“How should a man be just with God?” Solemn question! To which man can give no satisfactory answer. If righteousness rule, love is annulled; if love govern, righteousness is swamped. Man can devise no way which does not sacrifice the one to the other. The anxious soul is thus left a prey to fear, apt to drown his doubts in religious efforts if not in the pleasures of sin for a season. Self is unjudged, and conscience unpurged; God unknown, Christ a mere make-weight or help and an impossible example. In such a state (and nothing is more common even in Christendom), the very gospel is turned into a law more galling than that of Moses; and some souls sink into indifference or despair, whilst others clothe themselves with the rags of their own righteousness, to find out too late that they are naked in God’s sight.
Christ, Christ’s redemption, alone meets the dilemma, alone puts in their true places God and man, guild and judgment, peace and holiness. Without Him all for the sinner is a hopeless chaos of contradiction. By Christ’s death, as God is glorified, so remission of sins is proclaimed to man: mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.
But man, hitherto living to himself and without God, even if an observer of forms and duties, is summoned to believe the gospel, not merely that there is grace and truth in Christ, but to believe o nHim and His work for his own soul before God. This necessarily involves repentance toward God, as indeed is often expressly insisted on (Matt. 21:32, Mark 1:15, Luke 24:47, Acts 2:38, 17:30, 20:21). The word of faith, which we preach, says the apostle, is “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10). His words in Rom. 4:23-25 set the truth in the clearest light. “Now it was not written for his (Abraham’s) sake that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus from the dead, Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith,” &c.
None need ask language more precise, none can desire more authoritative. It is scripture (2 Peter 3:15, 16); and scripture is the word of God, whatever the human instrument, communicated by the Holy Spirit for permanent use, written not for their sakes only to whom it was originally given, but for us also. Being God's word, it binds the conscience of every man whom it reaches: his abuse of it, his refusal to heed it, will but aggravate his condemnation. Caviling will not blot out his sins nor rescue him from the wrath to come. Faith is the reception of God's word, and now pre-eminently of His message to every man, the gospel of His grace. We are called to believe that God raised Jesus our Lord from among the dead—Jesus expressly declared to be given up for Our offenses and raised for our justification or justifying. The efficacious work was entirely on God's part. We had contributed alas! our trespasses: He gave up His Son Who suffered for them, Just for unjust, and raised Him from the dead, the sure proof that the sacrifice was wrought and accepted for those that believe. Do you ask further demonstration? Rom. 8:34 adds, “Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us.” His resurrection and glory on high are the answer, not only to His person but to His work, glorifying God as to sin and suffering for our sins. God is righteous in thus raising and glorifying Him. But His righteousness avails much more, and justifies him that believes in Jesus (Rom. 3:26).
Here is the blessed ground of the gospel. Fallen and guilty, man has no righteousness for God (Rom. 1, and 2.). But God justifies freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Who bore the judgment of our sins on the cross, and now risen declares the believer free. Hence it is “by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe.” It is open “to all,” but for this very reason far worse off with God is he who rejects Christ and the gospel of God. He who believes on Him is justified, yea is made God's righteousness in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). He is justified by faith. There is no other way. It is not a process going on, but a fact accomplished and made known by that surest of testimonies—God's word. For He loves that we should know what Christ has done for us, and what He can afford to give in consequence. If we believe in Him, He would not have us doubtful, or burdened, but enjoying the inestimable favor of being justified in His sight. It is the fundamental blessing, anticipated in the Psalm (32.), accomplished in Christ, and proclaimed in the gospel.
It is “upon all them that believe.” The weak believer as well as the strong, may rest on the Savior, Whom God set forth a propitiatory, or mercy seat, by faith in His blood. And why was the blood sprinkled seven times before it, if not to furnish the fullest confidence to every soul that believes? The veil is now rent; all is manifest, not only your sins in the light of the cross, but the blood upon the mercy seat, the witness of atonement forever accepted. For God has before Him, not your sins, but the blood that cleanses from every sin.
More than that, it was to declare God's righteousness; and this doubly. It was first to vindicate in the prætermission or passing over of the foregone sins in the forbearance of God. How else could He have dealt as He did with such as Abel, Enoch, and Noah, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with crowds of others named and unnamed of old? But it is also to show His righteousness in the present time when He sends the glad tidings to all the world, to bear fruit and grow in all that hear and know the grace of God in truth. For it is no longer His ancient people under the law, but the gospel sent to all; no longer man's righteousness claimed, to convict of sin and powerlessness and ruin, but God's righteousness in Christ's death, that Himself might be just and justifier of him that has faith in Jesus.
Therefore, as the apostle triumphantly challenges in Rom. 8:33, “It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth?” Christ Jesus by His suffering work alone accounts for it. For our sins afforded righteous ground against us; but Christ bore them in His body on the tree, as His resurrection proves them to be altogether and righteously gone. It is God's righteousness, as the Epistle to the Romans lays down, not only to raise Him from the dead, but to justify all who believe in Him. His righteousness goes far beyond, even to heavenly glory for Christ and Close that are His. But here the Holy Spirit urges the foundation alike for God and for the soul through faith. May it be your portion, dear reader, through sovereign grace!