Job 36:1-3

Job 36:1

The sinner's excuses answered.

I. One excuse is that the Bible cannot be true because it represents God as unjust. It represents God as creating men and then condemning them for another's sin. To this the answer is: (1) The Bible always represents the sinner condemned as really sinning himself, and as condemned for his own sin. (2) Children are never punished punitivelyfor their parents' sins. The evil that befalls them through their connection with their parents is always disciplinary, never punitive. (3) Everywhere in the Bible men are condemned only for their voluntary sins, and are required to repent of these sins, and of these only. Indeed, there can possibly be no other sins than these.

II. Again, it is objected that God is unmerciful, vindictive, implacable. He would not forgive sin until He had first taken measures to kill His own Son. The answer to this is plain. It was not an implacable disposition in God which led Him to require the death of Christ as the ground of forgiveness. It was simply His benevolent regard for the safety and blessedness of His kingdom. The giving up of Jesus Christ was only a voluntary offering on God's part to sustain law, so that He could forgive without peril to His government.

III. Another difficulty is this: the Bible always assumes that sinners cannot do right and please God with a wicked heart. Can we make ourselves a new heart? Yes; you would have done so long ago if you had not resisted God in His efforts to move you to repentance. The Holy Ghost is necessary, but only to overcome your voluntary opposition.

C. G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes,p. 103.