February 1 – LD 5, Day 4: Can We Make this Satisfaction of Divine Justice?

Job 9:2,3, “I know it is so of a truth; but how should man be just with God? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand.”

The Catechism answers this question this way, “By no means, but on the contrary we daily increase our debt.”Do you think you can make yourself right before God? Many people think they can. For example, the Roman Catholics think they can make up for some of their sins by doing good works. There are other churches who teach the same thing. All you have to do is to attend a funeral for some person who claims he is a Christian and attends a church that teaches that man earns his own way to heaven by off-setting his bad deeds with good deeds. The family and pastor will give a long list of worthy deeds done by the deceased and the conclusion will be, he certainly is in heaven.

Is this true? Can we in any way make up for our sins by doing good?

The answer here is that God is just and when He declares that the sinner must pay for his sins by bearing temporal and eternal PUNISHMENT, the conclusion is that man is condemned by his sins and therefore it is impossible for him to make the payment himself. As far as man is concerned, the door to heaven is forever closed.

When Job was contending with his accusers who said he suffered much pain because God was punishing him for his sins, Job admitted that if the question was whether Job deserved to suffer for his sins, there was no doubt. He could not do anything to make himself just before God and if the question was to contend with God for any sin, there was no hope for deliverance. With Job, the cause of his suffering was not punishment for sin but God had a different purpose, to show His majesty through suffering.

Can we ever make-up for any of our sins? Can we bear the punishment? Can we do some good that would off-set the guilt?

No, the opposite is true, we increase our debt daily.

Why is this important to God? Is salvation God’s work, God and man’s work, or ONLY God’s work? God wants us to die unto ourselves that we may live unto Him.