On the Lion of Justice the Fair Maid of Hope Rides Like a Queen.

“Just, and the justifier of him which believeth.”
- Romans 3:26

Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. Our conscience can not blame us any longer of past sins. Judgment now decides for us the sinner instead of against us. Our memory looks back on past sins we commented, with deep sorrow for the sin, but yet with no dread of any punishment to come; for Christ has paid the debt of his people to the last jot and title, and they have received the divine receipt; and unless God can be so unjust as to demand double payment for one debt, no soul for whom Jesus died as a substitute will ever be thrown into hell.

It seems to be one of the very principles of our new nature to believe that God is just; we feel that it must be so, because this gives us our fear at first; but is it amazing that this very same belief that God is just, becomes afterwards the pillar of our confidence and peace! If God is just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be punished; but Jesus stands in my stead and is punished for me; and now, if God is just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished.

God must change His own nature before any one soul, for whom Jesus was a substitute for, can ever by any possibility suffer the punishment of the law. Therefore, Jesus having taken the place of the believer-having taken on Himself the full and equal punishment of divine wrath for all of what His people should have suffered as the result of their sin, the believer can now shout with a glorious triumph, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” Not God, for He has justified; not Christ, for He has died, “yea rather hath risen again.”

My hope does not live because I am not a sinner anymore, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died for; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, He is my righteousness. My faith rests not on what I am, or will be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what He has done, and in what He is now doing for me. On the lion of justice the fair maid of hope rides like a queen.