As this paper, from its length (which I regret, and attribute to the haste with which it was composed in the midst of many avocations), could not appear in one number of the Bible Treasury, I will add one or two remarks as to righteousness, and the use of this word in Scripture. First, it is quite certain that in Rom. 3 righteousness means God's righteousness as God in contrast with Christ's work, though displayed through and in virtue of it. It is the righteousness of God without law. This is its nature and quality. It is not man's; it is God's, apart from law. Such is the constant use of the genitive. Next, it is the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ. That is the way it is brought to bear on men in their favor. Then His passing over sins in times past seemed to deny this righteousness; but the death of Christ accounted for that. And so God's righteousness was, at this time, that he might be righteous and justifier of them who believe in Jesus. Now the person whose righteousness is spoken of, is the righteous justifier, that is, God. The way is faith in Jesus. I say, then, in this capital passage it is a character or attribute of God, which is made good by the blood of Christ, when it seemed to be impossible, in respect of sinners so as to favor them.
The righteousness of God is His consistency with Himself. Hence it shows itself in mercy when it is promised, in judgment on the wicked, in rewarding integrity, not as merit, but as that which pleased Him, and rightly—everything in which God makes good what He has revealed Himself to be. For in a certain sense He owes Himself to that, because withal it is Himself; and on this faith ought to reckon. Hence all the interventions of God in favor of His people, according to His revelation of Himself, or His promises, are called righteousness. Of course, His revelation of Himself is the truth of what He is; but this revelation is our only just way of knowing it. But it is a relative term. A person cannot be intrinsically righteousness, i.e., without reference to some one else. Man's righteousness, if he had any, would be his consistency with the revelation of God and its requirements. “The righteous Lord loveth righteousness, His countenance doth behold the upright.” But man was not this. Hence when the law had been given, mercy is always put before righteousness; because the saint felt, as the Spirit taught, that he had forfeited everything. It is from this sense of righteousness (God's consistency with Himself as revealed, His acting on the revelation of Himself), that it has been said to mean goodness, mercy, and the like. The display of it was such; the thing spoken of as displaying it was such. Still, it was God's consistency with Himself, and this is constantly appealed to in the Psalms, and declared to be “near” and to “be forever” in Isa. 51, and connected with Israel's salvation when mercy and truth will be met together, righteousness and peace will kiss each other, and truth flourish out of the earth, and righteousness look down from heaven. & David speaks of bringing in everlasting righteousness amongst men when God manifests His glory—His perfect consistency with Himself—and blesses His people. The heavens will. declare His righteousness, for God will be judge Himself; and the fruit of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever. Thus righteousness will reign in the millennium, and peace and bliss be maintained. In the new heavens and the new earth the righteousness will dwell, and nothing can be changed; there is nothing to change.
On the other hand, we read, “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness.” Here the godly man looks for enlargement out of distress, according to God's consistency with His revelation of Himself—the thing he looks to as the title to be helped, he walking in fear and faith. And the sacrifices of righteousness have the same force, sacrifices offered according to the true character in which God had revealed Himself: of course, in Israel according to the law, but with the piety, purpose, and truth of heart which became this approach to God, and the consciousness of what He was. So, in the triumphant deliverance of His people at the end, it is righteousness sustains Him. He saw there was no man, but He was Himself, and He put it on as a breastplate, and made good His character against evil. And it is this which makes the perplexity of the saint, in the Psalms, who yet owns his sin. How was God's character made good when His people were oppressed, and not a promise fulfilled? Yet there is the confession of sin, and confidence in Him through grace. Integrity wrought in by grace calls on righteousness and expects an answer according to what God has said, and yet confesses sin. This last was uprightness.
But how could all this be made good, and God be really consistent with Himself, show mercy, judge sin, bless faith and hope in Him, according to promise? That was based on redemption, on Christ's work as made sin; and though there may be hope, the soul is never clear till this is known. Here God can be, yea, is, here alone is (now sin is come in), consistent with Himself in blessing. Thus He could righteously bless according to promise. “Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers” —and that effectually, only through death and resurrection.
But there was much more than this in Christ's death. God, independently of promise, was perfectly glorified in all He is—righteousness, love, truth, majesty—in all He is. Hence, a ground of righteousness is laid for every sinner. God is consistent with, glorifies, Himself in blessing. I do not mean that this was all; for it was not—there was positive substitution for the redeemed—but I confine myself now to the one point. Thus the Gentiles, who had no promise, could glorify God for His mercy. Whoever believed had a part in it. God was righteous in blessing him, just in forgiving. Hence, grace reigned, but reigned through righteousness; Jew or Gentle, when the matter was fully looked into, being all alike. God did and will make good His promises, but by nature all were children of wrath. There was no difference. It was, through Christ, God's righteousness unto all; and it is upon all them that believe. This is Paul's great theme in the Romans. To the end of the third chapter, the death which made it good. From the fourth to the end of the eighth, the position into which we are righteously brought in resurrection, the sure place which this glorifying of God has obtained for us, and which He righteously puts into, and must, so to speak, in Christ: and then (chaps. 9-11) the apostle meets the objection of special promise. He had only discussed law as yet with the Jew; and the Jew could say, Yes; but what about our special promises? And his answer is, God is sovereign; or, else, if you rest it on fleshly descent, you must let in Ishmael and Esau; and God will use this sovereignty to let in Gentiles, You have forfeited all by seeking it by law, and stumbling at the stumbling-stone. And yet (so profound is God's wisdom), He has not cast you off. He will make good His promises. He could not but do it; only now you must come in under mercy like a Gentile. The prophets, too, had foretold it all.
Thus, though God did make good His character revealed to the Jew, and His promise, yet that was not a partial thing. The cross must reveal deeper truth, and, displayed in all its perfectness and grace, what God was in Himself; and thus dealt with the sinner as such, with what man was in himself, that is, nothing but sin; and brought him, through faith in Jesus, according to the value of that sacrifice, into the presence of God Himself in heaven. The Jews, as a nation, must wait till the great High Priest comes out to know the sacrifice is accepted. Then they will be blessed. To them that believe, the Holy Ghost is come out, while Christ is within; and we know that He is, and are at peace, and that according to righteousness. Grace reigns through righteousness.
I can only, of course, in an article or a tract, sketch the scriptural use of this word. The reader has only to take a concordance, and see how far it is just. I have no doubt the New Testament, as would naturally be the case, alludes to several of these passages. I rather think Psa. 1 was in the apostle's mind in Rom. 3, or that which the Spirit had produced by it in his mind. Thus, too, the remarkable passages in Jer. 23-33, “the Lord our righteousness” —the first said of Christ, the second of Jerusalem. As Christ is righteousness to us, and we are the righteousness of God in Him, we are accepted according to God's own character, righteously, in Him. His infinite value, including therein His work, is our title before God.
There is another point it will be well to clear up from Scripture. How is eternal life obtained? We are told by law-keeping. I deny it. A law was not given which could give life; Christ had, or rather was, eternal life before He kept law. Eternal life is not obtained by law-keeping. What says the Scripture? The subject is one of deep importance. Justification being one aspect of salvation, the other part of it, so to speak, is eternal life. The direct doctrine of Scripture is as plain as possible. That I shall state. The Jews had connected it with the law, as they had righteousness. This connection will require more attention than the simple truth itself. The Lord, while presenting Himself to their responsibility during His lifetime, speaks in a guarded way upon it. Once rejected (and He is so viewed all through the Gospel of John), all is distinct and simple. The notion of our getting life by His law keeping, is not only not found in Scripture, but is contrary to every idea the Gospel gives of it. Let us first state from Scripture the simple truth on the subject. The simplest, fullest, and most direct statements of what eternal life is, are to be found, perhaps, in John's first epistle; the main object of the whole epistle being to show what that life is. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life (for the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us).” Here we have eternal life with the Father, but manifested in the person of Christ. So in the last chapter: “This is the record, that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. He is the true God and eternal life.” This, then, is most definite and distinct. The life is in the Son. He is eternal life. So the Gospel: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” “As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in Himself.” (John 5) He is a life-giving Spirit; He quickens whom He will.
All this is plain. Life is in the Son, or He is life. He has it in His person; He communicates it. It is given of God, not won. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23).) “I,” says Christ of His sheep, “am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
We may now see how it is obtained. It is the Spirit working by the word. We are born of the Spirit; and “Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (James 1:1818Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:18).) Hence John 5:2424Verily, 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 that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.” So Paul's witness was “a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death.” The form or character of this is resurrection. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.” (Col. 3:1, 3, 41If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (Colossians 3:1)
3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:3‑4).) (This and verse 20 depend on Chap. 2:12, 13.) So Eph. 2 “God.... when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” And this passage shows it is the same power which raised up Christ—not of works, but in resurrection. It has its groundwork as to faith (for, being by the word, it is by faith) in the knowledge of the Father, and Jesus, whom He has sent. For that was the revelation of God, as acting in grace, and to give life. So Christ gives eternal life to His sheep. (John 10) This life-receiving faith in its present object is unfolded in John 6 “Whoso seeth the Son, and believeth on him, hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” First, He is received as incarnate, the bread come down from heaven. But this is particularized: He gives His “flesh for the life of the world,” and this in His death; so that if one do not eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, he has no life in Himself at all. Whoso does, has eternal life. In order to this, therefore He must, as standing for sinful man, die, and be in death the witness of the Father's love who sent Him; for it was love to sinners.
This is John 3:15, 1615That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:15‑16). At the close of that chapter, it is confirmed: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” The power of it is in the Spirit, Jesus' divine gift. It “is a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4) The Spirit is life if Christ be in us. (Rom. 8) He was to give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him. (John 17)
A few accessory passages may be added. Titus 1:22In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; (Titus 1:2) shows “the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began.” There is another aspect in which eternal life is viewed, namely, its full accomplishment in glory, according to the full purpose of God. In this view we are, of course, not said to have it, but to follow after it. Thus, Rom. 6: “Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” So Paul to Timothy: “Lay hold on eternal life.” That is present energy, but is the earnest faith of the saint, not simply the gift of God. So of the rich giving freely, that they may lay hold on eternal life. So Rom. 5: “Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So “they that lose their life shall keep it unto life eternal.” This is put as a great general principle in Rom. 2 “To them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life.” This does not throw any obscurity on the great truth. It is simply what is universal in the New Testament: the energy of faith in the wilderness-journey, through grace, which goes onwards to the full result for which God has redeemed us. We have to go the road in order to arrive, but have sure grace and the keeping of God to go it.
This free and perfect gift, and maintenance of instructive responsibility, on the footing of His inalienable gift, is ever found in God's ways in grace. “He that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
We have yet a particular point to inquire into historically (for the doctrine of eternal life is clear): how far the Jews thought of this, and how far Christ met their thoughts. The doctrine of eternal life or any life after this world was not necessary to be a good Jew. The priests and high priests were Sadducees who believed nothing of it. It is said that Sadoc's teaching originally was only urging that rewards after this life ought not to be our motive for goodness, but the blessedness of what was good. However that may be, it ended in his followers denying resurrection, angel, and spirit, and taking this world for their portion. But, while the Pentateuch is silent as to eternal life, saying only, “The man that doeth these things shall live in them,” the subsequent teaching of the Jews had brought the nation, with the exception of the Sadducees, to expect eternal life, with the grossest corruption of principles as to merit, balancing accounts of merit and demerit, and even positive superstitions.
That they did expect it we find in John. “In them ye think ye have eternal life.” So the young man who comes to Jesus acts on it: “What good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal lifer So the lawyer tempting Him in Luke. But the Lord, while replying to these persons, and putting His sanction on the witness of Moses (“he that doeth these things shall live in them”), never meets the expectation of eternal life by them. “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” —that Moses had taught. When the young man still looks for more, Jesus tests his heart, and calls on him to follow Him. So to the lawyer in Luke, on a similar question, He only says, “What is written in the law, how readest thou?” and when he seeks to excuse himself by the question, “Who is my neighbor?” the Lord shows (not “who is my neighbor,” but) how in grace I can be neighbor to any one—the divine principle of grace. The testimony of eternal life, given by God in Christ, remains in all its simple fullness. Only in resurrection could it be given in righteousness and in the power which passed man beyond the place and power of sin and death. The reader, taught of God, will see that resurrection is the place where justification and life meet. “He hath quickened you together with Christ, having forgiven you all trespasses.” Resurrection is the power of a new life which I have in Christ. Having Him as my life, I am risen with Him. But He had died, and I am forgiven all trespasses through a work done before I partake of the life. He is raised for my justification, and I am in the presence of God according to the acceptance which belongs to the position in which He stands, after the putting away of sin, and all He has done to the glory of God in doing it. Resurrection is both the witness of the righteous acceptance of Christ's work, and the entrance into the position which is the just result of it. He was “raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.” It is life from the dead, according to the power of God. He was raised for our justification; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. I have a living place in righteousness before God. Now, if we consider the value of that which brings us unto it, it is infinite. The glory of the Father was all engaged in raising Christ. He had glorified God perfectly—not merely borne our sins and been a sacrifice for sin. This was the means of our righteous forgiveness; but there was more. He glorified God in doing it in the place of, and as to, sin, but in everything in which God's nature and character consisted. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” This is in the place of Son (John 17), and by that which gives us a title—His finishing the work. Now this was more than forgiveness; it was positive. It was not (though about sin) sin ward, but God-ward. How could God be righteous and show love too? How make good His word of judgment unto death, and save? How vindicate His majesty, yet bless sinners? Christ offers Himself. There is God's perfect love infinitely glorified; there is His righteousness against sin, as naught else could show it; there His truth, that the wages of sin is death, there His majesty vindicated His Son is given up to death because of it; His holiness made good in repudiating sin, when His Son was made sin. Surely it was the glory of the Son of man; but God was glorified in it; and man is entered in righteousness into the glory of God. This, surely, is more than forgiveness, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We expect to be like Christ in His Father's house, perfectly conformed to Him—to bear the image of the heavenly, as we have borne the image of the earthy. But, even now, we have more than forgiveness; we have Christ's own position: not in body, of course, but much more really and importantly, summed up in one word: “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” The choicest blessing to the heart is, that we are not only blessed through, but with Christ. As to peace “My peace I leave with thee” — “joy, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” “The words that thou gavest unto me I have given unto them.” “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.... Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.” And this partaking livingly in His own portion is applied to assurance in respect of future judgment. “Herein is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because, as he is, so are we in this world.” Wondrous privilege! and all grace, yet in righteousness. And all confirms this. is Christ hid in God Our life is hid with Him in God. Does. He appear? We shall appear with Him in glory. Does He live? We shall live also. Now, this is more than forgiveness. He is gone to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God; and does He sit because all is finished, and “that by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified?” They sit, too, in heavenly places in Him. Our reproach-bearing is His reproach. We suffer with Him and reign with Him. Such is the Scriptural presentation, and much more than this, of our place. Is all this by keeping law or by grace? Is it by the law, or by His offering, He hath perfected us forever?
I close. My answer to the Record is this: Its declaration that the theory, that pardon and justification are distinct things, and that a man may be pardoned but not justified, is the universal doctrine of the Church of God, is ignorance of history. The contrary is stated by the Homilies and Calvin, and the thought is formally condemned by the Lutheran symbolical books as false doctrine. It is not the doctrine taught at the Reformation, but the contrary. The Record moves here in the narrow circle of its own associates. Next, I do not accept, more than the Record does, that justification is limited by that. A man is justified by blood—that is, by the blood of Christ. Scripture, as Calvin insists, is express upon it. But when the Record would correct the absolute limitation of justification to pardon, it goes back instead of forward, and makes us justified before we are pardoned—justified, before Christ dies for us, by Christ's law-keeping before the cross. Here it is all wrong again. Scripture repudiates righteousness by law for man altogether, and declares, if it be on this ground, Christ is dead in vain, and that we are fallen from grace. The Record does not see the extent to which we are dead and condemned, and thus puts us under law, and leaves us to make out our justification by a completing unfailing law-keeping, by Christ's perfect law-keeping; so that it is a work which goes on, the application of this righteousness being progressive, and proportioned to my failures. It denies the value of law, which counts a breaker of one commandment guilty of all, and the existence of one lust sufficient to damn. It is an allowance of failure in keeping the law when put under it; for a perfect obedience, not atonement, is provided beforehand. And the apostle's answer to this they have not got. He replies, Yes; but you are dead and risen again. How can you live in flesh when you are dead? But no such argument applies to law. Historically, the Record is totally wrong. When it goes beyond the defect it condemns, it goes back to law, instead of forward in the power of resurrection into Christ. Let those who search the Scriptures (and I beseech Christians to do it, and not satisfy themselves with my rapid and imperfect sketch of the truth for a periodical) say whether law or resurrection is the ground on which the apostle, on which the Spirit of God, sets us in the word for justification before God, for life and acceptance in Christ.
I have not taken up particular expressions in the Record, but the whole subject itself. I pray the reader to do the same. Of course, all of us are liable to express ourselves in a way which lays us open to attacks; but let the reader's inquiry be, What is the Scripture truth on this subject? I think I have fairly taken the issue upon it.
A few words of definition (which Cicero might have taught me to put first, but in divine subjects come, after all, better last), will complete what I have to say.
Pardon and justification are not the same thing. Pardon is the favor and kindness of a person wronged passing over faults against himself, an act of prerogative goodness; so that kindness flows forth unimpeded by the wrong—though, in this case, it be by the blood of Christ. Justification is the holding not chargeable with guilt. The latter refers to righteous judgment, the former to kindness. Where one is a sinner against God, they approach one another, and run together, in fact, but are not the same, nor in the effect the same in the heart. Justified, I do not fear judgment—pardoned, my heart returns in comfort to Him who has pardoned me; but by His blood we have both. It is another aspect, not another act. So, when we connect our risen position with justifying, it is not logically exact. The justifying is always holding discharged from accusation. The way in which we so stand is not simply holding us to be clear, but, by the resurrection of Christ, putting us into a new position; for if He be risen, and God has acknowledged therein the satisfaction made in Christ's death, He has therein discharged or justified us. But that which justified us implies, therefore, more than pardon—an introduction into God's presence as Christ stands there. If Christ be not raised, we are yet in our sins; but if He be, we are cleared by a work which brings us into the glory of God in perfect acceptance.
This is not properly justification, but it is the justification we have got, seeing how we have obtained the justification; for we are justified by being the righteousness of God in Him, and are warranted practically in taking what Christ is as the measure of our justification, because it is that which will be recognized in the day of judgment. “Herein is love made perfect with us, that we should have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, so are we in this world.” The day of judgment pronounces on us. We are as the Judge—clearly justified therefore. But the Lamb is the Judge too; we appear before Him who bore our sins; so that their being put away, covered (in virtue of which work all is pardoned) is our justification, too; for “we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.”
The merits of Christ, though a most justifiable and true expression, has misled, as it is in another order of ideas from justifying. It is not by meriting that we are held free from charge. Christ has merited that we should, and so it is all well. But meriting has respect to reward; and I have no doubt this has led to connect our justifying with His keeping the law. Now, no merits could have cleared us before God without death, that was the wages of sin, and “without shedding of blood there is no remission;” and this leads us to see the wisdom of God, because, being thus, there is also a putting away, an end of the old evil, and the introduction in a new life into a wholly new order of things, pure and excellent. Finally, the heart wants pardon, the conscience justifying.
I would add one word in conclusion, without thinking of dwelling on it. The Record speaks of its objection to the “Brethren's” dogma of baptism. I do not know what is its object in this; but I must be allowed to say, the Brethren have no dogma on baptism. Had they, they would have given up their first principles, and I, for one, could not be among them: first, because they would be at once sectarian, united on a particular opinion; and, secondly, that I have no such dogma. I know well that many among them have Baptist views on this subject; but many, very many, have not: many are decidedly opposed to it, I for one. I think it an utter mistake, and, from beginning to end, a want of intelligence in Scripture; a confusion between the house of God and the body of Christ; and a bar to the true judgment of the state and responsibility of Christendom and of parents. The Record's principles have so mixed the Church and the world that the meaning of baptism has been lost. But when the Holy Ghost was in the Church, consciously as the house of God, and the devil in the world sensibly, as in a heathen country, it would be monstrous to say that the children of Christians were not to be where the Holy Ghost was, but to remain where the devil ruled outside. And the corruption that has come in and mixed Church and world together, does not change God's truth. I say this, without thinking of proving my views here, because, as I am answering the Record on the capital point of its article, did I let this pass, it might seem accepting it as a fact that Baptism (that is, Baptist views) was a dogma of Brethren.
A few words as to other assailants. Mr. Harrison, whom I would not doubt to be a good man—though not having the faith of the Church of God nor the Gospel according to the Record!—has attacked the tracts on the other side. I would just mention that he is mistaken as to Osiander, who was Lutheran professor at Konigsberg, not a papist. He did hold that there was an infusion of the divine nature, by which the Christian became righteous. He was resisted by Lutherans and Calvinists. There is, morally speaking, an infusion of the divine nature, though I do not admire the term, for it is a new life; but certainly righteousness is not by it, though it cannot be without it. Here I think Mr. Harrison is on slippery ground, because he says we cannot be accounted what we are not. It is something like denying imputed righteousness altogether. Now, that we must have this divine nature to be accounted righteous is true. Yet we are not accounted righteous for this, but for Christ's sake in Himself. I am imperfect in result; but before God, “as he is, so am I in this world.” Without being aware of it, Mr. Harrison has slipped into Osiander's doctrine, which I do not hold at all, but reject. Does he mean to say that a man is reckoned just when he is so? His words are, “Reckons them to be what they really are.” If so, it is only in the divine nature of which we are made partakers; and it is Osiander's doctrine. I do not think Mr. Harrison at all clear on this head. Next, as to Dr. Crisp, he is quite mistaken. I had never seen the book when I read Mr. Harrison's tract. I lit on it since and looked at it, but Crisp's doctrine is the common one of Christ's law-keeping being imputed to us—His active obedience as our righteousness. Only he holds that, Christ being God, an infinite value is imparted to His human obedience. But Mr. Harrison is quite mistaken as to him, and so he is as to Mr. Stanley's tracts. I hold no communication of essential righteousness. I hold Christ Himself in His own perfection to be, as now risen, our righteousness before God; but I believe that righteousness is the true relative character of God as to good and evil, and that He accepts Christ in virtue of that character and us in Him; but it would not be righteousness if Christ had not deserved it. To speak exactly, I do not think righteousness an essential quality at all. If I have said so, it was inexact. God is light and God is love: that is essential. But He is not righteousness nor holiness, because these are relative terms; He is righteous and holy. But righteousness is manifested and demonstrated to the world, because Christ is gone to the Father. He had glorified God, and God has glorified Him with Himself, and (leaving aside just final condemnation for the moment) therein righteousness is proved. It is righteousness in God, but would not have been so, had not Christ merited it. Let me venture to recommend Mr. Harrison to read again my “extraordinary language,” in his page 30, and see if he cannot understand it, comparing 1 John; for I think it very sound truth indeed.
Two other points I would refer to: the Septuagint, and 2 Peter 1:11Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: (2 Peter 1:1). As to the first, though I read and study, it would be wrong in me to pretend to be learned. My life, as I dare say Mr. Harrison knows, lies in other things, and I should be glad of any light on the New Testament, particularly from such a source as the Septuagint. I could not quite apply, however, Septuagint language absolutely to the Greek of the New Testament, however great a help it may be. I believe the Holy Spirit guided the New Testament writers. And while the general tone of language may be drawn from the Septuagint, because they lived in it, habitually on all important subjects they gave what the Holy Spirit meant them to give; and, in point of fact, do not follow the Septuagint, when it does not give the divine mind, as may be seen in Randolph's tract. On all subjects they give it; but I mean, in the direct teaching of truth; we must admit no accepted language which may induce imperfectness of thought. I therefore deliberately maintain the sense given to Rom. 1. I do not deny the Hebrew rule, of course, given by Gesenius and other Hebrew grammarians, that a determining noun renders the determining article unnecessary, and that the LXX., who were not famous scholars (some at least of the translators), follow the Hebrew idiom much. In two of the examples, however, given by Mr. Harrison, the verb substantive is a reason why there should be no article, and in the only case in which Jehovah's righteousness is mentioned in Scripture (Mr. Harrison gives no case at all) the article is found in the Septuagint. It is in Mic. 6:55O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord. (Micah 6:5). In the other passages where the righteousness of God is mentioned, it is my righteousness; and, in spite of Hebrew, has necessarily the article. It could hardly be otherwise, so that I do not cite it in proof of anything. The only other cases are “the Lord our righteousness,” applied to Israel and to Jerusalem as a name. But the absence of the article in the New Testament I hold to be purposed, and the true mind of the Holy Ghost. Thus, where it is said (perhaps alluding to Jer. 33:1616In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness. (Jeremiah 33:16)), “we are made the righteousness of God,” there is no article. The article here would say a great deal too much: either that we were it, intrinsically and abstractedly so; or that we were the whole thing, and that there was no other righteousness of God but ourselves. As it stands it does not say this, but merely that we have this standing and character in Christ. Our place, title, privilege, is not merely mercy (which it is as to us in an infinite degree), but our salvation, looked at in Christ, is the display of God's righteousness. He is consistent with Himself in it. We are the expression and display of this righteousness, not in contradiction with it, and this is a glorious truth wrought out by Christ's work. “The heavens shall declare His righteousness; for God is judge Himself.” Thus, though the fact is that the LXX. give the article with the righteousness of God, and the New Testament does not, I do not rest merely on this, but on the teaching of the Holy Ghost in the word as perfect in itself.
As to 2 Peter 1 I still think also it is nothing to the purpose. It is not imputed righteousness here, nor anything to do with it, nor a righteousness presented to God (Christ's righteousness, as men speak in this sense), but a righteousness exercised by God in virtue of which they got Christianity, or the precious faith. It was not a righteousness accepted, but a righteousness of God, which gave according to promise, and revealed grace. And so the English translators understood it; and, I have no doubt at all, rightly. I do not know that I have any subject of controversy with Mr. Harrison, and I have no wish to have any. I think he runs a little into inherent righteousness, or is in danger of it—i.e., of Wesleyanism; and I think he has not yet at all understood our position in Christ risen, as something else than His dying for us, though the fruit of it. I trust he will believe that I say this with no assumption, nor as a reproach, and that he will weigh it in the spirit I say it in; for I am quite ready to believe him more faithful to the light he has than I am; but still I think there is truth in Scripture on this subject which he has not received.
As I am upon attacks, I notice very briefly two that have been sent me, Adelphos, and the Eclectic Review. I was begged to read the first, and have run through it, but I do not think it calls for any answer. I agree with the writer in thinking that discussions on the person of Christ are mischievous, but I do not think the rejection of blasphemy is. I am sorry he cannot find out the difference. Science is not knowledge, in spite of Latin. Science is the deduction of general results and principles from facts and axioms within the certain knowledge of man. But a defense of the pursuit of science, of the desires of the mind, because an experienced pastor thought a Christian ought to do his work thoroughly well, is not worth an answer. As regards the abuse of the followers of Mr. Darby, as they are called, it is a matter of course: I apprehend the writer will find them sufficiently independent in their judgment not to mind his. The tract is hardly the expression of the absence of party spirit which he so strongly recommends. As to his allegations, he ought to be better informed, or to say nothing.
The Eclectic also has taken up arms in an article which certainly would demand no kind of notice but for the work commented on, the little tract of Mrs. Grattan Guinness. As it is stated, in another of these common-place attacks I have seen, that this is referred to by others, I allow myself to say that I should object altogether to this tract being taken as the Brethren's account of themselves, or any Brother's account of them. The estimable person who gives it (and I say this very sincerely, believing Mrs. Guinness to be so), was hardly, I apprehend, born when the Brethren began; and hence it cannot be surprising that her account should be inexact historically. It is very inexact indeed. But this, too, I should leave where it was; as the best thing for Christians to do is to serve God so that He may commend them, and then let people say what they like. But I object to Mrs. Guinness' account, because it is a regular puff of Brethren, and in this point of view I feel it highly objectionable. It seems to me that, in a young female, it would have been better taste to have omitted characterizing any Christian, some years older than herself, as Diotrephes. She may be sure he forgives her; nor would it be of any consequence to mention it, were it not a proof that the true motives of opposition, which she so characterizes, have lost their weight in her mind. I may not have any right to expect that, what so many Christians hold to be horrible blasphemies, Mrs. Guinness should hold to be such; but I must conclude that, if she is obliged to consider the opposition to them as the spirit of Diotrephes, she cannot see in these blasphemies anything which affects her mind as such. I am sorry for her that it should be so.
J. N. D.