That there is none just, no not one, the apostle had proved from the Psalms (Rom. 3:2020Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)). Those under law are, no less than those without law, all under sin. There is no difference in this: all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Such is the condition of mankind, and authoritatively so declared. As being then guilty, of themselves none can enter heaven, none escape hell.
Therefore did God, after revealing at the beginning the coming destroyer of the enemy, at length send His Son, Who so glorified Him in obedience unto death for sin, that God can righteously send the good news of remission of sins, and life in His name, to every soul that bows in faith. Thus does He justify freely or gratuitously as far as man is concerned, by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
The grace of God is the motive or proximate cause for justifying the unjust; and this is what is meant in such scriptures as speak of justifying any by the grace of God (Rom. 3:2424Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (Romans 3:24), Titus 3:77That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:7)). In His pure, spontaneous, unmerited favor it originated. We were not only—not just but ungodly, even if moral or religious after a fashion; “we were yet sinners.” But God commendeth His own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. There only was the efficacious. sacrifice for the defiled; there the ransom most precious to God. This lays the ground for a new kind of righteousness—for God's righteousness in justifying him who, having no righteousness for God, believes in Jesus at the call of God. It was righteous in God to raise from the dead Jesus Whom unrighteous man crucified; it was righteous to set Him at His own right hand in heaven (John 16:1010Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; (John 16:10)). But, further, it is His righteousness to justify the ungodly one, not in working for it, but in believing on Him as the God of grace in Christ (Rom. 4). For to him that works for it the reward is not reckoned for righteousness. For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace; and this, not more that the glory may be to God, than that the blessing may be sure to the soul that believes. For, as the Lord Himself taught us in the parables, it is the joy of God to save the lost (Luke 15). By His grace the believer is justified.
Hence we are also said to be justified by (or out of) faith (Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1)). The Jew, and indeed the natural man, is apt to think that justification must be out of works. But clearly if a soul could be justified by works, Christ died in vain; and the grace of God would be made void. Hence the gospel is preached to us expressly as lost and powerless; and Jesus our Lord was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised again for our justification. “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” There is no other, principle or way for a sinner; and sinners we have all been, enemies in mind by wicked works, utterly-unfit for the presence of God. Therefore did Christ suffer for sins, Just for unjust, that He might bring us to God; Who can meet us, as we are, on the ground of that atoning death, and justify us by the faith of Jesus. By Him, as the apostle at Antioch of Pisidia preached to souls who had never heard such good news before—by Him “every one that believeth is justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:3939And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. (Acts 13:39)).
But there is a further connection in our text. We are said to be “justified by His blood.” Here it is the apostle's design to express the power or virtue of that which has justified the believer; and he declares it unequivocally to be the blood of Christ. There is no room for mistake. Where the apostle speaks of, the efficacious basis for that immense change of relationship, which is called “justification,” he says it is by or in His blood. Thus only does God account the believer righteous. “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” So it was, not with blood of goats and calves, He entered once for all into the sanctuary, having obtained eternal redemption. It is a work done and accepted by God, outside the believer, yet for him and in full view of his sins, which Jesus bore in His own body on the tree,—bore away unto a land not inhabited, never more to be. The believer once purged has no more conscience of sins. When awakened by the quickening voice of Christ in the word, his sins lay overwhelmingly on his conscience, and he judged himself in repentance before God. But now by faith he rests on the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot; he rests on God's estimate of that blood as proclaimed in the gospel; he believes that God has found a ransom; and he himself has, what Scripture calls, no more conscience of sins.
My reader, turn not away, because you think such news too good to be true. Too good to come from man, undoubtedly; but what can be too good for the God Who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son?—gave Him, that whosoever believeth should not perish but have eternal life. God feels, speaks, acts, worthily of Himself in justifying the ungodly. His grace prompted the wondrous work on behalf of sinners; faith is the empty hand which receives the boon; and the blood of Jesus is the mighty sacrifice, by which you have your sins blotted out and yourself brought nigh to the living God as your Father. Forget not that despisers shall perish.