RIGHTEOUS BEFORE GOD "How should man be just with God?"
(Romans 3:10 and Job 9:2)

Since man is a sinner and God is holy, how can they meet? Job asked this question thousands of years ago, and man is still asking how he may become righteous in the eyes of God, or how God might excuse him for his sin. Job's three friends each had a solution to the problem; each one had a different idea, but the foundation of all three was a salvation based on human works. So, today, men are still offering the same answers as did the three friends of Job.
First - Bring God down to man's level. That is Demonism. Second - Evolve man to God's level. That is modernism. Third - Put on a nice, outward appearance. That is ritualism.

There is always a way "that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12).

To Job's three friends, God said. "Ye have not spoken unto Me things which are right, like My servent Job." Therefore we conclude that Job knew the right answer and that his three friends were wrong. Job's answer was:
"For He is not a man as I am, that I should answer Him and we should come together in judgment. Neither is there any DAYSMAN betwixt us that might lay His hand upon us both" (Job 9:32-33). In otherwords, Job said that there must be a MEDIATOR, or a go-between, if he was to be accepted by God. What kind of a mediator did Job need? What kind of a mediator does man need today?

First of all, that mediator must be both God and man, and not only that, He must also be a REDEEMER, in order to redeem man from sin. And Job could say: "I know that my REDEEMER liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth" (Job 19:25). In I Timothy 2:5 we read: "There is ONE MEDIATOR between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus." That One who was in the form of God, but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servent, came in the likeness of men, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5-8). By His death on the cross He became the Redeemer of mankind.

"For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich" (II Corinthians 8:9).

How then, can man receive the blessings of this matchless work of grace? First let us see how it is not obtained:

NOT BY WORKS

"Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9) "Not by works of righteousness which we have done" (Titus 3:5) "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). "For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God...Abraham believed God, and it (his faith) was counted unto him for righteousness" (Romans 4:2-3).

"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Romans 4:5).

NOT BY THE LAW
(The ten Commandments)

"A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,....for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified" (Galatians 2:16).

"If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain" (Galatians 2:21).

The purpose of the law is to stop all mouths; and it is the instrument by which the whole world is proven guilty before God. See Romans 3:19-20.

The law curses. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continnot in all the things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Galatians 3:10).

The law is called the ministration of death, "written and engraven in stones," in II Corinthians 3:7.

"The law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ" (Galatians 3:24). "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth" (Romans 10:4), and He "took it out of the way, nailing it to His (Colossians 2:14). And now - "Ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14).

"THEREFORE"

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law" (Romans 3:28).

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).

"By Him (Christ) all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39).

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).

John Bunyan wrote the following lines: "The righteousness of God, that is a righteousness of God's completing, a righteousness of God's bestowing, a righteousness that God gives unto and puts upon all them that believe, a righteousness that stands in the work of Christ, and that is imputed both by the grace and justice of God, the righteousness by which we stand just before God from the curse, was performed long ago by the Person of Jesus Christ."

By grace we are saved - Eph. 2:8-9. By grace we are redeemed - Gal. 3:13. By grace we are brought near - Eph. 2:13. By grace we are justified - I Tim. 1:15.