of God. But in the macro, in the long run, the most amazing answer possible … The Bible says, the gospel says, Jesus Christ says, the answer to this question, “Must God be condemned for you to be justified?” is “Yes.”

Unless Jesus Christ came to the cross and was condemned, you can’t be justified. Do you see what happens? Jesus Christ, when he went to the cross and died for our sins … This means the infinite stormy justice of God is satisfied, but also the incredible love of God is satisfied at the same time. You now have a terrible but wonderful God, a God who’s so holy and yet so loving, so holy Jesus had to die, and so loving Jesus was willing and glad to die.

The cross makes God able, you might say, to be both holy and loving toward us … infinitely holy and infinitely loving at the same time. It’s because Jesus Christ bowed his head into the ultimate storm of divine justice and let it crush him. He was condemned in your place. Now, out of the storm of God’s holiness, all that comes for you, like Job, is a voice of love. That is your vindication. Who cares what the world thinks? God loves you. God knows you. That’s all Job needed.

What’s amazing here is Job actually says … Do you see? He says, “I heard of you with my ear, but now I see you with my eye.” Do you know what he’s saying? He is saying, “I had an abstract idea of the greatness of God, but now I’m having the experience of the might and wonder and size of God, so I don’t need an explanation.

Secondly, I kind of understood the grace of God in general, but now I actually see the infinite power of God, and somehow …” See, Job didn’t understand how. “Somehow, in spite of this infinite power and infinite holiness, you still love me. Therefore, I don’t need any other vindication.” When he says, “I repent,” literally the word means “I take back. I retract what I said. I take back my demand for an explanation. I take back my demand for vindication.”

He says, “As I see the size of God, I don’t need an explanation, and as I see the grace of God now, I don’t need a vindication. It’s enough that he loves me, and I know he knows what he’s doing, and I don’t have to.” He’s healed and is content, and it’ll heal you too."

—Timothy Keller, My servant Job

the ark of salvation Jesus Christ — John Owen

"When a soul is turned out of its self-righteousness, and begins to look abroad, and view the heaven and earth for a resting-place, and perceives an ocean, a flood, an inundation of wrath, to cover all the world, the wrath of God revealing itself from heaven against all ungodliness, so that it can obtain no rest nor abiding, — heaven it cannot reach by its own flight, and to hell it is unwilling to fall; — if now the Lord Jesus Christ do not appear as an ark in the midst of the waters, upon whom the floods have fallen, and yet has got above them all for a refuge, alas! what shall it do? When the flood fell there were many mountains glorious in the eye, far higher than the ark; but yet those mountains were all drowned, whilst the ark still kept on the top of the waters. Many appearing hills and mountains of self-righteousness and general mercy, at the first view, seem to the soul much higher than Jesus Christ, but when the flood of wrath once comes and spreads itself, all those mountains are quickly covered; only the ark, the Lord Jesus Christ though the flood fall on him also, yet he gets above it quite, and gives safety to them that rest upon him.

Let me now ask any of those poor souls who ever have been wandering and tossed with the fear of the wrath to come, whether ever they found a resting-place until they came to this:— God spared not his only Son, but gave him up to death for us all; that he made him to be sin for us; that he put all the sins of all the elect into that cup which he was to drink of; that the wrath and flood which they feared did fall upon Jesus Christ (though now, as the ark, he be above it, so that if they could get into him they should be safe). The storm hath been his, and the safety shall be theirs. As all the waters which would have fallen upon them that were in the ark fell upon the ark, they being dry and safe, so all the wrath that should have fallen upon them fell on Christ; which alone causeth their souls to dwell in safety? Hath not, I say, this been your bottom, your foundation, your resting-place? If not (for the substance of it), I fear you have but rotten bottoms."

—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ

God is no philosophic concept — Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"My dear friends, God is no philosophic concept! God is a person and, as a person, God is, and God loves, and the essence of the life of the blessed Trinity is the love of the Father to the Son and the Spirit, and the love of the Son to the Father and the Spirit, and the love of the Spirit to the Father and the Son. We cannot conceive of that perfect unity, that perfect bliss, that absolute love, and yet it is all found in salvation. ‘God so loved the world that he gave …’ (John 3:16)—yes, and I put it negatively, too, as Paul puts it in writing to the Romans: ‘He that spared not his own Son’ (Romans 8:32). It is there, you see, the love of God, in that he sent the Son of his love, the only begotten Son, into this cruel, sinful world; allowed him to live life in that way as a man, and allowed him to suffer ‘such contradiction of sinners against himself’ (Hebrews 12:3). And he placed your sins and mine upon him on the cross in such a way that at that moment Father and Son were separated, and the Son cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:46) When I believe that that is possible within the Father-heart of God, then I cannot believe the doctrine of the impassivity of God. I say that God in his love suffered in his Son, and it is there I see the marvellous love of God displayed. And this great gospel manifests, too, the glory of God in revealing his character in this way."

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2000). The assurance of our salvation: Exploring the depth of Jesus' prayer for His own: Studies in John 17 (51). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

daily rehearsings of the gospel ― Milton Vincent

“The New Testament teaches that Christians ought to hear the gospel as much as non-Christians do….In most of Paul’s letters to churches, sizeable portions of them are given over to rehearsing gospel truths. For example, Ephesians 1-3 is all gospel, Colossians 1-2 is gospel, and Romans 1-11 is gospel. The remainder of such books shows specifically how to bring the gospel truths to bear on life. Re-preaching the gospel and then showing how it applied to life was Paul’s choice method for ministering to believers, thereby providing a divinely inspired pattern for me to follow when ministering to myself and to other believers.

The gospel is so foolish (according to my natural wisdom; 1 Corinthians 1:21-23), so scandalous (according to my conscience; 1 Corinthians 1:23), and so incredible (according to my timid heart; 1 John 3:19-20), that it is a daily battle to believe the full scope of it as I should. There is simply no other way to compete with the forebodings of my conscience, the condemnings of heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil (2 Corinthians 4:4) than to overwhelm such things with daily rehearsings of the gospel…

The glory of God is the most powerful agent of transformation available to mankind.  It is so powerful that it transforms those who merely gaze upon it.  The Apostle Paul gives personal testimony concerning this stunning fact.  "But we all," he says, "beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, and being transformed into the same image from glory to glory." (2 Corinthians 3:18)  From Paul's testimony I learn that if I wish to become all that God wants me to be, I must behold His glory each day.

 But where do I find God's glory to behold?  Indeed, the glory of God is revealed throughout all of Creation, (Psalm 19:1, Isaiah 6:3) but the Bible indicates that, outside of heaven, the glory of God in its thickest density dwells inside the gospel.  It is for this reason that the gospel is described in Scripture as "the gospel of the glory of Christ" and "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God." (2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 Timothy 1:11)  Consequently, as I habitually gaze upon the glory of the Lord revealed in the gospel, I can know the actual deposits of God's very glory are attaching themselves to my person and transforming me from one level of glory to another. (2 Corinthians 3:18) This transformation is deep and abiding, and unfadingly displays the glory of God to others. (2 Corinthians 3:13)”

― Milton Vincent. A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love. Focus Publishing (MN), 2008.

Who are you, Lord? And what shall I do, Lord? — James Montgomery Boice

"When we read Acts 9, we find Paul asking Jesus, “Who are you, Lord?” (Acts 9:5). In response Jesus told him, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do” (vv. 5–6). However, when we read Acts 22, we find that Paul also asked a second question: “What shall I do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10). This is an important addition to the story and a significant combination of ideas, because together the two questions form a sound basis for a strong Christian life…

Christianity begins with the question, Who are you, Lord? (Acts 9:5) That is because the deity of Jesus Christ is the foundation for everything that follows. Without that foundation we rush around doing things that appeal to us, things that seem good, but are not necessarily the Lord’s plan for us. But having established that base, we also need to ask the second question: What shall I do? (Acts 22:10) This is because God has appointed certain good works to be done by every Christian (Eph. 2:10)."

— James Montgomery Boice, Acts: An expositional commentary (155–156).