" Eph. 2:8, 9.
In the beginning, life and righteousness were the gift of God to man.
Only the Creator could bestow the gift at the first; when lost, only
creative power can restore it.
Man Cannot Justify Himself
The law of God declares all men sinners. Not only did Adam's posterity
inherit of necessity a sinful nature, but every soul of man has wrought
sin as the fruit of that nature.
"As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Rom. 5:12.
"There is no difference," Jew or Gentile, bond or free, they are in the
same lost condition; "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory
of God." Rom. 10:12; 3:23.
The sinner finds himself a transgressor, condemned to death by a holy
law. He turns to it with the thought, "I will do what it says, and
become righteous and win life." But he cannot undo the fact that he has
sinned. A holy law can only cry, "Guilty! guilty!" to one who has
transgressed it. The law declares righteousness; it cannot give it. As
the Scripture says:
"We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are
under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God.
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