THIS leads me to another remark, which skews how carefully, as I have said, Christ's expiatory sufferings are set aside here. The curse of the law is diligently spoken of. Christ came under the law as violated. “If law is the sphere of this righteousness, it is evident that no knowledge can be acquired respecting it without a clear conception of the law in its relation to sinners, not only in respect of its positive claims, but in the extent of its curse.” Here, surely, if anywhere, we should find, “Christ has 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.” Not a word of it is found. All the unfathomable truth of the Holy One being made sin for us must be set aside. Not only so, but an entirely different view of the curse, or meeting the curse, of the law is given. I will give the whole passage, that I may not be charged with misstating it. He continues: “The law to which the surety must needs subject. himself was, moreover, the LAW AS VIOLATED, urging the unalterable demands which it made on man as man, and armed with the curse its violation entailed. Accordingly, the work of Christ is described in its relation to the law. He was made under the law (Gal. 4:4); the righteousness on which man's acceptance is based is termed the righteousness of the law (Rom. 8:4); the work of Christ is the end of the law for (or unto) righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom. 10:4). This latter phrase (τελος νομου) can only mean that fulfillment which the law demanded, and could not but demand, till its end or accomplishment was reached; and that additional word, that Christ is the end of it 'unto righteousness' (εις) leaves no doubt that this fulfillment of the law is to be found in Christ, and is received in the reception of Christ.” As yet we cannot find a word of the curse, only of fulfilling the law, which, I suppose, did not bring a curse. I continue: “More particularly the obedience of Christ (called ἡπακοη) (Rom. 4:19) extended over his entire life, and formed one obedience from first to last.".... [This is perfectly true.] “The element of obedience pervaded His life, and went through all His sufferings. The great commandment laid on Him was to die; and here, amid temptations to recede, the extent of His obedience was displayed. [All right; but where is the curse?] His is no common obedience, but one that passed through superhuman temptations.” This is the worst part of all to me, because it seeks to satisfy Christian feeling as to Christ's sorrow, while carefully excluding His being made a curse, or expiatory bearing of wrath, “and it has a dignity and value, from the greatness of His person, that entitle it to be called infinite.” All true; but the curse? The infinite value of obedience is not a curse. Again, “He was the living law, the personal law; and this was an event with a far more important bearing than any other that ever occurred. It is the world's new creation.”
Now, I ask any Christian reader whether, as we have seen, the expiatory value of Christ's death and justification, and redemption through blood, omitted and denied, so the being made a curse for those under the curse of the law, as hanging on the tree, that unfathomable truth of Scripture, is not here wholly set aside—spoken of, but set aside? If Christ is made a curse at all in this system, it was by birth. He was born under the curse; but if it be that, there is not one word of it. He kept the law, was obedient, and that is righteousness. What Scripture speaks of as the curse is set aside. The world's new creation is before His death and resurrection; His keeping the law on earth was this. This I will touch on hereafter. Now, I affirm that Scripture speaks of the death of Christ in a way wholly different and the opposite of this. It was a baptism He was looking forward to. It was this hour pressed upon His spirit.
It was then and then only He was made sin for us. Then He was a victim of propitiation. Then He was delivered for our offenses, thereon raised again for our justification. Then He was made a curse to redeem from the curse of the law. Forgiveness the author does not speak of, nor the non-imputing of sin. But “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone.” It is out of the side of the dead Christ that the water and the blood flow, in the power of which Christ came to cleanse and expiate. Of this, of all this, nothing is, found in this false gospel! Righteousness is by the law. Of forgiveness he does not speak: of cleansing he knows nothing: of justifying by blood, i.e., being made righteous in God's sight, he will not hear. Redemption is by incarnation in the person of Christ. Is all this the gospel, or the denial of it? If Scripture be true, the denial of it.
I have now to show how, as to law, he contradicts himself and the Scripture, and then see what he says of righteousness, and how Scripture speaks of it.
First, as to law, he contradicts himself. “The fact that it is commonly put in contrast ‘to our own righteousness’ (Rom. 10:3): that ‘our own’ is said to be of the law, as compared with that which is ‘of God’ (Phil. 3:9); and that it is furthermore called ‘a gift of righteousness' (Rom. 5:17), determines the significance of the term to be something widely different from the divine attribute on the one hand, or a work of law on the other.".... “This is, however, abhorrent to the divine rectitude, which insists on a true fulfillment of the divine law, and acquits only on account of an actual obedience.” This, as an abstract or absolute statement, is simple nonsense. An actual obedience does not need an acquittal. It is contrary to Scripture, for we are justified by blood. But to pursue. “It is obvious that, in the government of a righteous God, no one can be justified by a mere connivance at defects, or by being accounted what he is not.” This last, he says, is a legal fiction—the believer must be really righteous when he is declared so. All this is muddy enough. If it means anything, the man must himself be what he is held to be, which denies the whole truth of vicarious work, and believing on Him justifies the ungodly. And it is quite clear that, if Christ has kept the law, and I am counted righteous, that is a legal fiction: His having borne my sin and put it away is no fiction. My sin has been dealt with. But I return to the contradiction of the writer. “The standard or measure of this righteousness of God is Divine justice and the law.” Yet it is not a work of law which is the significance of the term! And a man, if righteous, must be righteous according to the measure of the law, and only on account of actual obedience, yet “it is not a work of law!” Yet again, “it is the accomplishment of law.” How true is the apostle, “desiring to be teachers of the law, they know not what they say nor whereof they affirm!” But if I turn to Scripture I find the whole system of its doctrines in direct opposition to our righteousness having anything to do with law. Whatever the contradictions, the doctrine of the paper is, that the accomplishment of the law is righteousness, that fulfillment which the law demanded. Now I affirm that what is demanded now is, that I should be fit for the presence of God in heaven, fit for the glory of God, fit to see His face: that the only goal is, “the resurrection from among the dead,” and that we are risen with Christ, and that this, consequent on the death of Christ, is our standing before God. But it is better to answer directly—in vain, almost, to quote the positive declarations of our death and resurrection in Christ. They will have legal righteousness for children of Adam alive in the flesh. I will turn to their own ground, therefore. Is righteousness by the law? that is the question.
Now, Scripture speaks on this head: let us hear it. If righteousness came by the law, Christ is dead in vain. No matter who kept it, it was not to come by the law. And mark two things: 1st, Christ's death is what comes in contrast with it; 2ndly, this one grand foundation of Christianity is all in vain, if righteousness comes by the law. “That no man is justified by the law, is evident; for the just shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith.” The nature of the righteousness is different. So, in a remarkable verse, it is said, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” It will be said, but it means not by our own doing these works, but by Christ doing them; and then we believe in Him, and that this is held as our doing them. But this is being justified by the works of the law—Christ has done them and I am thereby justified. Only this is what is rejected by the author as “a legal fiction;” next, it is “putative” righteousness, which he equally rejects. It is not the man's actually being righteous, but accounted what is not. “They have fulfilled it (we are told) in a Representative, with whom they are one.” But the passage allows of nothing of this. It puts not merely my sin and works in contrast with the deeds of the law. but it puts the faith of Christ in contrast with works of law. “Christ received by faith establishes the law,” says the writer. “By the faith of Christ,” says the apostle, “not by the works of the law.” By the law he was dead to the law, that he might live to God. It is perfectly impossible for any person to read Gal. 2:15 to the end, iii. and iv., without seeing that works of law, in every shape and in every way, are rejected as the means of righteousness; and that a statement—that Christ has done them, and that thereby we are righteous, is incompatible with the statements of this part of Scripture. The idea of Christ keeping the law for us is never made the object of faith in Scripture; nor is it said, that He kept it for our righteousness. Man has said it; Scripture does not. If it does let the text be produced. And when He is said to be made under it, then it is said that it was that He might redeem them that were under it.
On the other hand, where righteousness is said to be imputed, it is that Christ was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification: therefore being justified by faith.” Another thing, aye, another thing is presented as the object of justifying faith” He was delivered for our offenses.” “The promise was not... through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” God “imputes, or reckons, righteousness without works.” “We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law,” χωρις εργων νομου. It is impossible to have a more complete denial that it is by works of the law, keep them who may. “Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law,” χωριςν ομου, apart from law. How comes it, if Christ's keeping the law is our righteousness, that these statements are not guarded? that it is never said, that it was by His keeping the law? that it should be said, not that it was not by our keeping it, but not by law at all? not by Christ's doing it as a representative, but apart from law altogether? Could these teachers of the law say what stronger language could be used, if the object of the apostle had been to show that it is quite apart from law and on another principle?
I do not see how it is possible that statements could be made stronger to prove that the Christian is not under it. “As many as are of the works of the law” (that seek life on this principle) “are under the curse.” Our justification by faith is rested on what? Christ being delivered for our offense's and raised again. In Rom. 10 there is a righteousness by law: Do this and live. Well, is not, then, righteousness to be by law only—Christ fulfilling it and me getting the benefit? No. “The righteousness by faith” speaks quite differently. “Say not in thine heart,” &e. The two righteousnesses speak quite differently. So the apostle insists. I may leave this point. I do not see how language could make it plainer than the apostle has. Let any unprejudiced person read the Galatians, and say if righteousness be by law or not for the Christian. And whether righteousness by law, get it how you will, is not rejected and another proclaimed.
But we are told more particularly, that wherever the phrase, “righteousness of God,” occurs, it “always comes back to this, that it is the accomplishment of law.”
First, it is said, “Herein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” How this is the accomplishment of the law I do not know. There is not the smallest hint that it has anything to do with it, save that it is of God, i.e., not man's keeping it before God, and that it is on the principle of faith. “And the law is not of faith.” Indeed, the writer admits that it seems to be in God, as the wrath is. Matt. 6:33. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Here there is no possible connection with Christ keeping the law vicariously for sinners. It was their own walk which is the question. Men are to seek not the comforts of this world, but God's kingdom and righteousness, to have a part in the blessing, and glory, and acceptance which He was setting up. “If our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God.” (Rom. 3:5.) Here it is clearly equally far from the thought of Christ fulfilling the law. It is God's consistency with Himself and faithfulness to His promises, even when man is unfaithful. As before—our unbelief, the faithfulness of God. God was true, if every man was a liar. It is expressly the righteousness of God without law. (3:21.) The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. (iii. 22.) Ignorant of God's righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God. (x. 3.) But this is so far from being the righteousness of the law, that it is specifically contrasted with it. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness of the law.... but the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise.” That is, it does not say that the man that does them is righteous, for they are done by Christ, and if I believe in Christ, they are done for me. But it is not now living by doing, but living by believing, and believing that one, Jesus, who was dead, God hath raised from the dead. In this passage the writer has attempted to say, that the end of the law can only mean that fulfillment which the law demanded, and could not but demand, till its end or accomplishment was reached. This is, I must say, impudent. Tελοϛ, he says, means fulfilling a demand till the accomplishment is reached. It is too barefaced: the rather as the apostle says Christ is the end of the law, because the law says so-and-so, but the righteousness of faith saith quite otherwise, and hence the say of the law is at an end, and something else comes in as righteous. Righteousness is on another principle. “That we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Cor. 5:21.) But this is explicitly Christ not keeping the law, but His being made sin. “Who knew no sin,” marks a Christ who has lived holily through this world. I have not heard that they have been bold enough, as yet, to say it means—God has no consciousness of sin, but was made it in incarnation. But if this most painful thought, even to mention, is not their opinion, then it is not keeping the law which is spoken of here, but Christ's being made a sacrifice for sin upon the cross. It is again contrasted with law: “Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” (Phil. 3:9.) Titus 3:5 leads to the same point, but the word, “righteousness of God,” is not there. “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” (James 1:20). This, clearly, can in no possible way refer to Christ keeping the law. The wrath of man cannot produce a righteousness according to God, a righteousness which has its character in His nature. 2 Peter 1:1, is the only one remaining where it has nothing to do with the law. We have received not a personal Messiah present in glory in the body, but the faith, Christianity, the revelation of Messiah to faith, by God's faithfulness to His promise to him that waited on Him. Our God and Savior has been faithfully righteous in giving it.
These are all the passages, not one hint at accomplishment of law. Several contrast law and the new way of righteousness, which has finished the law for those that believe. I defy any one to trace a single expression which makes it “come back to an accomplishment of law.” It carefully does the contrary—goes forward, leaving law as done with, to a new way of righteousness, faith in Christ, who, having been delivered for our offenses, has been raised again for our justification. That God is the author of it is not the sense, unless, perhaps, in Phil. 3, where Paul is speaking of his having it, not of its accomplishment; and so contrasts man and the source of his having it. Its general sense is the character of the righteousness, as in all such genitives, where they are not possessive, as the peace of God, the righteousness of faith; but it rises up to what it is in God Himself, as giving it this character. In the Old Testament it is constantly so. “If our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God.” Here it is His own righteousness in Himself. “The righteousness of God without law,” is plainly characteristic. The righteousness of God, then, is a far wider term than His being the author of it, which He is of everything that is good, save Himself, who is author of all. It is that kind of righteousness which is suited to, fit for, His presence and glory; and that is found only in Himself. Man had been tried, and all was in vain, and he is wholly condemned. Righteousness would be measured by the law, then, if any had existed. Now, if we have to say to God, we must have to say to Him with a rent veil—be fit for His glory. This was always true, once sin had entered but it is now revealed. Judgment shall flow forth from His glorious presence, but in righteousness.
But how can we have it as a saving righteousness, a righteousness for us in the unveiled presence of God? It is now for us a new one—the only true one, by faith, fit for the throne of God, as we have seen it must be. We are called to stand in the presence of God. The righteousness we must have must answer to the absolute perfectness of His character as it is, and perfectly revealed. All His righteousness, His holiness, His truth, His majesty, even His love—nothing must be discordant, or it could not be accepted. by what He is, unveiled. To be accepted according to all that God is, it must meet all that God is—and this must be in respect of sin; for indeed all He is, in grace and love and righteousness against evil, could not be displayed if sin were not there. It is this: sin there, and yet with that, in view of that, everything that God is in His own infinite excellency must be satisfied and glorified. This is what Christ has done. Speaking of His dying, He says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him; and if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” He does not wait for the kingdom, but takes a heavenly and divine glory as man sitting at the right hand of God. We are accepted in Him. Our acceptance is according to the perfect glorifying God by Him on the cross. He has, besides, borne our sins, so that they are wholly removed out of the way. His blood, and His blood only, cleanses from all sin. Christ does not draw all men as a living Christ, but if lifted up. Then the veil was rent. The holiest was shut up till then for us; His death alone could open it for sinners. Hence the Holy Ghost convinces the world of righteousness, because he goes to the Father. Till the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone—is not in the condition to bear fruit. When it dies, it brings forth much fruit. Hence, too, He is raised again for our justification; and, therefore, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God.”
The righteousness by the law is that which meets the requirements of God from man. Of course Christ fulfilled this: that it is important to remember. The righteousness of God is that which He requires to meet the necessary demands of His own glory and nature in His presence. Christ did glorify God as a man under law; but in this there was no drawing of all men: He abode alone; but He glorified God Himself in His own nature, in the place where it all came out, and was made good by Him in spite of all. God's highest love and our perfect sin were both here displayed. Here man stands on a new ground altogether, through the work of and in Him who is risen from the dead. God is glorified in the highest, in all the qualities of His nature, which must be made good. We are reconciled to God. He suffered the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. No doubt all He did glorified God in its place, but this glorified Him as to sin, and brought out all His nature so as to glorify it, and so He, and we in Him, are accepted according to that glory. When I say I am righteous before God, I stand before God in the consciousness of acceptance according to the perfectness of His nature perfectly revealed. This was what Christ was, and He glorified it when He was made sin for us. Hence I am made the righteousness of God in Him: because Christ is so before Him, and through a work, in the virtue of which and in the glory He has gained by it, I have a part, so as to be the righteousness of God in it, for that is what is made good in it in the place where I am in Christ. All that He was and did met that in God which was perfection, glorified it, made it good, all that God is; for His glory was made good in Christ's cross; and so in me for whom it was done. Would there have been perfect love displayed without the cross? No. Perfect, inescapable judgment against sin in the highest way? No. Necessary divine majesty? No. In nothing could it have been shown that it must be glorified like the death of Christ. So His truth, that the wages of sin is death. I repeat, this was the making good of what God is in His perfections, and those perfections are displayed now in glorifying Christ, and then, in making me have a place in virtue of it, in which I enjoy Him righteously and as He is. I thus become in Christ the display and making good of God's righteousness. I am God's righteousness: I live before God according to all the truth of what He is in His glory. Is the law this Does it display God as Christ on the cross did? The true measure of man's duty it was, but to say that the law was the true measure of God's glory, proves man knows neither the law nor that glory. We have come short of that glory, and are justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Him; so that the justifying, that is, grace and redemption, are not law, nor any one's keeping it perfectly as Christ kept it.
I turn, then, from the question of the righteousness of God to the application of it, and what we are to understand by righteousness and by imputing it. We have already seen that righteousness is the maintaining what is due to our relationship with others. In this general expression of it, it has its double expression of being it in our conduct, or securing it by judgment, in which, in English, it is more commonly called justice. It is thus always relative, though it is practically employed for the conduct which maintains this consistency with the relationship. It is thus used also for the condition in which I stand towards another who has a claim, in virtue of my conduct. I am righteous in God's sight, righteous before Him. Now, righteousness is constantly used in Scripture for conduct suited to our position with man and God. So the law; if kept, it would have maintained man in consistency with his relative place as regards God and as regards man. The two tables contained the twofold obligation. Here, personal conduct is the ground of relative acceptance; I am righteous before God by personal righteousness. This may be spiritually carried on to the state of the heart, and has then been called inherent. Still it is my just acceptance in my relationship in virtue of my being perfectly what it demands. This the sinner is not. True, he receives divine life, so that there will be reality (of this a word hereafter); but this is not his righteousness; first, because he gets it in Christ, who makes him righteousness before God in another way (God's righteousness and a new divine life going together); and, secondly, because, the flesh being still in him in fact, there is not perfectness according to the relationship in which the new life has put him—perhaps, even positive failure. Hence his righteousness must be something else, and though he has divine life he must be accounted righteous beyond the measure of attainment in truth; blessed be God, according to the perfectness of Christ as He now is before God. His righteousness is not his conduct nor his nature, but his being seen and held by God as consistent with the relationship in which he stands before Him, that is the revelation of His glory. God holds him for perfect according to His own glory in that relationship. What is that? Christ's actual one as risen and in His sight. I am crucified and risen with Christ, and in that standing am seen to meet the glory of God as absolutely there displayed. How this? Because Christ has actually glorified God in what He is, as so displayed, and I am so seen before God, am so placed in Christ.
There are two points here. First, abstractedly, I am held to be righteous; that is, to have no failure in the relationship in which I stand, to be perfect in it, that it has been perfectly maintained. I am accounted righteous. When I inquire what and how it is, I say, I am as an ungodly person so accounted: I am as risen in Christ in this perfect acceptance of delight. But it is by a work which would never have had its character, if it had not been about sinners, and by Christ being made sin. Here it was all divine perfections were brought out, as they could not be to angels. It is in this I am justified. Hence, it is by faith, and according to the perfections of God so revealed and glorified. I have it as a sinner. Bring in any righteousness in me, any law-keeping, so that I am not in every aspect a mere sinner, and it has lost its glorious character of divine perfection displayed where the blessed One was made sin. And see how this gives truth in the inward parts. For I am a mere “sinner;” in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good “thing,” and I come as such. I come in truth when I come to the cross. There Christ is made sin, and, wondrous work and thought there meets GOD. I come in through grace and say, I am that—I am that sin; and I pass as a quickened soul into that in which He now stands, for it is accomplished in the presence of God. It is grace as well as truth, and righteousness, a mere sinner's righteousness; for it is made about, and in respect of, sin, not a making up human or legal righteousness. It is glorifying God in respect of my actual relationship as a sinner to God. Was not that which Christ was doing on the cross glorifying God in the place and in respect of sin (where we really were) in His own perfectness, divine perfectness?—death, wrath, all that could be, being gone through by Him who was made sin. Bring in any human righteousness in me or wrought for me, this is destroyed in its very nature. It is a justifying the ungodly, or it is gone, in glory, nature, and fact. If the heart says, But I must have reality in myself, as it does and will say, I reply, To be sure; that desire is the reality. But I say more. This risen Christ is your life, too. You are as far from gaining life by legal righteousness as from the righteousness itself. Thus it is Christ finished the work His Father gave Him to do. Having done it so that the ground of your acceptance, of your righteousness, is complete, He becomes your life really, and you have part in His righteousness.
Now, imputing righteousness is God's seeing a man in an accepted state before Him, according to the relationship in which he stands. He holds him, accounts him, righteous. We can add, according to His own nature, and the full revelation of Himself. It is God's righteousness: we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. A man is seen in perfectness of relationship towards God, fully revealed in all His perfections, and according to the claim of these perfections on all that is before it, according to the perfectness in which Christ so stands as glorified according to His work. And this is, in result, true in every way—we are sons, we shall be like Him actually in glory. We know this livingly, as in it now by faith. Love is made perfect with us, so that we have boldness in the day of judgment; because, as He is, so are we in this world. We are in the perfectness of the Judge; yet—aye, therefore—it is absolute grace.
Now for the words “imputed righteousness.”
As the paper you have put into my hands comes from the established clergy, I may appeal to their own documents. Take the Eleventh Article, “Of Justification.” “We are accounted righteous before God.” It “is more largely expressed in the homily of justification.” When I turn to this, then, righteousness and justification are absolutely identified— “justified and made righteous before God.” “Constrained to seek for another righteousness or justification, to be received at God's own hands, that is to say, the forgiveness of sins and trespasses.” “And this justification or righteousness which we so receive,” &c. “This is that justification or righteousness.” Now I am not quoting this for any doctrine. I would not in many points, but merely to show that righteousness and justification are held for one. Now in Rom. 4 justifying and accounting for righteousness are identified; but every one knows, at any rate, every one can know, and if he knows Greek can easily ascertain, that accounted for righteousness, or imputed for righteousness, is one and the same; that is, accounting righteous and imputing righteousness are identical. Imputed righteousness is a person being accounted righteous and nothing else. All else is false, and throwing dust in the eyes. We may inquire how. Is it by Christ keeping the law, or by His dying and rising again? That inquiry is all right, but the words to impute righteousness to a person, is simply and solely holding him, the person, for righteous. If I impute sin to a person, it is holding him guilty of the sin. Why, is another question.
Now it may be that reformers and puritans and divines are not clear about the law; the WORD OF GOD is, and tells me if I am justified by law I am fallen from grace. If Christ has kept the law for me, and that is imputed to me, I am justified by law. By what else in that case am I? He did keep the law—it was part of His perfectness, a needed part. He should have all human as well as divine perfectness, but where is it said He kept it for us, save as everything He did and was was for us, but I mean for us vicariously to impute it? I ask again and again for Scripture for this. I make no cavil as to words. Give me the sense, the thought, in Scripture in any words; I will bow to it at once. They cannot. According to the WORD OF GOD their doctrine is FALSE. But to return: let us examine the use of the term, “imputed righteousness” in Scripture. Almost all the cases of this use are in Rom. 4. The spring is in Gen. 15. Now what I say is this: that imputing righteousness to a man is reckoning him righteous because of something. Even if I impute a work to man for righteousness (εις), I esteem him so far thereby righteous. Supposing he has done it, I may say, I esteem it a righteous act, but I will not hold him justified or righteous for it. I do not impute it to him for righteousness nor righteousness to him. But if I say I impute righteousness to him because of it, or I impute it to him for righteousness, in both cases it is his standing and relative condition I speak of when I say righteousness; only we know it is not by works. Let us take the passages: first, Abraham's faith was counted to him for righteousness. (Rom. 4:3.) Was it not that he was accounted righteous because of it? Clearly so. What else does it mean? That he was not counted righteous because of it, only that particular act as a righteous act imputed to him? It could not. He had done or felt it; it could not be itself imputed to him: he was it, morally speaking; but God could esteem him righteous in virtue of it, in His grace; that is, it was imputed to him for righteousness. He was, in God's esteem or account, righteous by this means. This is clear here, but this is the leading cardinal text from which all is drawn, on which all hangs. Nine out of the eleven passages are here (Rom. 4), Gal. 3:6 is identical. The only one which is not governed by this (and in sense it is) is James 2:23. But let us see if they give a different sense. It is reckoned of grace not of debt, that is, the reward or wages to a person who does not work. This says nothing as to it. If he gets the wages without working, it is clearly grace; only, by saying it is not debt, the principles of the paper are set aside. It says, “If the act of justification is conceived of as proceeding on no underlying righteousness, we are lost in the mists of uncertainty. This is, moreover, abhorrent to the divine rectitude, which insists on a true fulfillment of the divine law, and acquits only on account of an actual obedience.” I have already said this is nonsense, and assumes, besides, the point to be proved. But it is more; it is asserting that it cannot be by grace to one that works not. It must be, he says, of debt to actual obedience. It only proves total ignorance of what grace and righteousness are. To proceed: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Here we believe on God, who justifies the ungodly and our faith, not our law-keeping, is imputed. The man is held for righteous. His relationship to God is according to the estimate of Him who justifies. He is righteous, has righteousness in God's sight. The sixth verse is clear beyond controversy: the man is blessed, and the imputing righteousness is forgiveness of iniquities and covering sin; i.e., the standing of the man faultless before God. Verse 9 rests on the same— “this blessedness;” only the verse carries this sense over all that precedes, by the words, “for we say;” and this goes on to the end of verse 11. Abraham had it before the law came in, that it might be valid for those who came not under the law, that they might be held righteous before God. But why insist it was before law, if it is made out by keeping the law? And this is urgently pressed by the apostle. It was not through the law but through the righteousness of faith; which is not of law. “For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect.” Yet these doctors would place us all under law to get it and make Christ fulfill it for us to make it out—the point the apostle reasons so earnestly against, showing us in conclusion that it is by God's quickening the dead. We were dead in sin, and are then a new creation in that. Christ, as he then goes on to say, has been delivered for our offenses, then raised again to put us cleared from them (comp. Col. 2:13) into this new position, beyond the river of death and life under law. So Galatians: the Spirit is not by works of law, but by the hearing of faith; i.e., the report (atom) faith takes hold of; and then Gen. 15 is quoted—righteousness is imputed. But this is justifying the heathen. And he declares that “no man is justified by law,” and that those who are of its works (on that principle) are under the curse. How so if I am justified by them, by Christ keeping them? Here, too, imputing righteousness, or justifying, is for the apostle the same thing, i.e., imputing righteousness is accounting righteous. Abraham's case being introduced to distinguish it from, and to contrast it with, the obligation of law. In James it is the same truth. Works, as fruits of faith, are introduced in order to a man's being esteemed righteous; and the notion of imputing Christ's previous law-keeping can have no possible place in his argument. A notional faith was of no avail, but one which wrought livingly; and then a man was justified, accounted righteous before God.
I have gone through these texts to have all cleared up. I return to the paper in the Christian Examiner. I should not, as I have said elsewhere, think of any one's holding Christ's fulfilling the law for us as, in itself, more than want of clearness, the effect being to injure their conscious standing before God, and their faith in the power of the Spirit to make them walk after Christ's steps. But this article has shown some deadly principles connected with it. I do not, I may beg leave to say, attribute them in the least to the Editor, who, I suppose, is a truly excellent man; nor to the journal, which, I daresay, would repudiate them. I am only surprised that the Editor and the readers of the journal should not have found out the evil of it. It only shows the blinding process of the enemy, and how he is working. The atonement, as meeting the wrath of God—the death of Christ, as drinking the cup, being made sin for us, is wholly excluded by this paper. A perfect, active obedience, even through superhuman temptations, is taught; but a passive one, a bearing wrath, being made a curse, is excluded. I cannot go into all the details here. I judge it wrong in every material point it refers to. I have spoken of the main points; I now refer to one or two consequences connected with it, proving how a main error leads away from all scriptural truth.
“Righteousness stands in the same casual connection with life.” “This second member of the parallel is expressed in the words, ‘unto the justification of life,' but with the obvious meaning, that this righteousness having come in the room of sin, there must be life. The thought is, that where sin is, there must be death, and that where righteousness is, there must be life.” Horrible poverty and falsehood! This is law. “He that doeth these things shall live in them.” It is not by grace, but by justice, we get life. Thus righteousness is the way to life, only Christ has done it. What does the word of God teach us? “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, which our hands have handled, of the word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested to us.” “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.” Talk of getting life by righteousness, and calling a man's self a Christian. “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, so the Son quickeneth whom he will.” So in Ephesians. God had raised Christ from the dead. “And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.” “We were children of wrath.” “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, lath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” And this is so striking in this epistle, that he does not, in chap. 1:20, see Christ at all till He is dead, and then God's power comes in and raises Him up, and us with Him, to have His place. He knows of no Christ keeping the law here at all, no righteousness to gain life by. And the passage which might seem, at first sight, to one who did not know what divine life as the gift of God was (as it is evident the writer of this article does not), to justify the obtaining of life by righteousness, is the remarkable proof of the falseness of the view I combat here. “As sin has reigned unto death,” says the article, “so where righteousness is, there must be life.” What says the Scripture? “So might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life.” It is not that where sin had reigned unto death, so righteousness by law must bring life; but grace reigns. And if God took care that even so this should not be without righteousness, it is carefully taught that it is the Second Adam in contrast with the first—that it could not be shut up to law, but must extend to the case where there was none—that where there was not, still sin reigned unto death, and therefore the blessing must be for those not under law—that the ruin came by one offense, and that the law was to be considered only as a thing that came in by the by to make it abound; and if, indeed, the many offenses under that were borne, yet the thing met, and met too, by Christ, was sin reigning by death, and the answer to it, grace reigning by righteousness, not to life under law, nor by life unto law, but to eternal life by Jesus, of whom Adam had been the image.
This leads me to another point: “The entrance of a sinless humanity, with the law in his heart, and comprehending all the seed, thus becomes the central point of all time to which previous ages looked forward, and after ages look back. He was the living law, the personal law; and this was an event with a far more important bearing than any other that ever occurred. It is the world's new creation.” I have difficulty in restraining the expression of unlimited indignation that this sentence produces. The use of the precious incarnation of that holy and blessed One to deceive and destroy souls! But I refrain. There are almost as many errors as words. Could any one rightly look to have any place with God short of Christ's death!? Is it not true, that, except He had died, He had remained alone? That if any are saved, they have part in Christ after, and not before His death? That except He wash them they have no part in Him, but that the water and blood came out of His pierced side? It is horribly, destructively false exactly the avowed ground of Puseyism, and more recently of the “Essays and Reviews.” What is a living law, a personal law? Nonsense; simply nonsense. A perfect example for a renewed soul Christ was; but grace towards a sinner is not even law in the exemplification of it. A law does not forgive. This I judge (from the very fairest appearance, and that it is arouses my indignation) is the devil's own doctrine to deceive; this exclusion of Christ's death to set up a living law, in which no sinner could have part with Him, instead of seeing we are dead, One dying for all, that we might live, our sin being atoned for by Him. But this is the world's new creation. Now, where is new creation spoken of? Eph. 2. We are created again in Christ Jesus when we are raised from the dead, as having been dead in trespasses and sins. The world's new creation is nonsense, unless it be the new heavens and the new earth, which is past death and resurrection. Our new creation, short of death and resurrection, is a lie against our state of original sin, and Christ's death and resurrection to deliver us by redemption. The place where new creation is spoken of in express terms, is remarkable in this respect. The apostle in 2 Corinthians, had been showing how he had the sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself, but in God, that raiseth the dead. He had there contrasted the law, as a ministration of death and condemnation, with the ministration of righteousness; and the Spirit shows that we belong and look into another's an unseen world; and then declares “the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and he died for all, that they which live should live not to themselves, but to him who died for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh (i.e., as a living Messiah in the world connected with Jewish and legal state, a Christ under law), yet henceforth know we him no more.” He had died for sin and risen; that was the way he knew Him. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (καινη κτισις. It is a new creation, the whole scene entered on): “old things are passed away, all things are become new; and all things are of God, who had reconciled us unto himself.” And how is this? God was in Christ reconciling—He was rejected. It was not even then to this end man and sinless humanity keeping the law, but God reconciling; and then, if rejected, making Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” That is, the new creation, in Ephesians and 2 Corinthians, is in resurrection; is not a connection with Christ in flesh, which was impossible, but our union to Him when he had begun the new state of man as risen from the dead, when redemption was accomplished.
This writer who makes redemption by incarnation without blood, without death, can, of course, make a new creation of the world without the death and resurrection of the Savior.
There are many other statements I should wholly object to. Many points, distressing to a Christian, maintained in this paper, have occurred to me, but I refrain from noticing them. The great principles are before you. I see plainly that a great warfare as to what is the truth has begun: not mistakes, we are all liable to them; but what is Christianity? What is divine righteousness? What is the desert of sin? What is bearing sin? Is Christianity the readjustment of the old creation by the law, or a new one, of which Christ risen is the first of the first-fruits? Did Christ bear our sins as dying, enduring wrath there for us, or living, so that death is not the wages of sin? These are the weighty questions involved in the present controversy. On these points I hold the paper you have sent me to be nothing less than the denial of the foundations of Christianity.
I see when the Scripture speaks of this righteousness of God, not the law sent out from a God who dwelt in the thick darkness, giving the perfect rule of man's righteousness, but God fully revealed in all His perfections, and glorified as to them all on the cross, so that Christ past death takes a new place founded on redemption, the putting away of sin by His blood, and perfectly glorifying God in all His perfections, love, righteousness, majesty, and all; so that we, blessed be His name, are reconciled to God. God as He is, in all that He is, glorified, made known, is that which reconciles us. We have peace with Goy. See what blessing there is in this. I stand before God in the conscious perfectness of that which He is, one with it morally, in Christ who has glorified it in the act dune for me, who is now in glory, where righteousness has placed Him because of it, and all the favor of God in love can shine out on me according to this. Not one blessed perfection of God with which I am not brought into perfect accord, which has not been glorified in my being brought there by Christ; and by faith I stand in the consciousness of it, and I know Him in the full revelation of Himself. I am reconciled to Him as He is. Now, I admit a man may be a sincere Christian, and not enter into all the privileges of his position, may not see that he is risen with Christ, and sitting in Him in heavenly places. But the simplest Christian recognizes the blood of Christ as that which has reconciled him and made peace, and that he is at peace with God, according to the value of that bloodshedding, and with such we are taught to walk as heartily as if they understood being risen with Christ. They may not know how fully God has revealed Himself, and what the extent of reconciliation in our resurrection with Christ is. Who does? But they are reconciled, and they know it. They do not think they want something else than Christ's work on the cross. Above all they do not deny the full putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself on the cross. They do not suppress and annul the value of Christ's blood and work. Their faith is sound and genuine, though it may be enlarged. That one almighty work of putting away of sin is fully owned by them, it is their hope. The price of Christ's blood is owned, not denied. They may blessedly add to their knowledge, but their faith is sound. The article I have been commenting on is the opposite to sound in the faith. It sets up the law: that is mischievous, but may be borne with. But it annuls the value of the bloodshedding, the cup of wrath; and that is intolerable.
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