Daily Devotionals

Mornings and Evenings with Jesus

Devotional: March 16th

How then can man be justified with God? - Job 25:4.

LET us consider the question as implying a perfect negation. This is evidently what the speaker intended. “How then can man be justified with God?” as though it were an utter impossibility that it could be effected. And if we view man without any reference to the Lord Jesus, or the economy of grace, it is apparent that his justification with God is impossible. There are two things to be considered in a man,-his sins and his services,- his worst and his best things.

Now, it is evident that he cannot be justified by his worst things; but it is equally apparent that he cannot be justified by his best, for his obedience is imperfect. If not defective in principle, it often is in spirit. There is such a mixture of motive, so much coldness of feeling, so much worldliness of thought and carnality of desire, that a Christian can never refer, with any composure or complacency, to that obedience to the will of God which he is enabled to render. We make our appeal to the provision which God has made in the gospel of his Son, in order to show that it is impossible for a man, without reference to Christ, to be justified before God. Never would Christ have descended from heaven, assumed our nature, submitted to poverty, experienced every indignity, endured inconceivable sufferings, and eventually bled and died on the cross, if man’s justification with God could have been effected without his intervention.

We may refer to the express decisions and testimonies of Scripture to illustrate that a man without Christ cannot be justified with God. And in relation to the doctrine of justification, it is evident that a man can gain a clear and satisfactory reply to the question of the text from no other quarter than the word of God; and its statements on this subject are precise, minute, full, and most satisfactory.

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. - Philippians 2:4.

THAT is, we are not to look upon our own things exclusively or only, “but every man also”-this is the interpretation-“ on the things of others.” Self-preservation has been called the first law of nature, and it is so; and if man were only a solitary creature it would be the only law of his nature. But now man is variously associated and related, and therefore he is a social being, for “no man liveth unto himself;” and only a Cain will question this, and ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Observe, therefore, what the admonition requires: that we look also upon the things of others-not with curious inquisitiveness, needlessly prying into other people’s history, condition, and circumstances, in order to gratify vanity or furnish materials for the tongue. “Let none of you suffer as a thief or as an evil-doer, or as a busy-body in other men’s matters.”

Again, we are not to look upon the things of others enviously. “Be not thou afraid,” says David, “when one is made rich, or when the glory of his house is increased:” as if he should say, The distinctions and the acquisitions and the cares which make others so uneasy around you are not worthy of you. Oh, what evil is there in this disposition, for one person to be uneasy because another is happy; and yet this principle is so powerful, so subtle in its various workings, that Solomon says, “Who can stand before envy?”

Thirdly, We are not to look upon the things of others unconcernedly, but with sympathy, and to help them. Hence we are commanded to “rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep.” Thus it was with Job. “Did not,” he says, “I weep for him that was in trouble; was not my soul grieved for the poor?” And this is the meaning of the Apostle here; for when he says, “Look on the things of others,” he cannot mean with such a look as the priest and the Levite gave to the poor, wounded, bloody traveller, and who went by on the other side; but he means such a look as that the eye shall affect the heart, such a look as shall awaken commiseration and produce corresponding emotions and exertions.