“Who Will Stand Up For Me?”               

Psalm 94:16

            As the psalmist desired the Lord God to stand up for him before his enemies, every sinner convicted of his depravity, sin, and moral inability before the holy Lord God desires someone to stand up for him before God. The convicted soul cries, “Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?” Convinced of his own utter corruption and God’s infinite holiness, the sinner under conviction of the Holy Spirit cries, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?”

            Here is the good news of the gospel - Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is a representative Man who is able to stand before the holy Lord God! He has stood, He is standing. And he shall yet stand before God as the representative and substitute of God’s elect. Let every poor, helpless, bankrupt sinner, who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ as his only, all-sufficient Savior, take this sweet revelation and go just as far with it as sanctified thought will carry him - The Lord Jesus Christ is our representative before God. He stands before God for us.

            CHRIST REPRESENTED US AS OUR SURETY IN THE COVENANT OF GRACE. Before the worlds were made, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit met together in the counsel chambers of eternity and made a solemn compact of mercy, a covenant of grace in which the three divine Persons swore themselves to the salvation of the chosen. In that covenant, Christ stood as our Surety (Heb. 7:22), and in him we were blessed of God with all the blessings of salvation, grace, and glory (Eph. 1:3; II Tim. 1:9).

            THE SON OF GOD REPRESENTED HIS PEOPLE IN ALL HIS EARTHLY LIFE. When he came into the world to do the will of God (Heb. 10:5-9), when he went about his life doing the Father’s business as a child (Lk. 2:49), and when he fulfilled all righteousness as a man (Matt. 3:15), he was representing us. As he fulfilled all the law and obeyed God perfectly as a man, so all God’s elect have fulfilled the law and obeyed God perfectly in him. He is Jehovah-tsidkenu, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS!  And his obedience is ours (Rom. 5:19).

            OUR SAVIOR REPRESENTED US UPON THE CURSED TREE. When Christ died under the wrath of God, it was as a substitute in the place of God’s elect (Isa. 53:8; Gal. 1:4; 3:13; II Cor. 5:21). When Christ died, we died in him. Hence, we are dead to the law (Rom. 6:4; Gal. 2:20; Rom. 7:4; 10:4) The law can demand no more from us.

            CHRIST REPRESENTS US AS OUR ADVOCATE IN HEAVEN. He took possession of heaven as a forerunner for us (Heb. 6:20). And he successfully pleads our cause with the Father (I John 2:1-2). Because he is the propitiation for our sins, God will never charge his elect with sin (Rom. 4:8).

            This is the thing I want you to see - Whatever Christ did, we have done in him. Whatever Christ is, we are in him. Whatever Christ possesses as our Mediator, we must possess. Wherever Christ is, we must be. He stands for us; and we stand in him before God.

 

Don Fortner