Continual Burnt Offering: Daily Meditations, June 25 (2:17)
“Jesus... saith unto them, They that are whole need not a physician but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” ―Mark 2:17.
MEN are not sinners because they sin. They sin because they are sinners. Therefore the sin-question must be settled first of all ere there can be a new order of society which will answer to the mind of God. Nor are men divided by the Lord into classes of little sinners and great sinners, but, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23); therefore all need the same salvation.
Religious forms and ceremonies are powerless to effect the salvation of the soul. The new robe of righteousness is offered in place of the filthy rags of self-righteousness (Isa. 64:6; 61:10). No patching-up process will do. The new wine of the gospel received into the believing heart will give new power in the life. Between salvation by grace and attempted salvation by human effort there can be no compromise.
— Frederick Whitfield.