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“But God be Thanked”

“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.”

(Romans 6:17)

Be sure you do not miss that little word, “but,” with which this verse opens. It refers us back to what Paul has just told us about all we have experienced in God’s saving grace: all that we confess in believer’s baptism, all that Christ accomplished for us in redemption, all that God the Holy Ghost has wrought in us by his grace in regeneration, and the blessed assurance God has given to every sinner who trusts his dear Son that sin shall never have dominion over us. We are redeemed. We have been saved by the grace of God. We are dead, indeed, unto sin and alive unto God. Christ is our Life; and we live in him.

Reason to Give Thanks

After assuring us of these things, the Apostle Paul, writing by divine Inspiration, says to you and me, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.” Oh, what great reason saved sinners have to give thanks to God and live for his glory!

Just as poison is sometimes made a medicine for healing, and sickness of body is made the means of health for our souls, the sin and fall of Adam, and our sin and fall in him, laid the foundation for the revelation of Christ as a Savior and Redeemer. We could never have known our blessed Christ as our Savior and Redeemer, had not our shame in sin afforded an opportunity for the display of his glory in washing us from our sins in his blood.

Divine Wisdom

The holy Lord God, by infinite wisdom and grace, has made our sin and misery the occasion of our greatest possible blessedness. — Oh, what a great reason this is for thanksgiving and praise to our God! Let no one misunderstand my words. I offer no excuse for any man’s sin. And I certainly do not excuse my own. We do not attempt, by any means, to escape our own responsibility for sin, or to charge God with sin. — “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). But our great God is so infinitely wise and gracious that he turns our greatest misery into our greatest good and sovereignly overrules our sin to make it an occasion for our eternal blessedness (Romans 8:28; Psalm 76:10).

Jonathan Edwards wrote, “Divine wisdom has found out a way whereby the sinner might not only escape being miserable, but that he should be happier than before he sinned; yea, than he would have been if he had never sinned.” By the redemptive work of Christ, the sins of God’s elect are turned into a means of accomplishing greater happiness, joy, and everlasting glory than we could ever have known if we had never sinned. — “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” Our great, all-wise God, in infinite wisdom, ordained our fall in our father, Adam, and overrules our abounding sin that his own elect might forever enjoy the superabundance of his matchless free grace in Christ.

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s