This question is as old as the book of Job. “How can a man be justified with God?” was his memorable inquiry (Job 25:44How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? (Job 25:4)), and touches the very foundation of a solid rest and peace. God must be true to His own holy, righteous character. Sin put Him into the place of judge. As surely as God is just, sin must have its full penalty. Men sentimentalize about the love of God, and forget His justice. But God will be as righteous in taking a man to heaven based on Christ’s work, as He will be righteous in sending a sinner to hell for his own works.
When He exalted Christ to His own right hand in glory, He declared His own righteousness in doing it. When He sends Satan to his eternal doom in the lake of fire, it will be according to the same righteousness. It cannot be too well understood that if any sinner is saved, God will be as righteous in saving the sinner as He was in seating Christ in the brightness of heavenly glory, or as He will be in driving Satan to the darkness of eternal judgment.
How, then, after stopping “every mouth” in the whole human family, and pronouncing “every man” guilty before Him, can God righteously save any?
Sin’s penalty has been taken away by the Lamb of God’s own providing — Christ Jesus. Every question of the troubled conscience about a righteous payment for sin is answered by another question — one which will remain uniquely wonderful for eternity — “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”
Who could answer that mysterious “Why?” asked by Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary?
Demons had confessed Him to be the Holy One of God. Could the powers of darkness tell us “Why”? Impossible! Satan himself had been defeated at every approach to Him who could say, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.”
Angels had ministered to Him after His temptation in the wilderness. Did they not know that God’s good pleasure was in Him, and that He had always done the things that pleased His Father? But could they answer this momentous question? Impossible — “Which things the angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:1212Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. (1 Peter 1:12)).
His disciples had seen how the mouth of every opposer had been stopped by His unanswerable challenge, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” They must have been familiar with the words of David in Old Testament scriptures, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken” (Psalm 37:2525I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. (Psalm 37:25)). Yet here is the only absolutely righteous Man that ever lived — “Jesus Christ the righteous” — and He is forsaken! Amazing! — Why? Man has no answer to that question; not even those most devoted to Him.
God the Father, Himself, had drawn the attention of heaven and earth, more than once, to the fact that in Jesus He found perfect satisfaction and delight. Will He throw open the heavens once more to furnish an answer to that mysterious “Why”? No. The blessed Sin-bearer is left to feel, amid the darkness of those three hours on the cross, as He only could feel, the awfulness of that word “FORSAKEN.” Others had called in ages past: they had been heard; they had been delivered; but listen to His words as, from the midst of that terrible darkness, they reach and pierce our very hearts: “I cry ... Thou hearest not.” Is there, then, no answer to the question? Faith has found an answer. If demons, angels, men, couldn’t give an answer; if God didn’t, where did it come from? It came from the very lips of the Forsaken One Himself! He justified God in forsaking Him. Oh, how precious! beyond all conception precious! Tell it over and over again, and never let the story die. Jesus justified God in forsaking Him. Listen to His blessed prophetic words in Psalm 22:3,3But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. (Psalm 22:3) “But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” As though He had said, Thou art so holy that Thou couldst not do less, in all righteousness, than turn Thy back upon sin, even when Thy beloved Son was the bearer of it. No; when sin is judged there can be no relief, no answer, until all its condemnation is removed. How solemn, yet how lovely, is all this! It draws the affections of a troubled sinner to that precious Saviour, filling the sinner’s heart with peace, and making it overflow with praise. What greater proof could we have, then, that the sins of those who believe in Jesus have already been righteously judged — judged in the blessed person of their adorable Substitute — Jesus Christ? God can now be “just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:2626To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:26)). Sinners aren’t justified because nothing could be said against them; but justified by the precious blood, which has, once for all, met every charge that God Himself could bring against them.
We see that the believer’s sins have not escaped punishment. The gospel does not present a God whose love has been expressed by ignoring sin. Instead the gospel shows a God whose love to the sinner could only be expressed where His holy claims against sin were righteously met, and its penalty exhaustively endured.