God’s Covenant

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. Ezekiel 36:25.

It is impossible for us, of ourselves, to escape from the pit of sin in which we are sunken. Our hearts are evil, and we can not change them…. Education, culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. They may produce an outward correctness of behavior, but they can not change the heart…. There must be a power working from within, a new life from above, before men can be changed from sin to holiness. That power is Christ. His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul, and attract it to God, to holiness….

It is not enough to perceive the loving-kindness of God, to see the benevolence, the fatherly tenderness, of His character. It is not enough to discern the wisdom and justice of His law, to see that it is founded upon the eternal principle of love. Paul the apostle saw all this when he exclaimed, “I consent unto the law that it is good.” … But he added, in the bitterness of his soul-anguish and despair, “I am carnal, sold under sin.” He longed for the purity, the righteousness, to which in himself he was powerless to attain, and he cried out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Such is the cry that has gone up from burdened hearts in all lands and in all ages. To all there is but one answer, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” … With His own merits, Christ has bridged the gulf which sin had made, so that the ministering angels can hold communion with man. Christ connects fallen man in his weakness and helplessness with the Source of infinite power.—Steps to Christ, 20.