The believer in Christ receives a present justification. Faith does not produce this fruit by-and-by, but now. The very moment your soul closes with Christ and accepts him as your all in all, justification is yours. Are those who stand before the throne of God justified now? So are we! As truly and clearly justified as they who walk in white and sing melodious praises to celestial harps!

The thief upon the cross was justified the moment he turned the eye of faith to Jesus. And Paul the aged, after years of service? Not more justified than the thief with no service at all! We are today accepted in the Beloved, today absolved from sin, today acquitted at the bar of God.

Oh! Soul-transporting thought! There are some clusters of Eshcol's vine which we shall not gather till we enter heaven, but this is a bough that runs over the wall! This is not like the grain of the land, which we can never eat till we cross the Jordan—this is manna in the wilderness, our daily food that God supplies for our journeying.

We are now—even now—pardoned! Even now our sins are put away! Even now we stand in the sight of God accepted, as though we had never been guilty! "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." There is not a sin in the Book of God, even now, against one of his people. Who dares to lay anything to their charge? There is neither speck, nor spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing remaining upon any believer in the matter of justification in the sight of the Judge of all the earth.

Let present privilege awaken us to present duty! And now, while life lasts, let us spend and be spent for our sweet Lord Jesus.