16. I have found a ransom
I have found a ransom
God’s purpose is shown, by Elihu, to be Job’s full deliverance. And this is His purpose in permitting all the buffeting and conflict through which the believer ever passes. Yes, when he comes to the last sinking point, then, ’If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness, then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom’ (or an atonement, Job 33:24).
What a mercy it is that we have a true Messenger from heaven, a true Interpreter from God, to show God”s righteousness. The Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven, is the wonderful Interpreter of God’s purpose in the cross of Christ. In the good news He has brought is the righteousness of God revealed. Yes, it His blessed work to show the uprightness of God — the righteousness of God in justifying the sinner — that God is, as has been said by another, ’consistent with Himself, with His holiness’, in being gracious to the poor, guilty sinner.
How can God say, ’Deliver him from going down to the pit?’ Is he just? Oh, no! Is he innocent? Oh, no! Does he not deserve to go down to the pit? Oh, yes! Then how can God be just in sparing him? ’I have found a ransom’; or, as the margin reads, ’atonement’. Man is guilty. He has no righteousness. But God has found a ransom. This alters everything, and interprets everything, — I am no longer a trembling sinner before God as my Judge, but before God as my Justifier. God has found a ransom, a propitiation, in the blood of Jesus, for the very purpose of setting forth His righteousness, in freely justifying me by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Four times is this shown to be the very righteousness of God, in Romans 3:21-26.
Mark it is not that I, as a son of Adam, am just or righteous. That never can be. Romans 5:1-21; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 7:1-25 show that I am dead, through the death of Christ, and buried. And my justified state is entirely in the risen Christ. Christ did not die for the just, but for the unjust, to bring them to God.
Now, my reader, where are you? Striving against God, trying to be just in yourself before Him, as your Judge? If so, is there any wonder that your soul should be sorely vexed with confusion and darkness? Or are you resting entirely on the value of that atoning blood, that ransom-price, which makes God just in being your Justifier?
Whenever your soul is cast down with a single doubt, depend upon it, you may say, ’There, I am trying again to justify myself, instead of rejoicing in God my Justifier’. If God is your Judge, you cannot be saved. If God is your Justifier, you cannot be lost. ’Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God,who also maketh intercession for us’.
It is not you who found the ransom; God found it. Satan may tell Him of all your sins, and especially of your deep ingratitude and failure since you were a child of God. God’s reply is, ’I have found a ransom’.