Thursday, September 3, 2009

The Scots Confession, Chapter VIII


The Scots Confession

Chapter VIII

Election

That same eternal God and Father, who by grace alone chose us in his Son Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid, appointed him to be our head, our brother, our pastor, and the great bishop of our souls. But since the opposition between the justice of God and our sins was such that no flesh by itself could or might have attained unto God, it behooved the Son of God to descend unto us and take himself a body of our body, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, and so become the Mediator between God and man, giving power to as many as believe in him to be the sons of God; as he himself says, “I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.”

By this most holy brotherhood whatever we have lost in Adam is restored to us again. Therefore we are not afraid to call God our Father, not so much because he has created us,which we have in common with the reprobate, as because he has given unto us his only Son to be our brother, and given us grace to acknowledge and embrace him as our only Mediator.

Further, it behooved the Messiah and Redeemer to be true God and true man, because he was able to undergo the punishment of our transgressions and to present himself in the presence of his Father’s judgment, as in our stead, to suffer for our transgression and disobedience, and by death to overcome him that was the author of death. But because the Godhead alone could not suffer death, and neither could manhood overcome death, he joined both together in one person, that the weakness of one should suffer and be subject to death—which we had deserved—and the infinite and invincible power of the other, that is, of the Godhead, should triumph, and purchase for us life, liberty, and perpetual victory. So we confess, and most undoubtedly believe.

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We could not have done it. With all the brainpower, with all the strength in the world, we needed God to overcome our oversized problem of sin. It was our own choice to fail, but it was not our choice to be saved. That was God's choice. No matter how badly we wanted to repent, we could not defeat sin and death by our own hands; it had to come from God.

But how could God overcome something which God could not suffer? The answer was Christ. Perfect man, perfect God. Death and liberty could come only from him.

The answer still is Christ. We struggle to create new answers to our new problems, and while we are certainly called to create anew each and every day, the answer is, was, and will always be Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thanks be to God

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