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{The Application
Application for the Ungodly
Embark with Christ
Threefold Authorization God Gives to Sinners to Come to Christ
God’s Appointment of Christ as Savior}
The first part of the threefold authorization is God’s ordination229 of Jesus Christ as Savior. Christ is He whom God the Father has appointed and sent into the world to help and bring back His exiles to Himself and to save sinners. This is He whom God the Father has sealed (John 6:27). The Father has marked Jesus Christ out as that Chosen Person in whom is salvation and has sealed Him in His commission to redeem and reconcile the world to Himself. As God said to the three friends of Job when He was angry with them, “Go to my servant Job … and Job will pray for you, for I will accept his prayer”230 (Job 42:8). So says the Lord to sinners: go to my servant Jesus and He will offer sacrifice for you and He will provide reconciliation for you. “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations” (Isaiah 42:1 ESV).
229ordination: appointment by God. In Old Testament times, those specially appointed by God to a high calling were anointed with oil. The very title of our Lord Jesus—Christ or Messiah—literally means “Anointed One.” Our Father in Heaven thus blazes forth the fact that Jesus Christ alone is particularly ordained to be the Savior, Redeemer, Mediator, and King and Lord of Heaven and Earth.
230Alleine has “and he shall offer sacrifice for you” prior to “he shall pray.” But in Job 42:8, it is not clear that Job was to do the offering; all versions have “offer a burnt offering for yourselves,” or something similar. The editor has thus omitted the mention of sacrifice in the partial quote to avoid misrepresenting Scripture.
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