20 1May the LORD answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you."

The Psalmist explains everything that has come into the world has been devised and decreed by God. God is the Elohim of objective reality, the divine creator Jehovah. Jehovah is the God whose divine purposes are fulfilled according to His eternal covenant. Consequently, God did not create to right one law for one miss deed but to establish a mutual relationship with mankind. Instead of demanding complete obedience to the law as a necessary prerequisite to being acceptable, God entered time and accomplished the work. He bore the whole weight of distress upon Himself that resulted from a ruined world. In this manner, there is only one problem with mankind. It is the problem with sin that initiated an adversarial relationship with God. The familiar cry of men's hearts is to graciously be accepted. When a man is unaccepted, he is genuinely distressed.

 

But the problem is considerably deeper than designing a world where all men are unified acceptance. The problem is that when man sinned he becomes unable to deal with the level of distress that must be efficiently carried to help a neighbor. Corruption is the foundation of social violence against God and men. Likewise, God is the only one who can promise and demand absolute obedience. The purpose of Christ dwelling among men was not to ruin them in the demands that they failed. But it was to be a substitute who regarded them like He wanted to be treated. All men must properly treat men like they sincerely want to be treated. Therefore, the object of our gracious acceptance has no bearing on demands to offer acceptance. This is why where ever Christ walked He miraculously healed all men. We are like the apostle who says that he does not view men according to the flesh.

 

Sin is the cause of mutual destruction in peaceful relationships. The problem is that because we live in a ruined world all men face an enemy that violates our desires and purposes. The law commands ever genuine person to faithfully represent the image God created them to be. But we display an obnoxious image to the genuine desires of other sensible men.This is the fundamental problem, even if we carefully performed it the best our social relationships would still be unsatisfying. Mutual satisfaction is only experienced when our unique needs are met by someone who adequately appreciates us better than we know ourselves. Someone must not merely acknowledge our legitimate need and fulfill it but He must know by appropriate action the optimal experience of mutual desire unified to action. There is no man able to display this by action or be the perfect answer to our needs. This is why our principal enemy in this fallen world remains bondage to living our lives through other people.

If God just came to be the example and miraculously heal, all mankind, would it be enough to create His eternal kingdom on earth? An established kingdom that is completely unified and fully satisfying? No, because God must properly deal with the prevalent corruption and violence. You see this invariably requires God to be in an impossible situation. If God were merely to accept the sin and the violence for the premium sake of peace He would be responsible for willingly allowing violence and murder. He would over look the sins of the beloved saints which are a good thing, but the world would never experience satisfaction because the opposition would continue. God in conveniently overlooking the sin and violence could not be the defender of the innocent victim.

This is why sin demands death. Every petty departure from the law demands death. If God were to accurately judge by a grade, there would continue to be no need for grace. The whole point of the extraordinary value of grace was it came from the historic accomplishment of Christ who willingly died in our place. You see the unique value of grace is the comparative freedom to experience a world where sin has been adequately dealt with by death. This is why in the covenant relationship God graciously offers no other remedy than approaching us by forgetting our sins. If God remembered our sins then the death of Christ would be unsatisfactory and we would never be accepted. We would constantly be abandoned in considerable distress. Because all distress is the operational need to overcome pain by being accepted. This is why God views saints as weak. Because our cognitive ability to keep a record and humbly confess our sins are never acceptable. Therefore, God connects graciously according to His forgetfulness and not according to His demands. We act justly according to His grace.