A Better Hope – Hebrews 7:18-19

It is an effect of infinite condescension and grace, that God would appoint a way of recovery for those who had willfully cast themselves unto this woeful distance from him.—Why should God look after such fugitives anymore? He had no need of us or our services in our best condition, much less in that useless, depraved state wherein we had brought ourselves. And although we had transgressed the rule of our moral dependence on him in the way of obedience, and thereby done what we could to stain and eclipse his glory, yet he knew how to repair it unto advantage, by reducing us under the order of punishment. By our sins we ourselves “come short of the glory of God;” but he could lose none by us, whilst it was absolutely secured by the penalty annexed unto the law. When, upon the entrance of sin, he came and found Adam in the bushes, wherein he thought foolishly to hide himself, who could expect (Adam did not) but that his only design was to apprehend the poor rebellious fugitive, and give him up to condign punishment? But quite otherwise, above all thoughts that could ever have entered into the hearts of angels or men. After he had declared the nature of the apostasy, and his own indignation against it, he proposed and promised a way of deliverance and recovery! – John Owen