Our first thought was to devote an
introductory chapter unto a setting forth the principle errors which have been
entertained upon this subject by different men and parties, but after more
deliberation we decided this would be for little or no profit to the majority
of our readers. While there are times, no doubt, when it becomes the
distasteful duty of God's servants to expose that which is calculated to
deceive and injure His people, yet, as a general rule, the most effective way
of getting rid of darkness is to let in the light. We desire, then, to pen
these articles in the spirit of the godly John Owen, who, in the introduction
to his ponderous treatise on this theme said, "More weight is to be put on the
steady guidance of the mind and conscience of one believer, really exercised
about the foundation of his peace and acceptance with God, than on the
confutation of ten wrangling disputers... To declare and vindicate the truth
unto the instruction and edification of such as love it in sincerity, to
extricate their minds from those difficulties in this particular instance,
which some endeavor to cast on all Gospel mysteries, to direct the consciences
of them that inquire after abiding peace with God, and to establish the minds
of them that do believe, are the things I have aimed at."
There was a time, not so long ago, when the
blessed truth of Justification was one of the best known doctrines of the
Christian faith, when it was regularly expounded by the preachers, and when the
rank and file of church-goers were familiar with its leading aspects. But now,
alas, a generation has arisen which is well-nigh totally ignorant of this
precious theme, for with very rare exceptions it is no longer given a place in
the pulpit, nor is scarcely anything written thereon in the religious magazines
of our day; and, in consequence, comparatively few understand what the term
itself connotes, still less are they clear as to the ground on which God
justifies the ungodly. This places the writer at a considerable disadvantage,
for while he wishes to avoid a superficial treatment of so vital a subject, yet
to go into it deeply, and enter into detail, will make a heavy tax upon the
mentality and patience of the average person. Nevertheless, we respectfully
urge each Christian to make a real effort to gird up the loins of his mind and
seek to prayerfully master these chapters.
That which will make it harder to follow us
through the present series is the fact that we are here treating of the
doctrinal side of truth, rather than the practical; the judicial, rather
than the experimental. Not that doctrine is impracticable; no indeed;
far, far from it. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable (first) for doctrine, (and then) for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). Doctrinal instruction was ever
the foundation from which the Apostles issued precepts to regulate the walk.
Not until the 6th chapter will any exhortation be found in the Roman Epistle:
the first five are devoted entirely to doctrinal exposition. So again in the
Epistle to the Ephesians: not until 4:1 is the first exhortation given. First
the saints are reminded of the exceeding riches of God's grace, that the love
of Christ may constrain them; and then they are urged to walk worthy of the
vocation wherewith they are called.
While it be true that a real mental effort (as
well as a prayerful heart) is required in order to grasp intelligently some of
the finer distinctions which are essential to a proper apprehension of this
doctrine, yet, let it be pointed out that the truth of justification is far
from being a mere piece of abstract speculation. No, it is a statement of
Divinely revealed fact; it is a statement of fact in which every member of our
race ought to be deeply interested in. Each one of us has forfeited the favor
of God, and each one of us needs to be restored to His favor. If we are not
restored, then the outcome must inevitably be our utter ruin and hopeless
perdition. How fallen creatures, how guilty rebels, how lost sinners,
are restored to the favor of God, and given a standing before Him
inestimably superior to that occupied by the holy angels, will (D.V.) engage
our attention as we proceed with our subject.
As said Abram Booth in his splendid work "The
Reign of Grace" (written in 1768), "Far from being a merely speculative point,
it spreads its influence through the whole body of divinity (theology), runs
through all Christian experience, and operates in every part of practical
godliness. Such is its grand importance, that a mistake about it has a
malignant efficacy, and is attended with a long train of dangerous
consequences. Nor can this appear strange, when it is considered that this
doctrine of justification is no other than the way of a sinner's acceptance
with God. Being of such peculiar moment, it is inseparably connected with
many other evangelical truths, the harmony and beauty of which we cannot
behold, while this is misunderstood. Till this appears in its glory, they will
be involved in darkness. It is, if anything may be so called, a
fundamental article; and certainly requires our most serious
consideration" (from his chapter on "Justification").
The great importance of the doctrine of
justification was sublimely expressed by the Dutch Puritan, Witsius, when he
said, "It tends much to display the glory of God, whose most exalted
perfections shine forth with an eminent lustre in this matter. It sets forth
the infinite goodness of God, by which He was inclined to procure
salvation freely for lost and miserable man, `to the praise of the glory of His
grace' (Eph. 1:6). It displays also the strictest justice, by which He
would not forgive even the smallest offense, but on condition of the sufficient
engagement, or full satisfaction of the Mediator, `that He might be just, and
the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus' (Rom 3:26). It shows further the
unsearchable wisdom of the Deity, which found out a way for the exercise
of the most gracious act of mercy, without injury to His strictest justice and
infallible truth, which threatened death to the sinner: justice demanded that
the soul that sinned should die (Rom. 1:32). Truth had pronounced the curses
for not obeying the Lord (Deut. 28:15-68). Goodness, in the meantime, was
inclined to adjudge life to some sinners, but by no other way than what became
the majesty of the most holy God. Here wisdom interposed, saying, `I, even I,
am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not
remember thy sins' (Isa. 43:25). Nor shall you, His justice and His truth have
any cause of complaint because full satisfaction shall be made to you by a
mediator. Hence the incredible philanthropy of the Lord Jesus shineth forth,
who, though Lord of all, was made subject to the law, not to the obedience of
it only, but also to the curse: `hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no
sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21).
Ought not the pious soul, who is deeply engaged
in the devout meditation of these things, to break out into the praises of a
justifying God, and sing with the church, "Who is a God like unto Thee, that
pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression" (Micah 7:18). O the
purity of that holiness which chose rather to punish the sins of the elect in
His only begotten Son, than suffer them to go unpunished! O the abyss of His
love to the world, for which He spared not His dearest Son, in order to spare
sinners! O the depth of the riches of unsearchable wisdom, by which He
exercises mercy towards the penitent guilty, without any stain to the honor of
the most impartial Judge! O the treasures of love in Christ, whereby He became
a curse for us, in order to deliver us therefrom! How becoming the justified
soul, who is ready to dissolve in the sense of this love, with full exultation
to sing a new song, a song of mutual return of love to a justifying God.
So important did the Apostle Paul, under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, deem this doctrine, that the very first of his
epistles in the New Testament is devoted to a full exposition thereof. The
pivot on which turns the entire contents of the Epistle to the Romans is that
notable expression "the righteousness of God"--than which is none of greater
moment to be found in all the pages of Holy Writ, and which it behooves every
Christian to make the utmost endeavor to clearly understand. It is an abstract
expression denoting the satisfaction of Christ in its relation to the Divine
Law. It is a descriptive name for the material cause of the sinner's acceptance
before God. "The righteousness of God" is a phrase referring to the finished
work of the Mediator as approved by the Divine tribunal, being the meritorious
cause of our acceptance before the throne of the Most High.
In the succeeding chapters (D.V.) we shall
examine in more detail this vital expression "the righteousness of God," which
connotes that perfect satisfaction which the Redeemer offered to Divine justice
on the behalf of and in the stead of that people which had been given to Him.
Suffice it now to say that that "righteousness" by which the believing sinner
is justified is called "the righteousness of God" (Rom 1:17; 3:21)
because He is the appointer, approver, and imputer of it. It is called "the
righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1)
because He wrought it out and presented it unto God. It is called "the
righteousness of faith" (Rom. 4:13) because faith is the apprehender and
receiver of it. It is called "man's righteousness" (Job 33:26) because
it was paid for him and imputed to him. All these varied expressions refer to
so many aspects of that one perfect obedience unto death which the Saviour
performed for His people.
Yes, so vital did the Apostle Paul, under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, esteem this doctrine of Justification, that he
shows at length how the denial and perversion of it by the Jews was the chief
reason of their being rejected by God: see the closing verses of Romans 9 and
the beginning of chapter 10. Again; throughout the whole Epistle to the
Galatians we find the Apostle engaged in most strenuously defending and
zealously disputing with those who had assailed this basic truth. Therein he
speaks of the contrary doctrine as ruinous and fatal to the souls of men, as
subversive of the cross of Christ, and calls it another gospel, solemnly
declaring "though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto
you... let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:8). Alas, that under the latitudinal
liberty and false "charity" of our day, there is now so little holy abhorrence
of that preaching which repudiates the vicarious obedience of Christ which is
imputed to the believer.
Under God, the preaching of this grand truth
brought about the greatest revival which the Cause of Christ has enjoyed since
the days of the Apostles. "This was the great fundamental distinguishing
doctrine of the Reformation, and was regarded by all the Reformers as of
primary and paramount importance. The leading charge which they adduced against
the Church of Rome was that she had corrupted and perverted the doctrine of
Scripture upon this subject in a way that was dangerous to the souls of men;
and it was mainly by the exposition, enforcement, and application of the true
doctrine of God's Word in regard to it, that they assailed and overturned the
leading doctrines and practices of the Papal system. There is no subject which
possesses more of intrinsic importance than attaches to this one, and there is
none with respect to which the Reformers were more thoroughly harmonious in
their sentiments" (W. Cunningham).
This blessed doctrine supplies the grand Divine
cordial to revive one whose soul is cast down and whose conscience is
distressed by a felt sense of sin and guilt, and longs to know the way and
means whereby he may obtain acceptance with God and the title unto the Heavenly
inheritance. To one who is deeply convinced that he has been a life-long rebel
against God, a constant transgressor of His Holy Law, and who realizes he is
justly under His condemnation and wrath, no inquiry can be of such deep
interest and pressing moment as that which relates to the means of restoring
him to the Divine favour, remitting his sins, and fitting him to stand
unabashed in the Divine presence: till this vital point has been cleared to the
satisfaction of his heart, all other information concerning religion will be
quite unavailing.
"Demonstrations of the existence of God will only
serve to confirm and more deeply impress upon his mind the awful truth which he
already believes, that there is a righteous Judge, before whom he must appear,
and by whose sentence his final doom will be fixed. To explain the moral law to
him, and inculcate the obligations to obey it, will be to act the part of a
public accuser, when he quotes the statutes of the land in order to show that
the charges which he has brought against the criminal at the bar are well
founded, and, consequently, that he is worthy of punishment. The stronger the
arguments are by which you evince the immortality of the soul, the more clearly
do you prove that his punishment will not be temporary, and that there is
another state of existence, in which he will be fully recompensed according to
his desert" (J. Dick).
When God Himself becomes a living reality unto
the soul, when His awful majesty, ineffable holiness, inflexible justice, and
sovereign authority, are really perceived, even though most inadequately,
indifference to His claims now gives place to a serious concern. When there is
a due sense of the greatness of our apostasy from God, of the depravity of our
nature, of the power and vileness of sin, of the spirituality and strictness of
the law, and of the everlasting burnings awaiting God's enemies, the awakened
soul cries out, "Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before
the high God? shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a
year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten
thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" (Micah 6:6, 7). Then it is that the
poor soul cries out, "How then can man be justified with God? or how can
he be clean that is born of a woman?" (Job 25:4). And it is in the blessed
doctrine which is now to be before us that we are taught the method whereby a
sinner may obtain peace with his Maker and rise to the possession of eternal
life.
Again; this doctrine is of inestimable value unto
the conscientious Christian who daily groans under a sense of his inward
corruptions and innumerable failures to measure up to the standard which God
has set before him. The Devil, who is "the accuser of our brethren" (Rev.
12:10), frequently charges the believer with hypocrisy before God, disquiets
his conscience, and seeks to persuade him that his faith and piety are nought
but a mask and outward show, by which he has not only imposed upon others, but
also on himself. But, thank God, Satan may be overcome by "the blood of the
Lamb" (Rev. 12:11): by looking away from incurably depraved self, and viewing
the Surety, who has fully answered for the Christian's every failure, perfectly
atoned for his every sin, and brought in an "everlasting righteousness" (Dan.
9:24), which is placed to his account in the high court of Heaven. And thus,
though groaning under his infirmities, the believer may possess a victorious
confidence which rises above every fear.
This it was which brought peace and joy to the
heart of the Apostle Paul: for while in one breath he cried, "O wretched man
that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24), in
the next he declared, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are
in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). To which he added, "Who shall lay any thing to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ?" (vv. 33-35). May it please the God of all grace to so
direct our pen and bless what we write unto the readers, that not a few who are
now found in the gloomy dungeons of Doubting Castle, may be brought out into
the glorious light and liberty of the full assurance of faith.
Deliverance from the condemning sentence of
the Divine Law is the fundamental blessing in Divine salvation: so long as we
continue under the curse, we can neither be holy nor happy. But as to the
precise nature of that deliverance, as to exactly what it consists of, as to
the ground on which it is obtained, and as to the means whereby it is secured,
much confusion now obtains. Most of the errors which have been prevalent on
this subject arose from the lack of a clear view of the thing itself, and until
we really understand what justification is, we are in no position to either
affirm or deny anything concerning it. We therefore deem it requisite to devote
a whole chapter unto a careful defining and explaining this word
"justification," endeavouring to show both what it signifies, and what it does
not connote.
Between Protestants and Romanists there is a wide
difference of opinion as to the meaning of the term "justify": they affirming
that to justify is to make inherently righteous and holy; we insisting
that to justify signifies only to formally pronounce just or legally
declare righteous. Popery includes under justification the renovation of
man's moral nature or deliverance from depravity, thereby confounding
justification with regeneration and sanctification. On the other hand, all
representative Protestants have shown that justification refers not to a change
of moral character, but to a change of legal status; though allowing, yea,
insisting, that a radical change of character invariably accompanies it.
It is a legal change from a state of guilt and condemnation to a state of
forgiveness and acceptance; and this change is owing solely to a gratuitous act
of God, founded upon the righteousness of Christ (they having none of
their own) being imputed to His people.
"We simply explain justification to be an
acceptance by which God receives us into His favour and esteems us as righteous
persons; and we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the
imputation of the righteousness of Christ. . . Justification, therefore, is no
other than an acquittal from guilt of him who was accused, as though his
innocence has been proved. Since God, therefore, justifies us through the
mediation of Christ, He acquits us, not by an admission of our personal
innocence, but by an imputation of righteousness; so that we, who are
unrighteous in ourselves, are considered as righteous in Christ" (John Calvin,
1559).
"What is justification? Answer: Justification is
an act of God's free grace unto sinners, in which He pardoneth all their sins,
accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in His sight; not for any
thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and
full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith
alone" (Westminster Catechism, 1643).
"We thus define the Gospel justification of a
sinner: It is a judicial, but gracious act of God, whereby the elect and
believing sinner is absolved from the guilt of his sins, and hath a right to
eternal life adjudged to him, on account of the obedience of Christ, received
by faith" (H. Witsius, 1693).
"A person is said to be justified when he is
approved of God as free from the guilt of sin and its deserved punishment; and
as having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the reward of
life" (Jonathan Edwards, 1750).
Justification, then, refers not to any subjective
change wrought in a person's disposition, but is solely an objective change in
his standing in relation to the law. That to justify cannot possibly signify to
make a person inherently righteous or good is most clearly to be seen
from the usage of the term itself in Scripture. For example, in Proverbs 17:15
we read, "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even
they both are abomination to the LORD": now obviously he who shall make
a "wicked" person just is far from being an "abomination to the LORD," but
he who knowingly pronounces a wicked person to be righteous is obnoxious to
Him.
Again; in Luke 7:29 we read, "And all the people
that heard Him, and the publicans, justified God": how impossible it is to make
the words "justified God" signify any moral transformation in His character;
but understand those words to mean that they declared Him to be
righteous, and all ambiguity is removed. Once more, in 1 Timothy 3:16 we are
told that the incarnate Son was "justified in (or "by") the Spirit": that is to
say, He was publicly vindicated at His resurrection, exonerated from the
blasphemous charges which the Jews had laid against Him.
Justification has to do solely with the
legal side of salvation. It is a judicial term, a word of the law
courts. It is the sentence of a judge upon a person who has been brought before
him for judgment. It is that gracious act of God as Judge, in the high court of
Heaven, by which He pronounces an elect and believing sinner to be freed from
the penalty of the law, and fully restored unto the Divine favour. It is the
declaration of God that the party arraigned is fully conformed to the law;
justice exonerates him because justice has been satisfied. Thus, justification
is that change of status whereby one, who being guilty before God, and
therefore under the condemning sentence of His Law, and deserving of nought but
an eternal banishment from His presence, is received into His favour and given
a right unto all the blessings which Christ has, by His perfect satisfaction,
purchased for His people.
In substantiation of the above definition, the
meaning of the term "justify" may be determined, first, by its usage in
Scripture. "And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what shall we
speak? or how shall we clear (this Hebrew word "tsadag" always signifies
"justify") ourselves?" (Gen. 44:16). Here we have an affair which was entirely
a judicial one. Judah and his brethren were arraigned before the
governor of Egypt, and they were concerned as to how they might procure a
sentence in their favour. "If there be a controversy between men, and
they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall
justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked" (Deut. 25:1). Here again we see
plainly that the term is a forensic one, used in connection with the
proceedings of law-courts, implying a process of investigation and judgment.
God here laid down a rule to govern the judges in Israel: they must not
"justify" or pass a sentence in favour of the wicked: compare 1 Kings 8:31,
32.
"If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall
condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse" (Job
9:20): the first member of this sentence is explained in the second--"justify"
there cannot signify to make holy, but to pronounce a sentence in my own
favour. "Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu . . . against Job . . . because he
justified himself rather than God" (Job 32:2), which obviously means, because
he vindicated himself rather than God. "That Thou mightest be justified when
Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest" (Psa. 51:4), which signifies
that God, acting in His judicial office, might be pronounced righteous in
passing sentence. "But wisdom is justified of her children" (Matt. 11:19),
which means that they who are truly regenerated by God have accounted
the wisdom of God (which the scribes and Pharisees reckoned foolishness) to be,
as it really is, consummate wisdom: they cleared it of the calumny of folly.
2. The precise force of the term "to justify" may
be ascertained by noting that it is the antithesis of "to condemn." Now
to condemn is not a process by which a good man is made bad, but is the
sentence of a judge upon one because he is a transgressor of the law. "He
that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are
abomination to the LORD" (Prov. 17:15 and cf. Deut. 25:1). "For by thy words
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (Matt.
12:37). "It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" (Rom. 8:33,
34). Now it is undeniable that "condemnation" is the passing of a sentence
against a person by which the punishment prescribed by the law is awarded to
him and ordered to be inflicted upon him; therefore justification is the
passing of a sentence in favour of a person, by which the reward
prescribed by the law is ordered to be given to him.
3. That justification is not an experimental
change from sin to holiness, but a judicial change from guilt to
no-condemnation may be evidenced by the equivalent terms used for it.
For example, in Romans 4:6 we read, "Even as David also describeth the
blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works": so
that legal "righteousness" is not a habit infused into the heart, but a gift
transferred to our account. In Romans 5:9, 10 to be "justified by Christ's
blood" is the same as being "reconciled by His death," and reconciliation is
not a transformation of character, but the effecting of peace by the removal of
all that causes offense.
4. From the fact that the judicial side of our
salvation is propounded in Scripture under the figures of a forensic trial
and sentence. "(1) A judgment is supposed in it, concerning which the
Psalmist prays that it may not proceed on the terms of the law: Psalm 143:2.
(2) The Judge is God Himself: Isaiah 50:7, 8. (3) The tribunal whereon God sits
in judgment is the Throne of Grace: Hebrews 4:16. (4) A guilty person. This is
the sinner, who is so guilty of sin as to be obnoxious to the judgment of God:
Romans 3:18. (5) Accusers are ready to propose and promote the charge against
the guilty person; these are the law (John 5:45), conscience (Rom. 2:15), and
Satan: Zechariah 3:2, Revelation 12:10. (6) The charge is admitted and drawn up
in a `handwriting' in form of law, and is laid before the tribunal of the
Judge, in bar to the deliverance of the offender: Colossians 2:14. (7) A plea
is prepared in the Gospel for the guilty person: this is grace, through the
blood of Christ, the ransom paid, the eternal righteousness brought in by the
Surety of the covenant: Romans 3:23, 25, Daniel 9:24. (8) Hereunto alone the
sinner betakes himself, renouncing all other apologies or defensatives
whatever: Psalm 130:2, 3; Luke 18:13. (9) To make this plea effectual we have
an Advocate with the Father, and He pleads His own propitiation for us: 1 John
2:1, 2. (10) The sentence hereon is absolution, on account of the sacrifice and
righteousness of Christ; with acceptation into favour, as persons approved of
God: Romans 8:33, 34; 2 Corinthians 5:21" (John Owen).
From what has been before us, we may perceive
what justification is not. First, it differs from regeneration.
"Whom He called, them He also justified" (Rom. 8:30). Though inseparably
connected, effectual calling or the new birth and justification are quite
distinct. The one is never apart from the other, yet they must not be
confounded. In the order of nature regeneration precedes justification, though
it is in no sense the cause or ground of it: none is justified till he
believes, and none believe till quickened. Regeneration is the act of the
Father (James 1:18), justification is the sentence of the Judge. The one gives
me a place in God's family, the other secures me a standing before His throne.
The one is internal, being the impartation of Divine life to my soul: the other
is external, being the imputation of Christ's obedience to my account. By the
one I am drawn to return in penitence to the Father's house, by the other I am
given the "best robe" which fits me for His presence.
Second, it differs from sanctification.
Sanctification is moral or experimental, justification is legal or judicial.
Sanctification results from the operation of the Spirit in me,
justification is based upon what Christ has done for me. The one is
gradual and progressive, the other is instantaneous and immutable. The one
admits of degrees, and is never perfect in this life; the other is complete and
admits of no addition. The one concerns my state, the other has to do
with my standing before God. Sanctification produces a moral
transformation of character, justification is a change of legal
status: it is a change from guilt and condemnation to forgiveness and
acceptance, and this solely by a gratuitous act of God, founded upon the
imputation of Christ's righteousness, through the instrument of faith alone.
Though justification is quite separate from sanctification, yet sanctification
ever accompanies it.
Third, it differs from forgiveness. In
some things they agree. It is only God who can forgive sins (Mark 2:7) and He
alone can justify (Rom. 3:30). His free grace is the sole moving cause in the
one (Eph. 1:7) and of the other (Rom. 3:24). The blood of Christ is the
procuring cause of each alike: Matthew 26:28, Romans 5:9. The objects are the
same: the persons that are pardoned are justified, and the same that are
justified are pardoned; to whom God imputes the righteousness of Christ for
their justification to them He gives the remission of sins; and to whom He does
not impute sin, but forgives it, to them He imputes righteousness without works
(Romans 4:6-8). Both are received by faith (Acts 26:18, Romans 5:1). But though
they agree in these things, in others they differ.
God is said to be "justified" (Rom. 3:4), but it
would be blasphemy to speak of Him being "pardoned"--this at once shows
the two things are diverse. A criminal may be pardoned, but only a righteous
person can truly be justified. Forgiveness deals only with a man's acts,
justification with the man himself. Forgiveness respects the claims of mercy,
justification those of justice. Pardon only remits the curse due unto sin; in
addition justification confers a title to Heaven. Justification applies to the
believer with respect to the claims of the law, pardon with respect to the
Author of the law. The law does not pardon, for it knows no relaxation; but God
pardons the transgressions of the law in His people by providing a satisfaction
to the law adequate to their transgressions. The blood of Christ was sufficient
to procure pardon (Eph. 1:7), but His righteousness is needed for justification
(Rom. 5:19). Pardon takes away the filthy garments, but justification provides
a change of raiment (Zech. 3:4). Pardon frees from death (2 Sam. 12:13), but
righteousness imputed is called "justification of life" (Rom. 5:18). The one
views the believer as completely sinful, the other as completely righteous.
Pardon is the remission of punishment, justification is the declaration that no
ground for the infliction of punishment exists. Forgiveness may be repeated
unto seventy times seven, justification is once for all.
From what has been said in the last paragraph we
may see what a serious mistake it is to limit justification to the mere
forgiveness of sins. Just as "condemnation" is not the execution of punishment,
but rather the formal declaration that the accused is guilty and worthy of
punishment; so "justification" is not merely the remission of punishment but
the judicial announcement that punishment cannot be justly inflicted--the
accused being fully conformed to all the positive requirements of the law in
consequence of Christ's perfect obedience being legally reckoned to his
account. The justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to
participate in the reward merited by his Surety. Justification is nothing more
or less than the righteousness of Christ being imputed to us: the negative
blessing issuing therefrom is the remission of sins; the positive, a title to
the heavenly inheritance.
Beautifully has it been pointed out that
"We cannot separate from Immanuel His own essential excellency. We may see Him
bruised and given like beaten incense to the fire, but was incense ever burned
without fragrance, and only fragrance being the result? The name of Christ not
only cancels sin, it supplies in the place of that which it has canceled, its
own everlasting excellency. We cannot have its nullifying power only; the other
is the sure concomitant. So was it with every typical sacrifice of the Law. It
was stricken: but as being spotless it was burned on the altar for a
sweet-smelling savor. The savor ascended as a memorial before God: it was
accepted for, and its value was attributed or imputed to him who had brought
the vicarious victim. If therefore, we reject the imputation of righteousness,
we reject sacrifice as revealed in Scripture; for Scripture knows of no
sacrifice whose efficacy is so exhausted in the removal of guilt as to leave
nothing to be presented in acceptableness before God" (B.W. Newton).
"What is placing our righteousness in the
obedience of Christ, but asserting that we are accounted righteous only because
His obedience is accepted for us as if it were our own? Wherefore Ambrose
appears to me to have very beautifully exemplified this righteousness in the
benediction of Jacob: that as he, who had on his own account no claim to the
privileges of primogeniture, being concealed in his brother's habit, and
invested with his garment, which diffused a most excellent odor, insinuated
himself into the favour of his father, that he might receive the benediction to
his own advantage, under the character of another; so we shelter ourselves
under the precious purity of Christ" (John Calvin).
In this and the following chapter our aim
will be fourfold. First, to demonstrate the impossibility of any sinner
obtaining acceptance and favour with God on the ground of his own performances.
Second, to show that the saving of a sinner presented a problem which nought
but omniscience could solve, but that the consummate wisdom of God has devised
a way whereby He can pronounce righteous a guilty transgressor of His Law
without impeaching His veracity, sullying His holiness, or ignoring the claims
of justice; yea, in such a way that all His perfections have been displayed and
magnified, and the Son of His love glorified. Third, point out the sole ground
on which an awakened conscience can find solid and stable peace. Fourth, seek
to give God's children a clearer understanding of the exceeding riches of
Divine grace, that their hearts may be drawn out in fervent praise unto the
Author of "so great salvation."
But let it be pointed out at the onset that, any
reader who has never seen himself under the white light of God's holiness, and
who has never felt His Word cutting him to the very quick, will be unable to
fully enter into the force of what we are about to write. Yea, in all
probability, he who is unregenerate is likely to take decided exception unto
much of what will be said, denying that any such difficulty exists in the
matter of a merciful God pardoning one of His offending creatures. Or, if he
does not dissent to that extent, yet he will most likely consider that we have
grossly exaggerated the various elements in the case we are about to present,
that we have pictured the sinner's condition in far darker hues than was
warranted. This must be so, for he has no experimental acquaintance with God,
nor is he conscious of the fearful plague of his own heart.
The natural man cannot endure the thought of
being thoroughly searched by God. The last thing he desires is to pass beneath
the all-seeing eye of his Maker and Judge, so that his every thought and
desire, his most secret imagination and motive, stands exposed before Him. It
is indeed a most solemn experience when we are made to feel with the Psalmist,
"O LORD, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and
mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path
and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word
in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me
behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me" (Psa. 139:1-5).
Yes, dear reader, the very last thing which the
natural man desires is to be searched, through and through by God, and have his
real character exposed to view. But when God undertakes to do this very
thing--which He either will do in grace in this life, or in judgment in the Day
to come--there is no escape for us. Then it is we may well exclaim, "Whither
shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I
ascend up into Heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in Hell, behold, Thou
art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea; Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold
me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light
about me" (Psa. 139:7-11). Then it is we shall be assured, "Yea, the darkness
hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and
the light are both alike to Thee" (v. 12).
Then it is that the soul is awakened to a
realization of Who it is with whom it has to do. Then it is that he now
perceives something of the high claims of God upon him, the just requirements
of His Law, the demands of His holiness. Then it is that he realizes how
completely he has failed to consider those claims, how fearfully he has
disregarded that law, how miserably he falls short of meeting those demands.
Now it is that he perceives he has been "a transgressor from the womb" (Isa.
48:8), that so far from having lived to glorify His Maker, he has done nought
but follow the course of this world and fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now it
is he realizes that there is "no soundness" in him but, from the sole of
the foot even unto the head, "wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores" (Isa.
1:6). Now it is he is made to see that all his righteousness are as "filthy
rags" (Isa. 64:6).
"It is easy for any one in the cloisters of the
schools to indulge himself in idle speculations of the merit of works to
justify men; but when he comes into the presence of God, he must bid farewell
to these amusements, for there the business is transacted with seriousness, and
no ludicrous logomachy practiced. To this point, then, must our attention be
directed, if we wish to make any useful inquiry concerning true righteousness;
how we can answer the celestial Judge, when He shall call us to an account. Let
us place that Judge before our eyes, not according to the spontaneous
imaginations of our minds, but according to the descriptions given of Him in
the Scripture; which represents Him as one whose refulgence eclipses the stars,
whose power melts the mountains, whose anger shakes the earth, whose wisdom
takes the subtle in their own craftiness, whose purity makes all things appear
polluted, whose righteousness even the angels are unable to bear, who acquits
not the guilty, whose vengeance, when it is once kindled, penetrates even to
the abyss of Hell" (John Calvin).
Ah, my reader, tremendous indeed are the effects
produced in the soul when one is really brought into the presence of God, and
is granted a sight of His awesome majesty. While we measure ourselves by our
fellow men, it is easy to reach the conclusion that there is not much wrong
with us; but when we approach the dread tribunal of ineffable holiness, we form
an entirely different estimate of our character and conduct. While we are
occupied with earthly objects we may pride ourselves in the strength of our
visive faculty, but fix the gaze steadily on the midday sun and under its
dazzling brilliance the weakness of the eye will at once become apparent. In
like manner, while I compare myself with other sinners I can but form a wrong
estimate of myself, but if I gauge my life by the plummet of God's Law, and do
so in the light of His holiness, I must "Abhor myself, and repent in dust and
ashes" (Job 42:6).
But not only has sin corrupted man's being, it
has changed his relation to God: it has "alienated" him (Eph. 4:18), and
brought him under His righteous condemnation. Man has broken God's Law in
thought and word and deed, not once, but times without number. By the Divine
tribunal he is pronounced an incorrigible transgressor, a guilty rebel. He is
under the curse of his Maker. The law demands that its punishment shall be
inflicted upon him; justice clamours for satisfaction. The sinner's case is
deplorable, then, to the last degree. When this is painfully felt by the
convicted conscience, its agonized possessor cries out, "How then can
man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?"
(Job 25:4). How indeed! Let us now consider the various elements which enter
into this problem.
1. The requirements of God's Law. "Every
question therefore, respecting justification necessarily brings before us the
judicial courts of God. The principles of those courts must be determined by
God alone. Even to earthly governors we concede the right of establishing their
own laws, and appointing the mode of their enforcement. Shall we then accord
this title to man, and withhold it from the all-wise and almighty God? Surely
no presumption can be greater than for the creature to sit in judgment on the
Creator, and pretend to determine what should, or should not be, the methods of
His government. It must be our place reverently to listen to His own exposition
of the principles of His own courts, and humbly to thank Him for His goodness
in condescending to explain to us what those principles are. As sinners, we can
have no claim on God. We do have claim to a revelation that should
acquaint us with His ways.
"The judicial principles of the government of
God, are, as might be expected, based upon the absolute perfectness of His own
holiness. This was fully shown both in the prohibitory and in the mandatory
commandments of the law as given at Sinai. That law prohibited not only wrong
deeds and wrong counsels of heart, but it went deeper still. It prohibited even
wrong desires and wrong tendencies, saying, `thou shalt not be
concupiscent'--that is, thou shalt not have, even momentarily, one
desire or tendency that is contrary to the perfectness of God. And then as to
its positive requirements, it demanded the perfect, unreserved, perpetual
surrender of soul and body, with all its powers, to God and to His service. Not
only was it required, that love to Him--love perfect and unremitted--should
dwell as a living principle in the heart, but also that it should be developed
in action, and that unvaryingly. The mode also of the development throughout,
was required to be as perfect as the principle from which the development
sprang.
"If any among the children of men be able to
substantiate a claim to prefectness such as this, the Courts of God are ready
to recognize it. The God of Truth will recognize a truthful claim wherever it
is found. But if we are unable to present any such claim--if corruption be
found in us and in our ways--if in any thing we have fallen short of God's
glory, then it is obvious that however willing the Courts of God may be to
recognize perfectness wherever it exists, such willingness can afford no ground
of hope to those, who, instead of having perfectness, have sins and
short-comings unnumbered" (B.W. Newton).
2. The indictment preferred against us.
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have
nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox
knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, My
people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a
seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD,
they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away
backward" (Isa. 1:2-4). The eternal God justly charges us with having broken
all His commandments--some in act, some in word, all of them in thought and
imagination.
The enormity of this charge is heightened by the
fact that against light and knowledge we chose the evil and forsook the good:
that again and again we deliberately turned aside from God's righteous Law, and
went astray like lost sheep, following the evil desires and devices of our own
hearts. Above, we find God complaining that inasmuch as we are his creatures,
we ought to have obeyed Him, that inasmuch as we owe our very lives to His
daily care we ought to have rendered Him fealty instead of disobedience, and
have been His loyal subjects instead of turning traitors to His throne. No
exaggeration of sin is brought against us, but a statement of fact is declared
which it is impossible for us to gainsay. We are ungrateful, unruly, ungodly
creatures. Who would keep a horse that refused to work? Who would retain a dog
which barked and flew at us? Yet we have broken God's sabbaths, despised His
reproofs, abused His mercies.
3. The sentence of the law. This is
clearly announced in the Divine oracles, "Cursed is every one that continueth
not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal.
3:10). Whoever violates a single precept of the Divine Law exposes himself to
the displeasure of God, and to punishment as the expression of that
displeasure. No allowance is made for ignorance, no distinction is made between
persons, no relaxation of its strictness is permissible: "The soul that sinneth
it shall die" is its inexorable pronouncement. No exception is made whether the
transgressor be young or old, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile: "the wages of sin
is death"; for "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Rom. 1:18).
4. The Judge Himself is inflexibly just.
In the high court of Divine justice God takes the law in its strictest and
sternest aspect, and judges rigidly according to the letter. "But we are sure
that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such
things... Who will render to every man according to his deeds" (Rom. 2:2, 6).
God is inexorably righteous, and will not show any partiality either to the law
or to its transgressor. The Most High has determined that His Holy Law shall be
faithfully upheld and its sanctions strictly enforced.
What would this country be like if all its judges
ceased to uphold and enforce the laws of the land? What conditions would
prevail were sentimental mercy to reign at the expense of righteousness? Now
God is the Judge of all the earth and the moral Ruler of the universe. Holy
Writ declares that "justice and judgment," and not pity and clemency, are the
"habitation" of His "throne" (Psa. 89:14). God's attributes do not conflict
with each other. His mercy does not override His justice, nor is His grace ever
shown at the expense of righteousness. Each of His perfections is given free
course. For God to give a sinner entrance into Heaven simply because He loved
him, would be like a judge sheltering an escaped convict in his own home merely
because he pitied him. Scripture emphatically declares that God, "will by no
means clear the guilty" (Exo. 34:7).
5. The sinner is unquestionably guilty. It
is not merely that he has infirmities or that he is not as good as he ought to
be: he has set at nought God's authority, violated His commandments, trodden
His Laws under foot. And this is true not only of a certain class of offenders,
but "all the world" is "guilty before God" (Rom. 3:19). "There is none
righteous, no, not one: They are all gone out of the way, they are together
become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:10,
12). It is impossible for any man to clear himself from this fearful charge. He
can neither show that the crimes of which he is accused have not been
committed, nor that having been committed, he had a right to do them. He can
neither disprove the charges which the law preferred against him, nor justify
himself in the perpetration of them.
Here then is how the case stands. The law demands
personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity to its precepts, in heart and act,
in motive and performance. God charges each one of us with having failed to
meet those just demands, and declares we have violated His commandments in
thought and word and deed. The law therefore pronounces upon us a sentence of
condemnation, curses us, and demands the infliction of its penalty, which is
death. The One before whose tribunal we stand is omniscient, and cannot be
deceived or imposed upon; He is inflexibly just, and swayed by no sentimental
considerations. We, the accused, are guilty, unable to refute the accusations
of the law, unable to vindicate our sinful conduct, unable to offer any
satisfaction or atonement for our crimes. Truly, our case is desperate to the
last degree.
Here, then, is the problem. How can God justify
the willful transgressor of His Law without justifying his sins? How can God
deliver him from the penalty of His broken Law without compromising His
holiness and going back upon His word that He will "by no means clear the
guilty"? How can life be granted the guilty culprit without repealing the
sentence "the soul that sinneth it shall die"? How can mercy be shown to the
sinner without justice being flouted? It is a problem which must forever have
baffled every finite intelligence. Yet, blessed be His name, God has, in
His consummate wisdom, devised a way whereby the "chief of sinners" may be
dealt with by Him as though he were perfectly innocent; nay more, He pronounces
him righteous, up to the required standard of the law, and entitled
to the reward of eternal life. How this can be will be taken up in the next
chapter.
In our last chapter we contemplated the
problem which is presented in the justifying or pronouncing righteous
one who is a flagrant violater of the Law of God. Some may have been surprised
at the introduction of such a term as "problem": as there are many in the ranks
of the ungodly who feel that the world owes them a living, so there are
not a few Pharisees in Christendom who suppose it is due them that at
death their Creator should take them to Heaven. But different far is it with
one who has been enlightened and convicted by the Holy Spirit, so that he sees
himself to be a filthy wretch, a vile rebel against God. Such an one will ask,
seeing that the word of God so plainly declares "there shall in no wise enter
into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination" (Rev.
21:27), how is it possible that I can ever gain admission into the
heavenly Jerusalem? How can it be that one so completely devoid of
righteousness as I am, and so filled with unrighteousness, should ever be
pronounced just by a holy God?
Various attempts have been made by unbelieving
minds to solve this problem. Some have reasoned that if they now turn over a
new leaf, thoroughly reform their lives and henceforth walk in obedience to
God's Law, they shall be approved before the Divine Tribunal. This scheme,
reduced to simple terms, is salvation by our own works. But such a scheme is
utterly untenable, and salvation by such means is absolutely impossible. The
works of a reformed sinner cannot be the meritorious or efficacious cause of
his salvation, and that for the following reasons. First, no provision is made
for his previous failures. Suppose that henceforth I never again transgress
God's Law, what is to atone for my past sins? Second, a fallen and sinful
creature cannot produce that which is perfect, and nothing short of perfection
is acceptable to God. Third, were it possible for us to be saved by our own
works, then the sufferings and death of Christ were needless. Fourth, salvation
by our own merits would entirely eclipse the glory of Divine grace.
Others suppose this problem may be solved by an
appeal to the bare mercy of God. But mercy is not an attribute that
overshadows all the other Divine perfections: justice, truth, and holiness are
also operative in the salvation of God's elect. The law is not set aside, but
honored and magnified. The truth of God in His solemn threats is not sullied,
but faithfully carried out. The Divine righteousness is not flouted, but
vindicated. One of God's perfections is not exercised to the injury of any of
the others, but all of them shine forth with equal clearness in the plan which
Divine wisdom devised. Mercy at the expense of justice over-ridden would not
suit the Divine government, and justice enforced to the exclusion of mercy
would not befit the Divine character. The problem which no finite intelligence
could solve was how both might be exercised in the sinner's
salvation.
A striking example of mercy helpless
before the claims of the law occurs in Daniel 6. There we find that Darius, the
king of Babylon, was induced by his nobles to sign a decree that any subject
within his kingdom who should pray, or "ask a petition of any God or man for
thirty days" save the king himself, should be cast into the den of lions.
Daniel knowing this, nevertheless, continued to pray before God as hitherto.
Whereupon the nobles acquainted Darius with his violation of the royal edict,
which "according to the law of the Medes and Persians altereth not," and
demanded his punishment. Now Daniel stood high in the king's favour, and he
greatly desired to show clemency unto him, so he "set his heart on Daniel
to deliver him, and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver
him." But he found no way out of the difficulty: the law must be
honored, so Daniel was cast into the lion's den.
An equally striking example of law
helpless in the presence of mercy is found in John 8. There we read of a
woman taken in the act of adultery. The scribes and Pharisees apprehended her
and set her before Christ, charging her with the crime, and reminding the
Saviour that "Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned." She
was unquestionably guilty, and her accusers were determined that the penalty of
the law should be inflicted upon her. The Lord turned to them and said, "He
that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her"; and they,
being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, leaving the
adulteress alone with Christ. Turning to her, He asked, "Woman, where are thine
accusers, hath no man condemned thee?" She replied, "No man, Lord," and He
answered, "Neither do I condemn thee, go, and sin no more."
The two adverse principles are seen operating
in conjuction in Luke 15. The "Father" could not have the (prodigal) son at
His table clad in the rags of the far country, but He could go out and meet him
in those rags: He could fall on his neck and kiss him in those rags--it was
blessedly characteristic of His grace so to do; but to seat him at His
table in garments suited to the swine-troughs would not be fitting. But the
grace which brought the Father out to the prodigal "reigned" through that
righteousness which brought the prodigal in to the Father's house. It
had not been "grace" had the Father waited till the prodigal decked himself out
in suitable garments of his own providing; nor would it have been
"righteousness" to bring him to His table in his rags. Both grace and
righteousness shone forth in their respective beauty when the Father said
"bring forth the best robe, and put it on him."
It is through Christ and His atonement that the
justice and mercy of God, His righteousness and grace, meet in the justifying
of a believing sinner. In Christ is found the solution to every problem which
sin has raised. In the Cross of Christ every attribute of God shines
forth in its meridian splendor. In the satisfaction which the Redeemer offered
unto God every claim of the law, whether preceptive or penal, has been fully
met. God has been infinitely more honored by the obedience of the last Adam
than He was dishonored by the disobedience of the first Adam. The justice of
God was infinitely more magnified when its awful sword smote the beloved Son,
than had every member of the human race burned for ever and ever in the lake of
fire. There is infinitely more efficacy in the blood of Christ to cleanse, than
there is in sin to befoul. There is infinitely more merit in Christ's one
perfect righteousness than there is demerit in the combined unrighteousness of
all the ungodly. Well may we exclaim, "But God forbid that I should glory, save
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 6:14).
But while many are agreed that the atoning death
of Christ is the meritorious cause of His peoples' salvation, there are now few
indeed who can give any clear Scriptural explanation of the way and
manner by which the work of Christ secures the justification of all who
believe. Hence the need for a clear and full statement thereon. Hazy ideas at
this point are both dishonouring to God and unsettling to our peace. It is of
first importance that the Christian should obtain a clear understanding of the
ground on which God pardons his sins and grants him a title to the
heavenly inheritance. Perhaps this may best be set forth under three words:
substitution, identification, imputation. As their Surety and Sponsor, Christ
entered the place occupied by His people under the law, so identifying Himself
with them as to be their Head and Representative, and as such He assumed and
discharged all their legal obligations: their liabilities being transferred to
Him, His merits being transferred to them.
The Lord Jesus has wrought out for His people a
perfect righteousness by obeying the law in thought and word and deed, and this
righteousness is imputed to them, reckoned to their account. The Lord Jesus has
suffered the penalty of the law in their stead, and through His atoning death
they are cleansed from all guilt. As creatures they were under
obligations to obey Gods' Law; as criminals (transgressors) they were
under the death-sentence of the law. Therefore, to fully meet our liabilities
and discharge our debts it was necessary that our Substitute should both obey
and die. The shedding of Christ's blood blotted out our sins, but it did not,
of itself, provide the "best robe" for us. To silence the accusations of the
law against us so that there is now "no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus" is simply a negative blessing: something more was
required, namely, a positive righteousness, the keeping of the law, so
that we might be entitled to its blessing and reward.
In Old Testament times the name under which the
Messiah and Mediator was foretold is, "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS" (Jer. 23:6).
It was plainly predicted by Daniel that He should come here to "finish the
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for
iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness" (9:24). Isaiah
announced "Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and
strength: even to Him shall men come; and all that are incensed against Him
shall be ashamed. In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and
shall glory" (45:24, 25). And again, he represents each of the redeemed
exclaiming, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my
God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me
with the robe of righteousness" (61:10).
In Romans 4:6-8 we read, "David also describeth
the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are
covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Here we are
shown the inseparability of the two things: God imputing "righteousness"
and God not imputing "sins." The two are never divided: unto whom God imputes
not sin He imputes righteousness; and unto whom He imputes righteousness, He
imputes not sin. But the particular point which we are most anxious for the
reader to grasp is, Whose "righteousness" is it that God imputes or
reckons to the account of the one who believes? The answer is, that
righteousness which was wrought out by our Surety, that obedience to the law
which was vicariously rendered by our Sponsor, even "the righteousness of God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1). This righteousness is not only
"unto all" but also "upon all them that believe" (Rom. 3:22). It is
called "the righteousness of God" because it was the righteousness of
the God-man Mediator, just as in Acts 20:28 His blood is call the blood of
God.
The "righteousness of God" which is mentioned so
frequently in the Roman epistle refers not to the essential
righteousness of the Divine character, for that cannot possibly be
imputed or legally transferred to any creature. When we are told in 10:3 that
the Jews were "ignorant of God's righteousness" it most certainly does not mean
they were in the dark concerning the Divine rectitude or that they knew nothing
about God's justice; but it signifies that they were unenlightened as to the
righteousness which the God-man Mediator had vicariously wrought out for His
people. This is abundantly clear from the remainder of that verse: "and going
about to establish their own righteousness"--not their own rectitude or
justice, but performing works by which they hoped to merit acceptance with God.
So tightly did they cling to this delusion, they, "submitted not themselves
unto the righteousness of God": that is, they refused to turn from their
self-righteousness and put their trust in the obedience and sufferings of the
incarnate Son of God.
"I would explain what we mean by the imputation
of Christ's righteousness. Sometimes the expression is taken by our divines in
a larger sense, for the imputation of all that Christ did and suffered for our
redemption whereby we are free from guilt, and stand righteous in the sight of
God; and so implies the imputation both of Christ's satisfaction and obedience.
But here I intend it in a stricter sense, for the imputation of that
righteousness or moral goodness that consists in the obedience of Christ. And
by that obedience being imputed to us, is meant no other than this, that that
righteousness of Christ is accepted for us, and admitted instead of that
perfect inherent righteousness that ought to be in ourselves: Christ's perfect
obedience shall be reckoned to our account, so that we shall have the benefit
of it, as though we had performed it ourselves: and so we suppose, that a title
to eternal life is given us as the reward of this righteousness" (Jonathan
Edwards).
The one passage which casts the clearest light
upon that aspect of justification which we are now considering is 2 Corinthians
5:21, "For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him." Here we have the counter imputations: of
our sins to Christ, of His righteousness to us. As the teaching of this verse
is of such vital moment let us endeavor to consider its terms the more closely.
How was Christ "made sin for us"? By God imputing to Him our
disobedience, or our transgressions of the law; in like manner, we are made
"the righteousness of God in Him" (in Christ, not in ourselves) by God
imputing to us Christ's obedience, His fulfilling the precepts of the law
for us.
As Christ "knew no sin" by inward defilement or
personal commission, so we "knew" or had no righteousness of our own by inward
conformity to the law, or by personal obedience to it. As Christ was "made sin"
by having our sins placed to His account or charged upon Him in a judicial way,
and as it was not by any criminal conduct of His own that He was "made sin," so
it is not by any pious activities of our own that we become "righteous": Christ
was not "made sin" by the infusion of depravity, nor are we "made righteous" by
the infusion of holiness. Though personally holy, our Sponsor did, by entering
our law-place, render Himself officially liable to the wrath of God; and so
though personally unholy, we are, by virtue of our legal identification with
Christ, entitled to the favor of God. As the consequence of Christ's being
"made sin for us" was, that "the LORD laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa.
53:6), so the consequence of Christ's obedience being reckoned to our account
is that God lays righteousness "upon all them that believe" (Rom. 3:22).
As our sins were the judicial ground of the sufferings of Christ, by which
sufferings He satisfied Justice; so Christ's righteousness is the judicial
ground of our acceptance with God, by which our pardon is an act of Justice.
Notice carefully that in 2 Corinthians 5:21 it is
God who "made" or legally constituted Christ to be "sin for us," though
as Hebrews 10:7 shows, the Son gladly acquiesced therein. "He was made sin by
imputation: the sins of all His people were transferred unto Him, laid upon
Him, and placed to His account and having them upon Him He was treated by the
justice of God as if He had been not only a sinner, but a mass of sin: for to
be made sin is a stronger expression than to be made a sinner" (John Gill).
"That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" signifies to be legally
constituted righteous before God--justified. "It is a righteousness `in Him,'
in Christ, and not in ourselves, and therefore must mean the righteousness of
Christ: so called, because it is wrought by Christ, who is God over all, the
true God, and eternal life" (Ibid.).
The same counter-exchange which has been before
us in 2 Corinthians 5:21 is found again in Galatians 3:13, 14, "Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is
written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of
Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." As the Surety of His
people, Christ was "made under the law" (Gal. 4:4), stood in their law-place
and stead, and having all their sins imputed to Him, and the law finding them
all upon Him, condemned Him for them; and so the justice of God delivered Him
up to the accursed death of the cross. The purpose, as well as the consequence,
of this was "That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles":
the "blessing of Abraham" (as Rom. 4 shows) was justification by faith through
the righteousness of Christ.
"Upon
a Life I did not live,
Upon a Death I did not die;
Another's death, Another's life
I'd rest my soul eternally."
Justification, strictly speaking, consists in
God's imputing to His elect the righteousness of Christ, that alone
being the meritorious cause or formal ground on which He pronounces them
righteous: the righteousness of Christ is that to which God has respect when He
pardons and accepts the sinner. By the nature of justification we have
reference to the constituent elements of the same, which are enjoyed by
the believer. These are, the non-imputation of guilt or the remission of sins,
and second, of the investing of the believer with a legal title to Heaven. The
alone ground on which God forgives any man's sins, and admits him into His
judicial favour, is the vicarious work of his Surety--that perfect satisfaction
which Christ offered to the law on his behalf. It is of great importance to be
clear on the fact that Christ was "made under the law" not only that He might
redeem His people "from the curse of the law" (Gal. 3:13), but also that
they might "receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:4, 5), that is, be invested
with the privileges of sons.
This grand doctrine of Justification was
proclaimed in its purity and clarity by the Reformers--Luther, Calvin,
Zanchius, Peter Martyr, etc.; but it began to be corrupted in the seventeenth
century by men who had only a very superficial knowledge of it, who taught that
justification consisted merely in the removal of guilt or forgiveness of sins,
excluding the positive admittance of man into God's judicial favour: in other
words, they restricted justification unto deliverance from Hell, failing to
declare that it also conveys a title unto Heaven. This error was perpetuated by
John Wesley, and then by the Plymouth Brethren, who, denying that the
righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer, seek to find their title to
eternal life in a union with Christ in His resurrection. Few today are clear
upon the twofold content of Justification, because few today understand
the nature of that righteousness which is imputed to all who believe.
To show that we have not misrepresented the
standard teachings of the Plymouth Brethren on this subject, we quote from Mr.
W. Kelly's "Notes on Romans." In his "Introduction" he states, "There is
nothing to hinder our understanding `the righteousness of God' in its usual
sense of an attribute or quality of God" (p. 35). But how could an "attribute"
or "quality" of God be "upon all them that believe" (Rom. 3:22)? Mr.
Kelly will not at all allow that the "righteousness of God" and "the
righteousness of Christ" are one and the same, and hence, when he comes to
Romans 4 (where so much is said about "righteousness" being imputed to
the believer) he evacuates the whole of its blessed teaching by trying to make
out that this is nothing more than our own faith, saying of Abraham, "his faith
in God's word as that which he exercised, and which was accounted as
righteousness" (p. 47).
The "righteousness of Christ" which is imputed to
the believer consists of that perfect obedience which He rendered unto the
precepts of God's Law and that death which He died under the penalty of the
law. It has been rightly said that, "There is the very same need of Christ's
obeying the law in our stead, in order to the reward, as of His suffering the
penalty of the law in our stead in order to our escaping the penalty; and the
same reason why one should be accepted on our account as the other... To
suppose that all Christ does in order to make atonement for us by suffering is
to make Him our Saviour but in part. It is to rob Him of half His glory as a
Saviour. For if so, all that He does is to deliver us from Hell; He does not
purchase Heaven for us" (Jonathan Edwards). Should any one object to the idea
of Christ "purchasing" Heaven for His people, he may at once be referred to
Ephesians 1:14, where Heaven is expressly designated "the purchased
possession."
The imputation to the believer's account of that
perfect obedience which his Surety rendered unto the law for him is plainly
taught in Romans 5:18, 19, "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came
upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift
came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous." Here the "offence" or "disobedience" of the first Adam is set over
against the "righteousness" or "obedience" of the last Adam, and inasmuch as
the disobedience of the former was an actual transgression of the law,
therefore the obedience of the latter must be His active obedience unto
the law; otherwise the force of the Apostle's antithesis would fail entirely.
As this vital point (the chief glory of the Gospel) is now so little
understood, and in some quarters disputed, we must enter into some detail.
The one who was justified upon his believing
sustained a twofold relation unto God: first, he was a responsible creature,
born under the law; second, he was a criminal, having transgressed that
law--though his criminality has not canceled his obligation to obey the
law any more than a man who recklessly squanders his money is no longer due to
pay his debts. Consequently, justification consists of two parts, namely, an
acquittal from guilt, or the condemnation of the law (deliverance from Hell),
and the receiving him into God's favour, on the sentence of the law's approval
(a legal title to Heaven). And therefore, the ground upon which God pronounces
him just is also a double one, as the one complete satisfaction of Christ is
viewed in its two distinct parts: namely, His vicarious obedience unto the
precepts of the law, and His substitutionary death under the penalty of the
law, the merits of both being equally imputed or reckoned to the account of him
who believes.
Against this it has been objected, "The law
requires no man to obey and die too." To which we reply in the language of J.
Hervey (1750), "But did it not require a transgressor to obey and die?
If not, then transgression robs the law of its right, and vacates all
obligation to obedience. Did it not require the Surety for sinful men to
obey and die? If the Surety dies only, He only delivers from penalty. But this
affords no claim to life, no title to a reward--unless you can
produce some such edict from the Court of Heaven-- `Suffer this, and thou shalt
live.' I find it written `In keeping Thy commandments there is great reward'
(Psa. 19:11), but nowhere do I read, `In undergoing Thy curse, there is the
same reward.' Whereas, when we join the active and passive obedience of our
Lord--the peace-speaking Blood with the Life-giving righteousness--both made
infinitely meritorious and infinitely efficacious by the Divine glory of His
person, how full does our justification appear! How firm does it stand!"
It is not sufficient that the believer stand
before God with no sins upon him--that is merely negative. The holiness
of God requires a positive righteousness to our account--that His Law be
perfectly kept. But we are unable to keep it, therefore our Sponsor fulfilled
it for us. By the blood-shedding of our blessed Substitute the gates of Hell
have been forever shut against all those for whom He died. By the perfect
obedience of our blessed Surety the gates of Heaven are opened wide unto all
who believe. My title for standing before God, not only without fear, but in
the conscious sunshine of His full favour, is because Christ has been made
"righteousness" unto me (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ not only paid all my debts, but
fully discharged all my responsibilities. The law-Giver is my law-Fulfiller.
Every holy aspiration of Christ, every godly thought, every gracious word,
every righteous act of the Lord Jesus, from Bethlehem to Calvary, unite in
forming that "best robe" in which the seed royal stand arrayed before God.
Yet sad to say, even so widely-read and
generally-respected a writer as the late Sir Rob. Anderson, said in his book,
"The Gospel and Its Ministry" (Chapter on Justification by Blood), "Vicarious
obedience is an idea wholly beyond reason; how could a God of righteousness and
truth reckon a man who has broken law to have kept law, because some one else
has kept it? The thief is not declared to be honest because his neighbour or
his kinsman is a good citizen." What a pitiable dragging down to the bar of
sin-polluted human reason, and a measuring by worldly relations, of that Divine
transaction wherein the "manifold wisdom of God" was exercised! What is
impossible with men is possible with God. Did Sir Robert never read that
Old Testament prediction wherein the Most High God declared, "Therefore,
behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a
marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall
perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid" (Isa.
29:14)?
It is pointed out that, "In the human realm, both
innocence and righteousness are transferable in their effects, but that in
themselves they are untransferable." From this it is argued that neither
sin nor righteousness are in themselves capable of being transferred,
and that though God treated Christ as if He were the sinner, and deals
with the believer as though he were righteous, nevertheless, we must not
suppose that either is actually the case; still less ought we to affirm that
Christ deserved to suffer the curse, or that His people are
entitled to be taken to Heaven. Such is a fair sample of the theological
ignorance of these degenerate times, such is a representative example of how
Divine things are being measured by human standards; by such sophistries is the
fundamental truth of imputation now being repudiated.
Rightly did W. Rushton, in his "Particular
Redemption," affirm, "In the great affair of our salvation, our God stands
single and alone. In this most glorious work, there is such a display of
justice, mercy, wisdom and power, as never entered into the heart of man to
conceive, and consequently, can have no parallel in the actions of
mortals. `Who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that
time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside Me; a just God and a
Saviour; there is none beside Me': Isaiah 45:21." No, in the very nature of the
case no analogy whatever is to be found in any human transactions with God's
transferring our sins to Christ or Christ's obedience to us, for the simple but
sufficient reason that no such union exists between worldlings as
obtains between Christ and His people. But let us further amplify this
counter-imputation.
The afflictions which the Lord Jesus experienced
were not only sufferings at the hands of men, but also enduring punishment at
the hand of God: "it pleased the LORD to bruise Him" (Isa. 53:10); "Awake, O
sword, against My Shepherd, and against the man that is My Fellow, saith the
LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd" (Zech. 13:7) was His edict. But
lawful "punishment" presupposes criminality; a righteous God had never
inflicted the curse of the law upon Christ unless He had deserved it.
That is strong language we are well aware, yet not stronger than what Holy Writ
fully warrants, and things need to be stated forcibly and plainly today if an
apathetic people is to be aroused. It was because God had transferred to their
Substitute all the sins of His people that, officially, Christ deserved
to be paid sin's wages.
The translation of our sins to Christ was clearly
typed out under the Law: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of
the live goat, (expressing identification with the substitute), and
confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their
transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat
(denoting transference), and shall send him away by the hand of a fit
man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their
iniquities unto a land not inhabited" (Lev. 16:21, 22). So too it was expressly
announced by the Prophets: "The LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all...
He shall bear their iniquities" (Isa. 53:6, 11). In that great Messianic Psalm,
the 69th, we hear the Surety saying, "O God, Thou knowest My foolishness; and
My sins are not hid from Thee" (v. 5)--how could the spotless Redeemer
speak thus, unless the sins of His people had been laid upon Him?
When God imputed sin to Christ as the sinner's
Surety, He charged Him with the same, and dealt with Him accordingly.
Christ could not have suffered in the stead of the guilty unless their guilt
had been first transferred to Him. The sufferings of Christ were penal. God by
act of transcendent grace (to us) laid the iniquities of all that are saved
upon Christ, and in consequence, Divine justice finding sin upon Him,
punished Him. He who will by no means clear the guilty must strike
through sin and smite its bearer, no matter whether it be the sinner himself or
One who vicariously takes his place. But as G.S. Bishop well said, "When
justice once strikes the Son of God, justice exhausts itself. Sin is amerced in
an Infinite Object." The atonement of Christ was contrary to our
processes of law because it rose above their finite limitations!
Now as the sins of him who believes were, by God,
transferred and imputed to Christ so that God regarded and treated Him
accordingly--visiting upon Him the curse of the law, which is death;
even so the obedience or righteousness of Christ is, by God, transferred and
imputed to the believer so that God now regards and deals with him
accordingly--bestowing upon him the blessing of the law, which is life.
And any denial of that fact, no matter by whomsoever made, is a repudiation of
the cardinal principle of the Gospel. "The moment the believing sinner accepts
Christ as his Substitute, he finds himself not only freed from his sins, but
rewarded: he gets all Heaven because of the glory and merits of Christ
(Rom. 5:17). The atonement, then, which we preach is one of absolute exchange
(1 Peter 3:18). It is that Christ took our place literally, in order that we
might take His place literally--that God regarded and treated Christ as the
Sinner, and that He regards and treats the believing sinner as Christ.
"It is not enough for a man to be pardoned. He,
of course, is then innocent--washed from his sin--put back again, like Adam in
Eden, just where he was. But that is not enough. It was required of Adam in
Eden that he should actually keep the command. It was not enough that he
did not break it, or that he is regarded, through the Blood, as though he did
not break it. He must keep it: he must continue in all things that are
written in the book of the law to do them. How is this necessity
supplied? Man must have a righteousness, or God cannot accept him. Man must
have a perfect obedience, or else God cannot reward him" (G.S. Bishop).
That necessary and perfect obedience is to be found alone in that perfect
life, lived by Christ in obedience to the law, before He went to
the cross, which is reckoned to the believer's account.
It is not that God treats as righteous one
who is not actually so (that would be a fiction), but that He actually
constitutes the believer so, not by infusing a holy nature in his heart, but by
reckoning the obedience of Christ to his account. Christ's obedience is legally
transferred to him so that he is now rightly and justly regarded as righteous
by the Divine Law. It is very far more than a naked pronouncement of
righteousness upon one who is without any sufficient foundation for the
judgment of God to declare him righteous. No, it is a positive and judicial act
of God "whereby, on the consideration of the mediation of Christ, He makes an
effectual grant and donation of a true, real, perfect righteousness, even that
of Christ Himself unto all that do believe, and accounting it as theirs,
on His own gracious act, both absolves them from sin, and granteth them right
and title unto eternal life" (John Owen).
It now remains for us to point out the ground
on which God acts in this counter-imputation of sin to Christ and
righteousness to His people. That ground was the Everlasting Covenant.
The objection that it is unjust the innocent should suffer in order that the
guilty may escape loses all its force once the Covenant-Headship and
responsibility of Christ is seen, and the covenant-oneness with Him of
those whose sins He bore. There could have been no such thing as a
vicarious sacrifice unless there had been some union between
Christ and those for whom He died, and that relation of union must have
subsisted before He died, yea, before our sins were imputed to Him.
Christ undertook to make full satisfaction to the law for His people because He
sustained to them the relation of a Surety. But what justified
His acting as their Surety? He stood as their Surety because He was their
Substitute: He acted on their behalf, because He stood in
their room. But what justified the substitution?
No satisfactory answer can be given to the last
question until the grand doctrine of everlasting covenant-oneness comes into
view: that is the great underlying relation. The federal oneness between
the Redeemer and the redeemed, the choosing of them in Christ before the
foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), by which a legal union was established
between Him and them, is that which alone accounts for and justifies all else.
"For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of
one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. 2:11).
As the Covenant-Head of His people, Christ was so related to them that their
responsibilities necessarily became His, and we are so related to Him that His
merits necessarily become ours. Thus, as we said in an earlier chapter, three
words give us the key to and sum up the whole transaction: substitution,
identification, imputation--all of which rest upon covenant-oneness. Christ was
substituted for us, because He is one with us--identified with
us, and we with Him. Thus God dealt with us as occupying Christ's place
of worthiness and acceptance. May the Holy Spirit grant both writer and reader
such an heart-apprehension of this wondrous and blessed truth, that overflowing
gratitude may move us unto fuller devotedness unto Him who loved us and gave
Himself for us.
Let us here review, briefly, the ground which
we have already covered. We have seen, first, that "to justify" means to
pronounce righteous. It is not a Divine work, but a Divine verdict, the
sentence of the Supreme Court, declaring that the one justified stands
perfectly conformed to all the requirements of the law. Justification assures
the believer that the Judge of all the earth is for him, and not against him:
that justice itself is on his side. Second, we dwelt upon the great and
seemingly insoluable problem which is thereby involved: how a God of truth can
pronounce righteous one who is completely devoid of righteousness, how He can
receive into His judicial favour one who is a guilty criminal, how He can
exercise mercy without insulting justice, how He can be gracious and yet
enforce the high demands of His Law. Third, we have shown that the solution to
this problem is found in the perfect satisfaction which the incarnate Son
rendered unto Divine Law, and that on the basis of that satisfaction God can
truthfully and righteously pronounce just all who truly believe the Gospel.
In our last article we pointed out that the
satisfaction which Christ made to the Divine Law consists of two distinct
parts, answering to the twofold need of him who is to be justified. First, as a
responsible creature I am under binding obligations to keep the law--to
love God with all my heart and my neighbor as myself. Second, as a
criminal I am under the condemnation and curse of that law which I have
constantly transgressed in thought and word and deed. Therefore, if another was
to act as my surety and make reparation for me, he must perfectly obey all the
precepts of the law, and then endure the awful penalty of the law. That is
exactly what was undertaken and accomplished by the Lord Jesus in His virtuous
life and vicarious death. By Him every demand of the law was fulfilled; by Him
every obligation of the believer was fully met.
It has been objected by some that the obedience
of Christ could not be imputed to the account of others, for being "made
under the law" (Gal. 4:4) as man, He owed submission to the law
on His own account. This is a serious mistake, arising out of a failure to
recognize the absolute uniqueness of the Man Christ Jesus. Unlike us, He was
never placed under the Adamic Covenant, and therefore He owed nothing to the
law. Moreover, the manhood of Christ never had a separate existence: in the
virgin's womb the eternal Son took the seed of Mary into union with His Deity,
so that whereas the first man was of the earth, earthy, "the second Man is
the Lord from Heaven" (1 Cor. 15:47), and as such He was infinitely
superior to the law, owing nothing to it, being personally possessed of all the
excellencies of Deity. Even while He walked this earth "in Him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily."
It was entirely for His peoples' sake that the
God-man Mediator was "made under the law." It was in order to work out for them
a perfect righteousness, which should be placed to their account, that He took
upon Himself the form of a servant and became "obedient unto death." What has
been said above supplies the answer to another foolish objection which has been
made against this blessed truth, namely, that if the obedience of the Man
Christ Jesus were transferable it would be available only for one other
man, seeing that every human being is required to obey the law, and that if
vicarious obedience be acceptable to God then there would have to be as
many separate sureties as there are believers who are saved. That would
be true if the "surety" were merely human, but inasmuch as the Surety
provided by God is the God-man Mediator, His righteousness is of
infinite value, for the law was more "honoured and magnified" by the
obedience of "the Lord from Heaven" than had every member of the human race
perfectly kept it. The righteousness of the God-man Mediator is of
infinite value, and therefore available for as many as God is pleased to
impute it unto.
The value or merit of an action increases in
proportion to the dignity of the person who performs it, and He who obeyed in
the room and stead of the believer was not only a holy man, but the Son of the
living God. Moreover, let it be steadily borne in mind that the obedience which
Christ rendered to the law was entirely voluntary. Prior to His
incarnation, He was under no obligation to the law, for He had Himself
(being God) formulated that law. His being made of a woman and made under the
law was entirely a free act on His own part. We come into being and are
placed under the law without our consent; but the Lord from Heaven existed
before His incarnation, and assumed our nature by His spontaneous act: "Lo, I
come... I delight to do Thy will" (Psa. 40:7, 8). No other person could use
such language, for it clearly denotes a liberty to act or not to act,
which no mere creature possesses. Placing Himself under the law and rendering
obedience to it was founded solely on His own voluntary deed. His obedience was
therefore a "free will offering," and therefore as He did not owe obedience to
the law by any prior obligation, not being at all necessary for Himself, it is
available for imputation to others, that they should be rewarded for
it.
If, then, the reader has been able to follow us
closely in the above observations, it should be clear to him that when
Scripture speaks of God "justifying the ungodly" the meaning is that the
believing sinner is brought into an entirely new relation to the law;
that in consequence of Christ's righteousness being made over to him, he is now
absolved from all liability to punishment, and is given a title to all the
reward merited by Christ's obedience. Blessed, blessed truth for comforting the
conscientious Christian who daily groans under a sense of his sad
failures and who mourns because of his lack of practical conformity to the
image of Christ. Satan is ever ready to harass such an one and tell him his
profession is vain. But it is the believer's privilege to overcome him by "the
blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 12:11)--to remind himself anew that Another has atoned
for all his sins, and that despite his innumerable shortcomings he still stands
"accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6). If I am truly resting on the finished
work of Christ for me, the Devil cannot successfully lay anything to my charge
before God, though if I am walking carelessly He will suffer him to charge my
conscience with unrepented and unconfessed sins.
In our last chapter, under the nature of
justification, we saw that the constituent elements of this Divine blessing are
two in number, the one being negative in its character, the other positive. The
negative blessing is the cancellation of guilt, or the remission of sins--the
entire record of the believer's transgressions of the law, filed upon the
Divine docket, having been blotted out by the precious blood of Christ. The
positive blessing is the bestowal upon the believer of an inalienable title to
the reward which the obedience of Christ merited for him--that reward is
life, the judicial favour of God, Heaven itself. The unchanging sentence of the
law is "the man which doeth those things shall live by them" (Rom.
10:5). As we read in Romans 7:10, "the commandment, which was ordained to
life." It is just as true that obedience to the law secured life, as
disobedience insured death. When the young ruler asked Christ "what good thing
shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" He answered, "If thou wilt enter
into life, keep the commandments" (Matt. 19:16, 17).
It was because His people had failed to "keep the
commandments" that the God-man Mediator was "made under the law," and obeyed it
for them. And therefore its reward of "life" is due unto those whose
Surety He was; yea, due unto Christ Himself to bestow upon them. Therefore did
the Surety, when declaring "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished
the work which Thou gavest Me to do" (John 17:4), remind the Father, "that He
should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him" (v. 2). But more,
on the footing of justice, Christ demands that His people be taken to
Heaven, saying, "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me,
be with Me where I am" (John 17:24)--He claims eternal life for His
people on the ground of His finished work, as the reward of His
obedience.
"Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came
upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One the free gift
came upon all men unto justification of life" (Rom. 5:18). The offence
of the first Adam brought down the curse of the broken law upon the whole human
race; but the satisfaction of the last Adam secured the blessing of the
fulfilled law upon all those whom He represented. Judgment unto condemnation is
a law term intending eternal death, the wages of sin; the "free gift" affirms
that a gratuitous justification is bestowed upon all its
recipients--"justification of life" being the issue of the gift,
parallel with "shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (v. 17). The sentence
of justification adjudges and entitles its object unto eternal life.
Having now considered the two great blessings
which come to the believer at his justification--deliverance from the curse of
the law (death) and a title to the blessing of the law (life)--let us now seek
to take a view of the originating source from which they proceed. This
is the free, pure sovereign grace of God: as it is written "Being
justified freely by His grace" (Rom. 3:24). What is grace? It is God's
unmerited and uninfluenced favour, shown unto the undeserving and
hell-deserving: neither human worthiness, works or willingness, attracting it,
nor the lack of them repelling or obstructing it. What could there be in me to
win the favourable regard of Him who is of too pure eyes to behold evil, and
move Him to justify me? Nothing whatever; nay, there was everything in me
calculated to make Him abhor and destroy me--my very self-righteous efforts to
earn a place in Heaven deserving only a lower place in Hell. If, then, I am
ever to be "justified" by God it must be by pure grace, and that
alone.
Grace is the very essence of the Gospel--the only
hope for fallen men, the sole comfort of saints passing through much
tribulation on their way to the kingdom of God. The Gospel is the announcement
that God is prepared to deal with guilty rebels on the ground of free favour,
of pure benignity; that God will blot out sin, cover the believing sinner with
a robe of spotless righteousness, and receive him as an accepted son: not on
account of anything he has done or ever will do, but of sovereign mercy, acting
independently of the sinner's own character and deservings of eternal
punishment. Justification is perfectly gratuitous so far as we are concerned,
nothing being required of us in order to it, either in the way of price
and satisfaction or preparation and meetness. We have not the slightest degree
of merit to offer as the ground of our acceptance, and therefore if God ever
does accept us it must be out of unmingled grace.
It is as "the God of all grace" (1 Peter 5:10)
that Jehovah justifies the ungodly. It is as "the God of all grace" He seeks,
finds, and saves His people: asking them for nothing, giving them everything.
Strikingly is this brought out in that word "being justified freely by
His grace" (Rom. 3:24), the design of that adverb being to exclude all
consideration of anything in us or from us which should be the cause or
condition of our justification. That same Greek adverb is translated "without a
cause" in John 15:25--"they hated Me without a cause." The world's hatred of
Christ was "without a cause" so far as He was concerned: there
was nothing whatever in Him which, to the slightest degree, deserved their
enmity against Him: there was nothing in Him unjust, perverse, or evil;
instead, there was everything in Him which was pure, holy, lovely. In like
manner, there is nothing whatever in us to call forth the approbation of God:
by nature there is "no good thing" in us; but instead, everything that
is evil, vile, loathsome.
"Being justified without a cause by His
GRACE." How this tells out the very heart of God! While there was no
motive to move Him, outside of Himself, there was one inside Himself; while
there was nothing in us to impel God to justify us, His own grace moved Him, so
that He devised a way whereby His wondrous love could have vent and flow forth
to the chief of sinners, the vilest of rebels. As it is written, "I, even I, am
He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not
remember thy sins" (Isa. 43:25). Wondrous, matchless grace! We cannot for a
moment look outside the grace of God for any motive or reason why He should
ever have noticed us, still less had respect unto such ungodly wretches.
The first moving cause, then, that inclined God
to show mercy to His people in their undone and lost condition, was His own
wondrous grace--unsought, uninfluenced, unmerited by us. He might justly have
left us all obnoxious to the curse of His Law, without providing any Surety for
us, as He did the fallen angels; but such was His grace toward us that "He
spared not His own Son." "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but
according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and
renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ
our Saviour; That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs
according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:5-7). It was His own sovereign
favour and good will which actuated God to form this wondrous scheme and method
of justification.
Against what has been said above, it has been
objected by Socinians and their echoists that this cannot be: if the believing
sinner is justified upon the grounds of a full satisfaction having been made to
God for him by a surety, then his discharge from condemnation and his reception
into God's judicial favour must be an act of pure justice, and therefore
could not be by grace. Or, if it be purely an act of Divine grace, then
no surety can have obeyed the law in the believer's stead. But this is to
confound two distinct things: the relation of God to Christ the Surety, and the
relation of God to me the sinner. It was grace which transferred my sins
to Christ; it was justice which smote Christ on account of those sins.
It was grace which appointed me unto everlasting bliss; it is justice
to Christ which requires I shall enjoy that which He purchased for me.
Toward the sinner justification is an act of free
unmerited favour; but toward Christ, as a sinner's Surety, it is an act of
justice that eternal life should be bestowed upon those for whom His
meritorious satisfaction was made. First, it was pure grace that God was
willing to accept satisfaction from the hands of a surety. He might have
exacted the debt from us in our own persons, and then our condition had been
equally miserable as that of the fallen angels, for whom no mediator was
provided. Second, it was wondrous grace that God Himself provided a
Surety for us, which we could not have done. The only creatures who are capable
of performing perfect obedience are the holy angels, yet none of them could
have assumed and met our obligations, for they are not akin to us,
possessing not human nature, and therefore incapable of dying. Even had an
angel became incarnate, his obedience to the law could not have availed for the
whole of God's elect, for it would not have possessed infinite value.
None but a Divine person taking human nature into
union with Himself could present unto God a satisfaction adequate for the
redemption of His people. And it was impossible for men to have found out that
Mediator and Surety: it must have its first rise in God, and not from us: it
was He that "found" a ransom (Job 33:24) and laid help upon One that is
"mighty" (Psa. 89:19). In the last place, it was amazing grace that the
Son was willing to perform such a work for us, without whose consent the
justice of God could not have exacted the debt from Him. And His grace is the
most eminent in that He knew beforehand all the unspeakable humiliation and
unparalleled suffering which He would encounter in the discharge of this work,
yet that did not deter Him; nor was He unapprized of the character of those for
whom He did it--the guilty, the ungodly, the hell-deserving; yet He shrank not
back.
"O
to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee."
We have now reached a point in our discussion
of this mighty theme where it is timely for us to ask the question, Who are
the ones that God justifies? The answer to that question will necessarily
vary according to the mental position we occupy. From the standpoint of God's
eternal decrees the reply must be, God's elect: Romans 8:33. From the
standpoint of the effects produced by quickening operations of the Holy Spirit
the reply must be, those who believe: Acts 13:39. But from the
standpoint of what they are, considered in themselves, the reply must be,
the ungodly: Romans 4:5. The persons are the same, yet contemplated in
three different relations. But here a difficulty presents itself: If faith be
essential in order to justification, and if a fallen sinner must be quickened
by the Holy Spirit before he can believe, then with what propriety can a
regenerated person, with the spiritual grace of faith already in his heart, be
described as "ungodly"?
The difficulty pointed out above is self-created.
It issues from confounding things which differ radically. It is the result of
bringing in the experimental state of the person justified, when
justification has to do only with his judicial status. We would
emphasize once more the vital importance of keeping quite distinct in our minds
the objective and subjective aspects of truth, the legal and the experimental:
unless this be steadily done, nought but confusion and mistakes can mark our
thinking. When contemplating what he is in himself, considered alone,
even the Christian mournfully cries "O wretched man that I am"; but when he
views himself in Christ, as justified from all things, he triumphantly
exclaims, "who shall lay anything to my charge!"
Above, we have pointed out that from the
viewpoint of God's eternal decrees the question "Who are the ones whom God
justifies?" must be "the elect." And this brings us to a point on which some
eminent Calvinists have erred, or at least, have expressed themselves faultily.
Some of the older theologians, when expounding this doctrine, contended for the
eternal justification of the elect, affirming that God pronounced them
righteous before the foundation of the world, and that their justification was
then actual and complete, remaining so throughout their history in time, even
during the days of their unregeneracy and unbelief; and that the only
difference their faith made was in making manifest God's eternal
justification in their consciences. This is a serious mistake, resulting
(again) from failure to distinguish between things which differ.
As an immanent act of God's mind, in which
all things (which are to us past, present, and future) were cognized by
Him, the elect might be said to be justified from all eternity. And, as an
immutable act of God's will, which cannot be frustrated, the same may be
predicated again. But as an actual, formal, historical sentence, pronounced by
God upon us, not so. We must distinguish between God's looking upon the elect
in the purpose of his grace, and the objects of justification lying
under the sentence of the law: in the former, He loved His people with
an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3); in the latter, we were "by nature the children
of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:3). Until they believe, every
descendant of Adam is "condemned already" (John 3:18), and to be under God'
condemnation is the very opposite of being justified.
In his ponderous treatise on justification, the
Puritan Thomas Goodwin made clear some vital distinctions, which if carefully
observed will preserve us from error on this point. "1. In the everlasting
covenant. We may say of all spiritual blessings in Christ, what is said of
Christ Himself, that their `goings forth are from everlasting.' Justified then
we were when first elected, though not in our own persons, yet in our Head
(Eph. 1:3). 2. There is a farther act of justifying us, which passed from God
towards us in Christ, upon His payment and performance at His resurrection
(Rom. 4:25, 1 Tim. 3:16). 3. But these two acts of justification are wholly out
of us, immanent acts in God, and though they concern us and are towards
us, yet not acts of God upon us, they being performed towards us not as
actually existing in ourselves, but only as existing in our Head, who
covenanted for us and represented us: so as though by those acts we are
estated into a right and title to justification, yet the benefit and
possession of that estate we have not without a farther act being passed upon
us."
Before regeneration we are justified by existing
in our Head only, as a feoffee, held in trust for us, as children under age. In
addition to which, we "are to be in our own persons, though still through
Christ, possessed of it, and to have all the deeds and evidences of it
committed to the custody and apprehension of our faith. We are in our own
persons made true owners and enjoyers of it, which is immediately done at that
instant when we first believe; which act (of God) is the completion and
accomplishment of the former two, and is that grand and famous justification by
faith which the Scripture so much inculcates--note the `now' in Romans 5:9, 11;
8:1!... God doth judge and pronounce His elect ungodly and unjustified till
they believe" (Ibid.)
God's elect enter this world in precisely the
same condition and circumstances as do the non-elect. They are "by nature the
children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:3), that is, they are under
the condemnation of their original sin in Adam (Rom. 5:12, 18, 19) and they are
under the curse of God's Law because of their own constant transgressions of it
(Gal. 3:10). The sword of Divine justice is suspended over their heads, and the
Scriptures denounce them as rebels against the Most High. As yet, there is
nothing whatever to distinguish them from those who are "fitted to
destruction." Their state is woeful to the last degree, their situation
perilous beyond words; and when the Holy Spirit awakens them from the sleep of
death, the first message which falls upon their ears is, "Flee from the wrath
to come." But how and whither, they, as yet, know not. Then it is they are
ready for the message of the Gospel.
Let us turn now to the more immediate answer to
our opening inquiry, Who are the ones that God justifies? A definite reply is
given in Romans 4:5: "Him that justifieth the"--whom? the holy, the faithful,
the fruitful? no, the very reverse: "Him that justifieth the ungodly."
What a strong, bold, and startling word is this! It becomes yet more emphatic
when we observe what precedes: "But to him that worketh not, but
believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly." The subjects of justification,
then, are viewed in themselves, apart from Christ, as not only destitute of a
perfect righteousness, but as having no acceptable works to their
account. They are denominated, and considered as ungodly when the
sentence of justification is pronounced upon them. The mere sinner is
the subject on which grace is magnified, toward which grace reigns in
justification!
"To say, he who worketh not is justified
through believing, is to say that his works, whatever they be, have no
influence in his justification, nor hath God, in justifying him, any respect
unto them. Wherefore he alone who worketh not, is the subject of
justification, the person to be justified. That is, God considereth no man's
works, no man's duties of obedience, in his justification; seeing we are
justified freely by His grace" (John Owen). Those whom God, in His
transcendent mercy, justifies, are not the obedient, but the disobedient; not
those who have been loyal and loving subjects of His righteous government, but
they who have stoutly defied Him and trampled His laws beneath their feet.
Those whom God justifies are lost sinners, lying in a state of defection from
Him, under a loss of original righteousness (in Adam) and by their own
transgressions brought in guilty before His tribunal (Rom. 3:19). They are
those who by character and conduct have no claim upon Divine blessing,
and deserve nought but unsparing judgment at God's hand.
"Him that justifieth the ungodly." It is
deplorable to see how many able commentators have weakened the force of this by
affirming that, while the subject of justification is "ungodly" up to
the time of his justification, he is not so at the moment of
justification itself. They argue that, inasmuch as the subject of justification
is a believer at the moment of his justification and that believing
presupposes regeneration--a work of Divine grace wrought in the heart--he could
not be designated "ungodly." This seeming difficulty is at once removed by
calling to mind that justification is entirely a law matter and not an
experimental thing at all. In the sight of God's Law every one whom God
justifies is "ungodly" until Christ's righteousness is made over to him.
The awful sentence "ungodly" rests as truly upon the purest virgin as much as
it does upon the foulest prostitute until God imputes Christ's obedience to
her.
"Him that justifieth the ungodly." These words
cannot mean less than that God, in the act of justification, has no regard
whatever to any thing good resting to the credit of the person He justifies.
They declare, emphatically, that immediately prior to that Divine act, God
beholds the subject only as unrighteous, ungodly, wicked, so that no
good, either in or by the person justified, can possibly be the ground on which
or the reason for which He justifies him. This is further evident from the
words "to him that worketh not": that this includes not only works which the
ceremonial law required, but all works of morality and godliness, appear
from the fact that the same person who is said to "work not" is designated
"ungodly." Finally, seeing that the faith which belongs to justification is
here said to be "counted for (or "unto") righteousness," it is clear
that the person to whom "righteousness" is imputed, is destitute
of righteousness in himself.
A parallel passage to the one which has just been
before us is found in Isaiah 43. There we hear God saying, "I, even I, am He
that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember
thy sins" (v. 25). And to whom does God say this? To those who had sincerely
endeavoured to please Him? To those who, though they had occasionally been
overtaken in a fault, had, in the main, served Him faithfully? No, indeed; very
far from it. Instead, in the immediate context we find Him saying to them, "But
thou hast not called upon Me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of Me, O
Israel. Thou hast bought Me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled
Me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made Me to serve with thy
sins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities" (vv. 22, 24). They
were, then, thoroughly "ungodly"; yet to them the Lord declared, "I,
even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions"--why? Because of something
good in them or from them? No, "for Mine own sake"!
Further confirmation of what has been before us
in Romans 4:5 is found in both what immediately precedes and what follows. In
verses 1-3 the case of Abraham is considered, and the proof given that
he was not "justified by works," but on the ground of
righteousness being imputed to him on his believing. "Now if a person of such
victorious faith, exalted piety, and amazing obedience as his was, did not
obtain acceptance with God on account of his own duties, but by an imputed
righteousness; who shall pretend to an interest in the heavenly blessing, in
virtue of his own sincere endeavors, or pious performances?--performances not
fit to be named, in comparison with those that adorned the conduct and
character of Jehovah's friend" (A. Booth).
Having shown that the father of all believers was
regarded by the Lord as an "ungodly" person, having no good works to his credit
at the moment of his justification, the Apostle next cited David's description
of the truly blessed man. "And how does the royal Psalmist describe him? To
what does he attribute his acceptance with God? To an inherent, or to an
imputed righteousness? Does he represent him as attaining the happy state, and
as enjoying the precious privilege, in consequence of performing sincere
obedience, and of keeping the law to the best of his power? No such thing. His
words are, `Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are
covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin' (vv. 7-9).
The blessed man is here described as one who is, in himself, a polluted
creature, and a guilty criminal. As one who, before grace made the difference,
was on a level with the rest of mankind; equally unworthy, and equally
wretched: and the sacred penman informs us that all his blessedness arises from
an imputed righteousness" (A. Booth).
"Him that justifieth the ungodly." Here is the
very heart of the Gospel. Many have argued that God can only pronounce just,
and treat as such, those who are inherently righteous; but if this was so, what
good news would there be for sinful men? Enemies of the Truth insist that for
God to pronounce just those whom His law condemns would be a judicial fiction.
But Romans 4:5 makes known a Divine miracle: something only God could
have achieved. The miracle announced by the Gospel is that God comes to the
ungodly with a mercy that is righteous, and in spite of all their depravity and
rebellion, enables them through faith (on the ground of Christ's
righteousness) to enter into a new and blessed relation with Himself.
The Scriptures speak of mercy, but it is not
mercy coming in to make up the deficiencies and forgive the slips of the
virtuous, but mercy extended through Christ to the chief of
sinners. The Gospel which proclaims mercy through the atonement of the Lord
Jesus is distinguished from every religious system of man, by holding out
salvation to the guiltiest of the human race, through faith in the blood
of the Redeemer. God's Son came into this world not only to save sinners, but
even the chief of sinners, the worst of His enemies. Mercy is extended
freely to the most violent and determined rebel. Here, and here only, is a
refuge for the guilty. Is the trembling reader conscious that he is a
great sinner, then that is the very reason why you should come to
Christ: the greater your sins, the greater your need of the Saviour.
There are some who appear to think that Christ is
a Physician who can cure only such patients as are not dangerously ill, that
there are some cases so desperate as to be incurable, beyond His skill. What an
affront to His power, what a denial of His sufficiency! Where can a more
extreme case be found than that of the thief on the cross? He was at the very
point of death, on the very brink of Hell! A guilty criminal, an incorrigible
outlaw, justly condemned even by men. He had reviled the Saviour suffering by
his side. Yet, at the end, he turned to Him and said, "Lord remember me." Was
his plea refused? Did the Physician of souls regard his as a hopeless case? No,
blessed be His name, He at once responded "Today shalt thou be with Me in
Paradise." Only unbelief shuts the vilest out of Heaven.
"Him that justifieth the ungodly."
And how can the thrice holy God righteously do such a thing? Because
"Christ died for the UNGODLY" (Rom. 5:6). God's righteous grace comes to
us through the law-honouring, justice-satisfying, sin-atoning Work of the Lord
Jesus! Here, then, is the very essence of the Gospel: the proclamation of God's
amazing grace, the declaration of Divine bounty, altogether
irrespective of human worth or merit. In the great Satisfaction of His Son, God
has "brought near HIS righteousness" (Isa. 46:13). "We do not need to go
up to Heaven for it; that would imply Christ had never come down. Nor do we
need to go down to the depths of the earth for it; that would say Christ had
never been buried and had never risen. It is near. We do not need to
exert ourselves to bring it near, nor do anything to attract it towards us. It
is near... The office of faith is not to work, but to cease
working; not to do anything, but to own that all is done" (A.
Bonar).
Faith is the one link between the sinner and the
Saviour. Not faith as a work, which must be properly performed to qualify us
for pardon. Not faith as a religious duty, which must be gone through according
to certain rules in order to induce Christ to give us the benefits of His
finished work. No, but faith simply extended as an empty hand, to
receive everything from Christ for nothing. Reader, you may be the very
"chief of sinners," yet is your case not hopeless. You may have sinned
against much light, great privileges, exceptional opportunities; you may have
broken every one of the Ten Commandments in thought, word and deed; your body
may be filled with disease from wickedness, your head white with the winter of
old age; you may already have one foot in Hell; and yet even now, if you but
take your place alongside of the dying thief, and trust in the Divine
efficacy of the precious blood of the Lamb, you shall be plucked as
a brand from the burning. God "justifieth the ungodly." Hallelujah! If
He did not, the writer had been in Hell long ago.
"Being justified freely by His grace"
(Rom. 3:24); "being now justified by His blood" (Rom. 5:9); "being now
justified by faith" (Rom. 5:1). A full exposition of the doctrine of
justification requires that each of these propositions should be interpreted in
their Scriptural sense, and that they be combined together in their true
relations as to form one harmonious whole. Unless these three propositions be
carefully distinguished there is sure to be confusion; unless all the three are
steadily borne in mind we are sure to land in error. Each must be given its due
weight, yet none must be understood in such a way as to make its force annul
that of the others. Nor is this by any means a simple task, in fact none but a
real teacher (that is, a spiritual theologian) who has devoted a lifetime to
the undivided study of Scriptures is qualified for it.
"The righteousness of God which is by
faith of Jesus Christ" (Rom. 3:22); "A man is justified by faith
without the deeds of the law" (Rom. 3:28); "even we have believed in Jesus
Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by
the works of the law" (Gal. 2:16). What is the precise place and influence
which faith has in the important affairs of justification? What is the exact
nature or character of justifying faith? In what particular sense are we to
understand this proposition that we are "justified by faith"? and what
is the connection between that proposition and the postulates that we are
"justified by grace" and "justified by Christ's blood"?
These are matters which call for the utmost care. The nature of justifying
faith requires to be closely defined so that its particular agency is correctly
viewed, for it is easy to make a mistake here to the prejudice of Christ's
honour and glory, which must not be given to another--no, not to faith
itself.
Many would-be teachers have erred at this point,
for the common tendency of human nature is to arrogate to itself the glory
which belongs alone to God. While there have been those who rejected the
unscriptural notion that we can be justified before God by our own works, yet
not a few of these very men virtually make a saviour of their own faith. Not
only have some spoken of faith as though it were a contribution which God
requires the sinner to make toward his own salvation--the last mite which was
necessary to make up the price of his redemption; but others (who sneered at
theologians and boasted of their superior understanding of the things of God)
have insisted that faith itself is what constitutes us righteous before God, He
regarding faith as righteousness.
A deplorable example of what we have just
mentioned is to be found in the comments made upon Romans 4 by Mr. J.N. Darby,
the father of the Plymouth Brethren: "This was Abraham's faith. He believed the
promise that he should be the father of many nations, because God had spoken,
counting on the power of God, thus glorifying Him, without calling in question
anything that He had said by looking at circumstances; therefore this
also was counted to him for righteousness. He glorified God according to
what God was. Now this was not written for his sake alone: the same
faith shall be imputed to us also for righteousness" ("Synopsis"
vol. 4, p. 133--italics ours). The Christ-dishonouring error contained in those
statements will be exposed later on in this chapter.
"How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of
God? Answer: Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those
other graces which do always accompany it, nor of good works that are the
fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to
him for justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he
receiveth and applieth Christ and His righteousness" (Westminster Confession of
Faith). Though this definition was framed upwards of two hundred and fifty
years ago, it is far superior to almost anything found in current literature on
the subject. It is more accurate to speak of faith as the "instrument" rather
than as the condition, for a "condition" is generally used to signify
that for the sake whereof a benefit is conferred. Faith is neither the ground
nor the substance of our justification, but simply the hand which
receives the Divine gift proffered to us in the Gospel.
What is the precise place and influence which
faith has in the important affair of justification? Romanist answer, It
justifies us formally, not relatively: that is, upon the account of its
own intrinsic value. They point out that faith is never alone, but "worketh by
love" (Gal 5:6), and therefore its own excellency merits acceptance at God's
hand. But the faith of the best is weak and deficient (Luke 17:5), and so could
never satisfy the law, which requires a flawless perfection. If righteousness
was given as a reward for faith, its possessor would have cause for boasting,
expressly contrary to the Apostle in Romans 3:26, 27. Moreover, such a method
of justification would entirely frustrate the life and death of Christ, making
His great sacrifice unnecessary. It is not faith as a spiritual grace
which justifies us, but as an instrument--the hand which lays hold of
Christ.
In connection with justification, faith is
not to be considered as a virtuous exercise of the heart, nor as a
principle of holy obedience: "Because faith, as concerned in our justification,
does not regard Christ as King, enacting laws, requiring obedience, and
subduing depravity; but as a Substitute, answering the requirements of the
Divine Law, and as a Priest expiating sin by His own death on the cross. Hence,
in justification we read of `precious faith... through the righteousness of God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ' (2 Peter 1:1) and of `faith in His blood' (Rom.
3:25), and believers are described as `receiving the atonement' and
`receiving the gift of righteousness' (Rom. 5:11, 17). Therefore it is
evident that faith is represented as having an immediate regard to the
vicarious work of Christ, and that it is considered not under the notion
of exercising virtue or of performing a duty, but of receiving a free gift" (A.
Booth).
What is the relation of faith to justification?
The Arminian answer to the question, refined somewhat by the Plymouth Brethren,
is, that the act of believing is imputed to us for righteousness. One
error leads to another. Mr. Darby denied that Gentiles were ever under the law,
hence he denied also that Christ obeyed the law in His people's stead, and
therefore as Christ's vicarious obedience is not reckoned to their account, he
had to seek elsewhere for their righteousness. This he claimed to find in the
Christian's own faith, insisting that their act of believing is imputed to them
"for righteousness." To give his theory respectability, he clothed it in the
language of several expressions found in Romans 4, though he knew quite well
that the Greek afforded no foundation whatever for that which he built upon
it.
In Romans 4 we read "his faith is counted for
righteousness" (v. 5), "faith was reckoned to Abraham for
righteousness" (v. 9), "it was imputed to him for righteousness" (v.
22). Now in each of these verses the Greek preposition is "eis" which
never means "in the stead of," but always signifies "towards, in order
to, with a view to": it has the uniform force of "unto." Its exact meaning and
force is unequivocally plain in Romans 10:10, "with the heart man believeth
unto ("eis") righteousness": that is, the believing heart reaches out
toward and lays hold of Christ Himself. "This passage (Rom. 10:10) may help us
to understand what justification by faith is, for it shows that righteousness
there comes to us when we embrace God's goodness offered to us in the Gospel.
We are then, for this reason, made just: because we believe that God is
propitious to us through Christ" (J. Calvin).
The Holy Spirit has used the Greek prepositions
with unerring precision. Never do we find Him employing "eis" in connection
with Christ's satisfaction and sacrifice in our room and stead, but only "anti"
or "huper," which means in lieu of. On the other hand, "anti" and
"huper" are never used in connection with our believing, for faith is
not accepted by God in lieu of perfect obedience. Faith must either
be the ground of our acceptance with God, or the means or instrument of our
becoming interested in the true meritorious ground, namely, the righteousness
of Christ; it cannot stand in both relations to our
justification. "God justifieth, not by imputing faith itself, the act of
believing, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ"
(Westminster Catechism).
That faith itself cannot be the substance or
ground of our justification is clear from many considerations. The
"righteousness of God (i.e., the satisfaction which Christ rendered to the law)
is revealed to faith" (Rom. 1:17) and so cannot be faith itself. Romans
10:10 declares "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness" so that
righteousness must be a distinct thing from believing. In Jeremiah 23:6 we read
"The LORD our righteousness," so faith cannot be our righteousness. Let not
Christ be dethroned in order to exalt faith: set not the servant above the
master. "We acknowledge no righteousness but what the obedience and
satisfaction of Christ yields us: His blood, not our faith; His satisfaction,
not our believing it, is the matter of justification before God" (J. Flavel).
What alterations are there in our faith! what minglings of unbelief at all
times! Is this a foundation to build our justification and hope upon?
Perhaps some will say, Are not the words of
Scripture expressly on Mr. Darby's side? Does not Romans 4:5 affirm "faith is
counted for righteousness"? We answer, Is the sense of Scripture on his
side? Suppose I should undertake to prove that David was cleansed from guilt by
the "hyssop" which grows on the wall: that would sound ridiculous. Yes;
nevertheless, I should have the express words of Scripture to support
me: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" (Psa. 51:7). Yet clear
as those words read, they would not afford me the least countenance imaginable
from the sense and spirit of God's Word. Has the hyssop--a
worthless shrub--any kind of fitness to stand in the stead of the sacrificial
blood, and make an atonement for sin? No more fitness has faith to stand
in the stead of Christ's perfect obedience, to act as our justifying
righteousness, or procure our acceptance with God!
An apology is really due many of our readers, for
wasting their time with such puerilities, but we ask them to kindly bear with
us. We hope it may please God to use this article to expose one of Darby's many
grievous errors. For "grievous" this error most certainly is. His
teaching that the Christian's faith, instead of the vicarious obedience of
Christ, is reckoned for righteousness (Mr. W. Kelly, his chief lieutenant,
wrote "his [Abraham's] faith in God's word as that which he exercised and which
was accounted as righteousness"--see article 5) makes God guilty of a
downright lie, for it represents Him as giving to faith a fictitious
value--the believer has no righteousness, so God regards his poor faith
as "righteousness."
"And he believed in the LORD; and He counted it
to him for righteousness" (Gen. 15:6). The one point to be decided here is: was
it Abraham's faith itself which was in God's account taken for righteousness
(horrible idea!), or, was it the righteousness of God in Christ which Abraham's
faith prospectively laid hold of? The comments of the Apostle in Romans 4:18-22
settle the point decisively. In these verses Paul emphasizes the natural
impossibilities which stood in the way of God's promise of a numerous offspring
to Abraham being fulfilled (the genital deadness both of his own body and
Sarah's), and on the implicit confidence he had (notwithstanding the
difficulties) in the power and faithfulness of God that He would perform
what He promised. Hence, when the Apostle adds, "Therefore it was imputed to
him for righteousness" (v. 22), that "therefore" can only mean: Because through
faith he completely lost sight of nature and self, and realized with
undoubting assurance the sufficiency of the Divine arm, and the certainty of
its working.
Abraham's faith, dear reader, was nothing more
and nothing else than the renunciation of all virtue and strength in
himself, and a hanging in childlike trust upon God for what He was
able and willing to do. Far, very far, indeed, was his faith from being a mere
substitute for a "righteousness" which he lacked. Far, very far was God from
accepting his faith in lieu of a perfect obedience to His Law. Rather was
Abraham's faith the acting of a soul which found its life, its hope, its
all in the Lord Himself. And that is what justifying faith is: it
is "simply the instrument by which Christ and His righteousness are received in
order to justification. It is emptiness filled with Christ's fulness; impotency
lying down upon Christ's strength" (J.L. Girardeau).
"The
best obedience of my hands
Dares not appear before Thy throne;
But faith can answer Thy demands,
By pleading what my Lord has done."
What is the relation of faith to
justification? Antinomians and hyper-Calvinists answer, Merely that of comfort
or assurance. Their theory is that the elect were actually justified by God
before the foundation of the world, and all that faith does now is to make this
manifest in their conscience. This error was advocated by such men as W.
Gadsby, J. Irons, James Wells, J.C. Philpot. That it originated not with these
men is clear from the fact that the Puritans refuted it in their day. "By faith
alone we obtain and receive the forgiveness of sins; for notwithstanding any
antecedent act of God concerning us in and for Christ, we do not actually
receive a complete soul-freeing discharge until we believe" (J. Owen). "It
is vain to say I am justified only in respect to the court of mine own
conscience. The faith that Paul and the other Apostles were justified by, was
their believing on Christ that they might be justified (Gal. 2:15, 16),
and not a believing they were justified already; and therefore it was not an
act of assurance" (T. Goodwin, vol. 8).
How are we justified by faith? Having
given a threefold negative answer: not by faith as a joint cause with works
(Romanists), not by faith as an act of grace in us (Arminians), not by faith as
it receives the Spirit's witness (Antinomians); we now turn to the positive
answer. Faith justifies only as an instrument which God has appointed to the
apprehension and application of Christ's righteousness. When we say that faith
is the "instrument" of our justification, let it be clearly understood that we
do not mean faith is the instrument wherewith God justifies, but the
instrument whereby we receive Christ. Christ has merited righteousness
for us, and faith in Christ is that which renders it meet in God's sight the
purchased blessing be assigned. Faith unites to Christ, and being united
to Him we are possessed of all that is in Christ, so far as is consistent with
our capacity of receiving and God's appointment in giving. Having been made one
with Christ in spirit, God now considers us as one with Him in law.
We are justified by faith, and not for
faith; not because of what faith is, but because of what it
receives. "It hath no efficacy of itself, but as it is the band of our
union with Christ. The whole virtue of cleansing proceeds from Christ the
object. We receive the water with our hands, but the cleansing virtue is not in
our hands, but in the water, yet the water cannot cleanse us without our
receiving it; our receiving it unites the water to us, and is a means whereby
we are cleansed. And therefore is it observed that our justification by faith
is always expressed in the passive, not in the active: we are
justified by faith, not that faith justifies us. The efficacy is
in Christ's blood; the reception of it is in our faith" (S. Charnock).
Scripture knows no such thing as a justified
unbeliever. There is nothing meritorious about believing, yet it is necessary
in order to justification. It is not only the righteousness of Christ as
imputed which justifies, but also as received (Rom. 5:11, 17). The
righteousness of Christ is not mine until I accept it as the Father's gift.
"The believing sinner is `justified by faith' only instrumentally, as he `lives
by eating' only instrumentally. Eating is the particular act by which he
receives and appropriates food. Strictly speaking, he lives by bread alone, not
by eating, or the act of masticating. And, strictly speaking, the sinner is
justified by Christ's sacrifice alone, not by his act of believing in it" (W.
Shedd). In the application of justification faith is not a builder, but a
beholder; not an agent, but an instrument; it has nothing to do, but all to
believe; nothing to give, but all to receive.
God has not selected faith to be the instrument
of justification because there is some peculiar virtue in faith, but rather
because there is no merit in it: faith is self-emptying--"Therefore it
is of faith that it might be by grace" (Rom. 4:16). A gift is seen to be
a gift when nothing is required or accepted of the recipient, but simply that
he receive it. Whatever other properties faith may possess, it is simply
as receiving Christ that it justifies. Were we said to be justified by
repentance, by love, or by any other spiritual grace, it would convey the idea
of something good in us being the consideration on which the blessing was
bestowed; but justification by faith (correctly understood) conveys no
such idea.
"Faith justifies in no other way than as it
introduces us into a participation of the righteousness of Christ" (J. Calvin).
Justifying faith is a looking away from self, a renouncing of my own
righteousness, a laying hold of Christ. Justifying faith consists, first, of a
knowledge and belief of the truth revealed in Scripture thereon; second, in an
abandonment of all pretense, claim or confidence in our own righteousness;
third, in a trust in and reliance upon the righteousness of Christ, laying hold
of the blessing which He purchased for us. It is the heart's approval and
approbation of the method of justification proposed in the Gospel: by Christ
alone, proceeding from the pure grace of God, and excluding all human merits.
"In the LORD have I righteousness and strength" (Isa. 45:24).
None will experimentally appreciate the
righteousness of Christ until they have been experimentally stripped by the
Spirit. Not until the Lord puts us in the fire and burns off our filthy rags,
and makes us stand naked before Him, trembling from head to foot as we view the
sword of His justice suspended over our heads, will any truly value "the best
robe." Not until the condemning sentence of the law has been applied by the
Spirit to the conscience does the guilty soul cry, "Lost, lost!" (Rom. 7:9,
10). Not until there is a personal apprehension of the requirements of God's
Law, a feeling sense of our total inability to perform its righteous demands,
and an honest realization that God would be just in banishing us from His
presence forever, is the necessity for a precious Christ perceived by the
soul.
In Romans 3:28 the Apostle Paul declared
"that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law," and then
produces the case of Abraham to prove his assertion. But the Apostle James,
from the case of the same Abraham, draws quite another conclusion, saying, "Ye
see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only" (James
2:24). This is one of the "contradictions in the Bible" to which infidels
appeal in support of their unbelief. But the Christian, however difficult he
finds it to harmonize passages apparently opposite, knows there cannot be any
contradiction in the Word of God. Faith has unshaken confidence in the
inerrancy of Holy Writ. Faith is humble too and prays, "That which I see not
teach Thou me" (Job. 34:32). Nor is faith lazy; it prompts its possessor unto a
reverent examination and diligent investigation of that which puzzles and
perplexes, seeking to discover the subject of each separate book, the scope of
each writer, the connections of each passage.
Now the design of the Apostle Paul in Romans 3:28
may be clearly perceived from its context. He is treating of the great matter
of a sinner's justification before God: he shows that it cannot be by works of
the law, because by the law all men are condemned, and also because if men were
justified on the ground of their own doings, then boasting could not be
excluded. Positively he affirms that justification is by grace, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. His reasoning will appear the more
conclusive if the whole passage (Rom. 3:19-28) be read attentively. Because the
Jews had a high regard of Abraham, the Apostle proceeded to show in the 4th
chapter of Romans that Abraham was justified in that very way--apart from any
works of his own, by faith alone. By such a method of justification the pride
of the creature is strained, and the grace of God is magnified.
Now the scope of the Apostle James is very
different: his Epistle was written to counteract quite another error. Fallen
men are creatures of extremes: no sooner are they driven out of the false
refuge of trusting to their own righteousness, than they fly to the opposite
and no less dangerous error of supposing that, since they cannot be justified
by their own works, that there is no necessity whatever for good
works, and no danger from ungodly living and unholy practice. It is very
clear from the New Testament itself that very soon after the Gospel was freely
proclaimed, there arose many who turned the grace of God into "lasciviousness":
that this was not only quickly espoused in theory, but soon had free course in
practice. It was therefore the chief design of the Apostle James to show the
great wickedness and awful danger of unholy practice and to assert the
imperative necessity of good works.
The Apostle James devoted much of his Epistle to
the exposing of any empty profession. In his second chapter, particularly, he
addresses himself unto those who rested in a notion which they called
"faith," accounting an intellectual assent to the truth of the Gospel
sufficient for their salvation, though it had no spiritual influence upon their
hearts, tempers, or conduct. The Apostle shows their hope was a vain one, and
that their "faith" was not a whit superior to that possessed by the
demons. From the example of Abraham he proves that justifying faith is a very
different thing from the "faith" of empty professors, because it enabled him to
perform the hardest and most painful act of obedience, even the offering up of
his only son upon the altar; which act took place many years after he had been
justified by God, and which act manifested the reality and nature of his
faith.
From what has been said above, it should be very
evident that the "justification" of which Paul treats is entirely different
from the "justification" with which James deals. The doctrine of the former is
that nothing renders any sinner acceptable to God but faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ; the doctrine of the latter is that such a faith is not solitary, but
accompanied with every good work, and that where good works are absent,
justifying faith cannot exist. James is insistent that it is not enough to
say I have justifying faith, I must give proof of the same by
exhibiting those fruits which love toward God and love toward men necessarily
produce. Paul writes of our justification before God, James of our
justification before men. Paul treats of the justification of persons;
James, of the justification of our profession. The one is by faith
alone; the other is by a faith which worketh by love and produces obedience.
Now it is of first importance that the
above-mentioned distinctions should be clearly grasped. When Christian
theologians affirm that the sinner is justified by faith alone, they do
not mean that faith exists alone in the person justified, for justifying
faith is always accompanied by all the other graces which the Spirit
imparts at our regeneration; nor do they mean that nothing else is required in
order to our receiving forgiveness from God, for He requires repentance and
conversion as well as faith (Acts 3:19). No, rather do they mean that there is
nothing else in sinners themselves to which their justification is in Scripture
ascribed: nothing else is required of them or exists in them which stands in
the same relation to justification as their faith does, or which exerts
any casual influence or any efficacy of instrumentality in producing the
result of their being justified (Condensed from Cunningham).
On the other hand, that faith which justifies is
not an idle and inoperative principle, but one that purifies the heart (Acts
15:9) and works by love (Gal. 5:6). It is faith which can easily be
distinguished from that mental faith of the empty professor. It is this
which the Apostle James insists so emphatically upon. The subject of
this Epistle is not salvation by grace and justification by faith, but the
testing of those who claim to have faith. His design is not to show the
ground on which sinners are accepted before God, but to make known that
which evidences a sinner's having been justified. He insists that the
tree is known by its fruits, that a righteous person is one who walks in the
paths of righteousness. He declares that the man who is not a doer of
the Word, but a "hearer only," is self-deceived, deluded. When God
justifies a man, He sanctifies him too: the two blessings are inseparable,
never found apart.
Unless the subject and scope of James' Epistle be
clearly seen, the apprehension of many of its statements can only issue in
God-dishonouring, grace-repudiating, soul-destroying error. To this portion of
the Word of God, more than any other, have legalists appealed in their
opposition to the grand truth of justification by grace, through faith, without
works. To the declarations of this Epistle have they turned to find support for
their Christ-insulting, man-exalting, Gospel-repudiating error of justification
by human works. Merit-mongers of all descriptions cite James 2 for the purpose
of setting aside all that is taught elsewhere in Scripture on the subject of
justification. Romanists, and their half-brothers the Arminians, quote "Ye see
then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only" (v.
24), and suppose that ends all argument.
We propose now to take up James 2:14-26 and offer
a few comments thereon. "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he
hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" (v. 14). Observe carefully
that the Apostle does not here ask, "What doth it profit a man though he
hath faith and have not works?"--such a supposition is nowhere
countenanced by the Word of God: it were to suppose the impossibility for
wherever real faith exists, good works necessarily follow. No, instead
he asks, "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man (not "one of
you"!) say he hath faith"? Professing to be a Christian when a man is
not one, may secure a standing among men, improve his moral and social
prestige, obtain membership in a "church," and promote his commercial
interests; but can it save his soul?
It is not that those empty professors who call
themselves Christians are all (though many probably are) conscious hypocrites,
rather are they deceived souls, and the tragic thing is that in most places
there is nothing in the preaching which is at all calculated to
un-deceive them; instead, there is only that which bolsters them up in
their delusion. There is a large class in Christendom today who are satisfied
with a bare profession. They have heard expounded some of the fundamentals of
the Christian faith, and have given an intellectual assent thereto, and they
mistake that for a saving knowledge of the Truth. Their minds are
instructed, but their hearts are not reached, nor their lives transformed. They
are still worldly in their affections and ways. There is no real subjection to
God, no holiness of walk, no fruit to Christ's glory. Their "faith" is of no
value at all; their profession is vain.
"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man
say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?" By noting the
emphasis upon the word "say," we perceive at once that James is arguing against
those who substituted a theoretical belief of the Gospel for the whole of
evangelical religion, and who replied to all exhortations and reproofs by
saying, "We are not justified by our works, but by faith alone." He therefore
begins by asking what profit is there in professing to be a believer, when a
man is devoid of true piety? The answer is, none whatever. To merely say
I have faith when I am unable to appeal to any good works and spiritual fruits
as the evidence of it, profits neither the speaker nor those who listen
to his empty talk. Ability to prate in an orthodox manner about the doctrines
of Christianity is a vastly different thing from justifying faith.
"If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute
of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and
filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the
body; what doth it profit?" (vv. 15, 16). Here the Apostle shows by an opposite
illustration the utter worthlessness of fair talking which is unaccompanied by
practical deeds: notice the "say unto them, depart in peace" etc. What
is the use and value of feigning to be charitable when the works of
charity are withheld? None whatever: empty bellies are not filled by benevolent
words, nor are naked backs clothed by good wishes. Nor is the soul saved by a
bare profession of the Gospel.
"Faith worketh by love" (Gal. 5:6). The
first "fruit of the spirit," that is of the new nature in the regenerated soul,
is "love" (Gal. 5:22). When faith has truly been wrought in the heart by
the Holy Spirit, that faith is manifested in love--love toward God, love
toward His commandments (John 14:23), love toward the brethren, love toward our
fellow-creatures. Therefore in testing the "faith" of the empty
professor, the Apostle at once puts to the proof his love. In showing
the pretense of his love, he proves the worthlessness of his "faith."
"But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in
him?" (1 John 3:17)! Genuine love is operative; so is genuine faith.
"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead,
being alone" (James 2:17). Here the Apostle applies the illustration he has
employed to the case before him, proving the worthlessness of a lifeless and
inoperative "faith." Even our fellow-men would promptly denounce as valueless a
"love" which was gushing in words but lacking in works. Unregenerate people are
not deceived by those who talk benignly to the indigent, but who refuse to
minister unto their needs. And think you, my reader, that the omniscient God is
to be imposed upon by an empty profession? Has He not said, "Why call ye Me,
Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46).
That "faith" which is only of the lips and is not
confirmed by evidence in the life, is useless. No matter how clear and sound
may be my head-knowledge of the Truth, no matter how good a talker upon Divine
things I am, if my walk is not controlled by the precepts of God, then I am but
"sounding brass and a tinkling symbol." "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead,
being alone." It is not a living and fruitful faith, like the faith of God's
elect, but a thing which is utterly worthless-- "dead." It is "alone," that is,
divorced from love to God and men and every holy affection. How could our holy
Lord approve of such a "faith"! As works without faith are "dead" (Heb.
9:14), so a "faith" which is without "works" is a dead one.
"Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have
works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my
works" (James 2:18). Here the true Christian challenges the empty professor:
You claim to be a believer, but disgrace the name of Christ by your worldly
walk, so do not expect the real saints to regard you as a brother till you
display your faith in the good works of a holy life. The emphatic word in this
verse is "show"--proof is demanded: demonstrate your faith to be genuine.
Actions speak louder than words: unless our profession can endure that
test it is worthless. Only true holiness of heart and life vindicates a
profession of being justified by faith.
"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest
well: the devils also believe, and tremble" (v. 19). Here the Apostle
anticipates an objection: I do actually believe in the Lord! Very well,
so also do the demons, but what is the fruit of their "believing"? Does it
influence their hearts and lives, does it transform their conduct Godward and
manward? It does not. Then what is their "believing" worth! "But wilt thou
know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" (v. 20): "vain" signifies
"empty," exposing the hollowness of one who claims to be justified by
faith yet lacks the evidence of an obedient walk.
"Was not Abraham our father justified by works,
when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought
with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?" (vv. 21, 22). The faith
which reposes on Christ is not an idle, but an active and fruitful principle.
Abraham had been justified many years before (Gen. 15:6); the offering up of
Isaac (Gen. 22) was the open attestation of his faith and the manifestation of
the sincerity of his profession. "By works was faith made perfect"
means, in actual obedience it reaches its designed end, the purpose for which
it was given is realized. "Made perfect" also signifies revealed or made
known (see 2 Cor. 10:9).
"And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith,
Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was
called the Friend of God" (James 2:23). The "Scripture" here is God's testimony
to Abraham in Genesis 15:6: that testimony was "fulfilled" or verified when
Abraham gave the supreme demonstration of his obedience to God. Our being
informed here that Abraham was "called the Friend of God" is in
beautiful accord with the tenor of the whole of this passage, as is clear from
a comparison with John 15:14: "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I
command you."
"Ye see then how that by works a man is
justified, and not by faith only" (James 2:24). In the "ye see then" the
Apostle draws his "conclusion" from the foregoing. It is by "works," by acts of
implicit obedience to the Divine command, such as Abraham exercised--and not by
a mere "faith" of the brain and the lips--that we justify our profession
of being believers, that we prove our right to be regarded as
Christians.
"Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified
by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another
way?" (v. 25). Why bring in the case of Rahab? Was not the example of Abraham
conclusive and sufficient? First, because "two witnesses" are required
for the truth to be "established"--cf. Romans 4:3, 6. Second, because, it might
be objected Abraham's case was so exceptional that it could be no
criterion to measure others by. Very well: Rahab was a poor Gentile, a heathen,
a harlot; yet she too was justified by faith (Heb. 11:31), and later
demonstrated her faith by "works"--receiving the spies at the imminent
risk of her own life.
"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so
faith without works is dead also" (James 2:26). Here is the summing up: a
breathless carcass and a worthless faith are alike useless as unto all the ends
of natural and spiritual life. Thus the Apostle has conclusively shown the
worthlessness of the garb of orthodoxy when worn by lifeless professors. He has
fully exposed the error of those who rest in a bare profession of the
Gospel--as if that could save them, when the temper of their minds and
the tenor of their lives was diametrically opposed to the holy religion they
professed. A holy heart and an obedient walk are the scriptural evidence
of our having been justified by God.
The justification of the believer is
absolute, complete, final. "It is God that justifieth" (Rom. 8:33), and
"I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be
put to it, nor any thing taken from it" (Eccl. 3:14). So absolute and
inexorable is this blessed fact that, in Romans 8:30 we are told, "Whom He
justified, them He also glorified": notice it is not simply a promise that God
"will glorify," but so sure and certain is that blissful event, the past
tense is used. "Them He also glorified" is speaking from the standpoint of the
eternal and unalterable purpose of God, concerning which there is no
conditionality or contingency whatsoever. To be "glorified" is to be perfectly
conformed to the lovely image of Christ, when we shall see Him as He is and be
made like Him (1 John 3:2). Because God has determined this, He speaks of it as
already accomplished, for He "calleth those things which be not as though they
were" (Rom. 4:17).
So far as the believer is concerned, the penal
side of the sin question has been settled once and for all. His case has been
tried in the supreme court, and God has justified him: in consequence thereof
the Divine decision is "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). Once those very persons were under
condemnation--"condemned already" (John 3:18); but now that their faith
has united them to Christ there is no condemnation. The debt of their
sin has been paid by their great Surety; the record thereof has been "blotted
out" by His cleansing blood. "It is God that justifieth. Who is he that
condemneth" (Rom. 8:33, 34). Who will reverse His decision! Where is
that superior tribunal to which this cause can be carried? Eternal justice has
pronounced her fiat; immutable judgment has recorded her sentence.
It is utterly and absolutely impossible that the
sentence of the Divine Judge should ever be revoked or reversed. His sentence
of justification results from and rests upon a complete satisfaction having
been offered to His Law, and that in the fulfillment of a covenant engagement.
Thus is effectually precluded the recall of the verdict. The Father stipulated
to release His elect from the curse of the law provided the Son would meet the
claims of justice against them. The Son freely complied with His Father's will:
"Lo, I come." He was now made under the law, fulfilled the law, and suffered
the full penalty of the law; therefore shall He see of the travail of His soul
and be satisfied. Sooner shall the lightenings of omnipotence shiver the Rock
of Ages than those sheltering in Him again be brought under condemnation.
How very, very far from the glorious truth of the
Gospel is the mere conditional pardon which Arminians represent God as
bestowing upon those who come to Christ--a pardon which may be rescinded, yea,
which will be canceled, unless they "do their part" and perform certain
stipulations! What a horrible and blasphemous travesty of the Truth is
that!--an error which must be steadfastly resisted no matter who holds it:
better far to hurt the feelings of a million of our fellow-creatures than to
displease their august Creator. On no such precarious basis as our
fulfilling certain conditions has God suspended the justification of His
people. Not only is there "now no condemnation" resting upon the
believer, but there never again shall me, for "Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Rom. 4:8).
The dread sentence of the law, "Thou shalt surely
die," cannot in justice be executed upon the sinner's Surety and also upon
himself. Hence by a necessity existing in the very nature of moral government,
it must follow that the believing sinner be freed from all condemnation,
that is, so cleared of the same that he is raised above all liability to
punishment. So declared our blessed Saviour Himself, in words too plain and
emphatic to admit of any misunderstanding: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He
that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto
life" (John 5:24). He, the habitation of whose throne is "justice and
judgment," has sealed up this declaration forever, by affirming "I will never
leave thee nor forsake thee." Sooner shall the sword of justice cleave the
helmet of the Almighty than any Divinely pardoned soul perish.
But not only are the sins of all who truly come
to Christ eternally remitted, but the very righteousness of the Redeemer passes
over to them, is placed upon them, so that a perfect obedience to the law is
imputed to their account. It is theirs, not by promise, but by gift (Rom.
5:17), by actual bestowment. It is not simply that God treats them as if they
were righteous, they are righteous and so pronounced by Him. And
therefore may each believing soul exclaim, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD,
my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of
salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom
decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her
jewels" (Isa. 61:10). O that each Christian reader may be enabled to clearly
and strongly grasp hold of this glorious fact: that he is now truly righteous
in the sight of God, is in actual possession of an obedience which answers
every demand of the law.
This unspeakable blessing is bestowed not only by
the amazing grace of God, but it is actually required by His inexorable
justice. This too was stipulated and agreed upon in the covenant into
which the Father entered with the Son. That is why the Redeemer lived here on
earth for upwards of thirty years before He went to the cross to suffer the
penalty of our sins: He assumed and discharged our responsibilities; as a
child, as a youth, as a man, He rendered unto God that perfect obedience which
we owed Him. He "fulfilled all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15) for His people, and
just as He who knew no sin was made sin for them, so they are now made "the
righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). And therefore does Jehovah declare,
"For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness
shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be
removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee" (Isa. 54:10).
By actually believing with a justifying faith the
sinner doth receive Christ Himself, is joined to Him, and becomes immediately
an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ. This gives him a right unto and an
interest in the benefits of His mediation. By faith in Christ he received not
only the forgiveness of sins, but an inheritance among all them that are
sanctified (Acts 26:18), the Holy Spirit (given to him) being "the earnest of
our inheritance" (Eph. 1:13, 14). The believing sinner may now say "in the LORD
have I righteousness" (Isa. 45:24). He is "complete in Him" (Col. 2:10),
for by "one offering" the Saviour hath "perfected for ever them that are
sanctified" (Heb. 10:14). The believer has been "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph.
1:6), and stands before the throne of God arrayed in a garment more excellent
than that which is worn by the holy angels.
How infinitely does the glorious Gospel of God
transcend the impoverished thoughts and schemes of men! How immeasurably
superior is that "everlasting righteousness" which Christ has brought in (Dan.
9:24) from that miserable thing which multitudes are seeking to produce by
their own efforts. Greater far is the difference between the shining light of
the midday sun and the blackness of the darkest night, than between that "best
robe" (Luke 15:22) which Christ has wrought out for each of His people and that
wretched covering which zealous religionists are attempting to weave out of the
filthy rags of their own righteousness. Equally great is the difference between
the truth of God concerning the present and immutable standing of
His saints in all the acceptability of Christ, and the horrible perversion of
Arminians who make acceptance with God contingent upon the believer's
faithfulness and perseverance, who suppose that Heaven can be purchased by the
creature's deeds and doings.
It is not that the justified soul is now left to
himself, so that he is certain of getting to Heaven no matter how he conducts
himself--the fatal error of Antinomians. No Indeed. God also imparts to him the
blessed Holy Spirit, who works within him the desire to serve, please, and
glorify the One who has been so gracious to Him. "The love of Christ
constraineth us... that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:14,
15). They now "delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Rom. 7:22), and
though the flesh, the world, and the Devil oppose every step of the way,
occasioning many a sad fall--which is repented of, confessed, and
forsaken--nevertheless the Spirit renews them day by day (2 Cor. 4:16) and
leads them in the paths of righteousness for Christ's name's sake.
In the last paragraph will be found the answer to
those who object that the preaching of justification by the imputed
righteousness of Christ, apprehended by faith alone, will encourage
carelessness and foster licentiousness. Those whom God justifies are not left
in their natural condition, under the dominion of sin, but are quickened,
indwelt, and guided by the Holy Spirit. As Christ cannot be divided, and so is
received as Lord to rule us as well as Saviour to redeem us, so those whom God
justifies He also sanctifies. We do not affirm that all who receive this
blessed truth into their heads have their lives transformed thereby--no indeed;
but we do insist that where it is applied in power to the heart there always
follows a walk to the glory of God, the fruits of righteousness being brought
forth to the praise of His name. Each truly justified soul will say:
"Let
worldly minds the world pursue,
It has no charms for me;
I once admired its trifles too,
But grace has set me free."
It is therefore the bounden duty of those who
profess to have been justified by God to diligently and impartially examine
themselves, to ascertain whether or not they have in them those spiritual
graces which always accompany justification. It is by our
sanctification, and that alone, that we may discover our justification. Would
you know whether Christ fulfilled the law for you, that His obedience
has been imputed to your account? Then search your heart and life and
see whether a spirit of obedience to Him is daily working in you. The
righteousness of the law is fulfilled only in those who "walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4). God never designed that the obedience
of His Son should be imputed to those who live a life of worldliness,
self-pleasing, and gratifying the lusts of the flesh. Far from it: "If any man
be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold,
all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17).
Summarizing now the blessed results of
justification. 1. The sins of the believer are forgiven. "Through this
Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by Him all that believe
are justified from all things" (Acts 13:38, 39). All the sins of the believer,
past, present, and to come, were laid upon Christ and atoned for by Him.
Although sins cannot be actually pardoned before they are actually committed
yet their obligation unto the curse of the law were virtually remitted
at the Cross, antecedently to their actual commission. The sins of Christians
involve only the governmental dealings of God in this life, and these are
remitted upon a sincere repentance and confession.
2. An inalienable title unto everlasting glory
is bestowed. Christ purchased for His people the reward of blessing of the
law, which is eternal life. Therefore does the Holy Spirit assure the Christian
that he has been begotten "to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and
that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4). Not only is
that inheritance reserved for all the justified, but they are all
preserved unto it, as the very next verse declares, "who are kept by the
power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last
time" (v. 5)--"kept" from committing the unpardonable sin, from apostatising
from the truth, from being fatally deceived by the Devil; so "kept" that
the power of God prevents anything separating them from His love in Christ
Jesus (Rom. 8:35-38).
3. Reconciliation unto God Himself.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ... we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom. 5:1,
10). Until men are justified they are at war with God, and He is against them,
being "angry with the wicked every day" (Psa. 7:11). Dreadful beyond words is
the condition of those who are under condemnation: their minds are enmity
against God (Rom. 8:7), all their ways are opposed to Him (Col. 1:21). But at
conversion the sinner throws down the weapons of his rebellion and surrenders
to the righteous claims of Christ, and by Him he is reconciled to God.
Reconciliation is to make an end of strife, to bring together those at
variance, to change enemies into friends. Between God and the justified there
is peace--effected by the blood of Christ.
4. An unalterable standing in the favour of
God. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand" (Rom. 5:1, 2). Mark the word "also": not only has Christ
turned away the wrath of God from us, but in addition He has secured the
benevolence of God toward us. Previous to justification our standing was one of
unutterable disgrace, but now, through Christ, it is in one of unclouded grace.
God now has naught but good-will toward us. God has not only ceased to be
offended at us, but is well-pleased with us; not only will He never afflict
punishment upon us, but He will never cease to shower His blessings upon us.
The throne to which we have free access is not one of judgment, but of pure and
unchanging grace.
5. Owned by God Himself before an assembled
universe. "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak,
they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou
shalt be justified" (Matt. 12:36, 37): yes, justified publicly by the Judge
Himself! "These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the
righteous into life eternal" (Matt. 25:46). Here will be the final
justification of the Christian, this sentence being declaratory unto the
glory of God and the everlasting blessedness of those who have believed.
Let it be said in conclusion that the
justification of the Christian is complete the moment he truly believes
in Christ, and hence there are no degrees in justification. The Apostle Paul
was as truly a justified man at the hour of his conversion as he was at the
close of his life. The feeblest babe in Christ is just as completely justified
as is the most mature saint. Let theologians note the following distinctions.
Christians were decretively justified from all eternity:
efficaciously so when Christ rose again from the dead; actually
so when they believed; sensibly so when the Spirit bestows joyous
assurance; manifestly so when they tread the path of obedience;
finally so at the Day of Judgment, when God shall sententiously, and in
the presence of all created things, pronounce them so.