Glorious Mystery - Chapter 16 (2)

Now that we have seen that it was conducive to the divine nature to restore man after such a great sin and fall, we are going to discover the way by which mankind might be recovered so that God gets the glory.

Man by himself could not save himself, but there are two ways in which he might try: 1. He might try to obey God again in his own strength. but this was impossible for: a) he had by the first sin lost all power to yield obedience to God. We lost the image of God which, as we saw, was the way by which humans were able to fulfill the command. b) And man did not want to attempt his recovery. c) but even if man could, and wanted to, give obedience to God there would still not be glory given to God - because there is no satisfaction offered to God for the injury we caused to him. If peope were saved and it did not lead to the glory of God (such as the salvation of an impenitent, unbeliever) "implies a contradiction; for our salvation is eternal blessedness, in a participation of the glory of God." (p. 194)

2. Man would have to make satisfaction for sins as well as yielding new obedience. This would lead to a restoration of all things - but it still cannot be done by man due to the nature of their sin. Both points 1 and 2 show us that mankind cannot save themselves: "and unless we have a full conviction hereof, we can neither admire nor entertain the mystery of the wisdom of God in our reparation." (p. 195)

We must now inquire what was necessary for our restoration: 1. There needed to be an obedience yielded to God which brought him more glory than the disobedience brought him dishonour. So God gave the law, but the law still had to be accomplished by someone else if no one can keep the law, we might go around thinking the law is sin. Furthermore, God putting a picture of his holiness on us when he hade us in his image, it was right for us to have this "restored in our nature, and that with advantages above what it had in its first communication." (p. 196).

2. The disorder brought to God's rule by rebellion needed to be restored - this could not be done any other way than by the infliction of punishment. Indeed, God said: "in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die." "If he revoke and disannul this sentance, how shall the glory of his righteousness in the rule of all be made known?" (p. 196)

3. It was needed that the devil should lose the hold he had over man since the fall.

Without these three things, the restoration of man into right relationship with God was impossible. We are now going to "trace some footsteps of divine wisdom herein," and some things are necessary for God's wisdom to be seen in salvation such as: 1. the nature which sinned has to be the nature which is punished. Humans sinned humans should be punished - this was the wisdom of God and was what happened in God becoming man (Heb 2:14-16). 2. Christ was not just like us but from the same stock, hence the genealogy in Luke takes him back to Adam: "to manifest his relation to the common stock of our nature" (p. 198). 3. But this nature was seperate from us in terms of sin, else he could not fulfill the office of high priest whcih God had assigned to him.

Here we will consider in what way sin and spiritual defilement adhere to our nature. a) our entire nature was IN Adam as regards our participation in the sin. b) the other way is by the fact that we are naturally generated from Adam. SO the body in which our salvation was to be wrought had to be derived from our first parents, But not to have been in Adam at the fall or dervied from him by NATURAL generation. For this to happen it requires: "an effect of infinite wisdom beyond the conceptions of any created understanding." (p. 199) This occured in Jesus Christ who was "partaker of the nature that sinned, yet free from all sin" (p. 200)

It is evident that no man could effect salvation if he was a mere man. Here we come again to the divinity of Christ, and three things must be considered. 1. The obedience required for the establishment of God's glory after the fall could not be wrought by a mere man: "He who undertaketh this work must have somewhat that is divine and infinite." (p. 201) 2. Any obedience a man could offer God would only benefit himself, for he must satisfy for himself. But Jesus, being divine, did not owe any obedience to the law as he was above the law, so he could obey the law FOR US. 3. There were so many sin commited by so many people which needed to be paid for that no mere human could achieve this. But Christ's "intrinsic worth and excellency" being human AND divine that he could pay for them all. 4. The work of saving the church had to be done by a man in his appointed office, no mere man could fulfill this office. 5. To restore us rightly, we wou;d need to be brought back to that obedience to God which we had before the fall, worshipping and loving him. If Chirst (the one we are to love and glorify) is a mere man, we have not been brought back to that pre-fall state of worshipping GOD.