In this chapter we find the church, as well as the O.T. saints, complete in the glory; the bride, and the invited or guests, at the marriage of the Lamb on high.
Then we read (ver. 8), “And it was given to her that she should be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure; for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints.” It is not here, we are assured, faith imputed for righteousness, but practical ways consistent with their new relationship as saints, or good fruits (that is, “righteousnesses” in the plural) that become and characterize the heavenly redeemed. This is now admitted to be the force of the word, where men have no wrong object.
It is said, however, that the word “justifications,” used in the Vulgate and found in the English Roman Catholic Version, has been supposed by some to express the same thought. Nevertheless we feel it incumbent to warn against the use of, or quotation from, a version which, although correct in some of its renderings, is also full of subtleties, and, in places, of the grossest errors and perversions of the truth. The truth needs no such support.
What should simple souls expect other than error from that which is issued as the authentic word of God (not the inspired original but Jerome's translation) by “Great Babylon?”
Our clear duty here surely is, that where we have a word which, although it may be a possible rendering of the original, is yet capable of so different an application as to contradict the truth, to shun without hesitation such a rendering.
“Justification” is not appropriated to right deeds or good fruits, but rather to our standing before God judicially, being accounted just by faith in Christ through His work or faith in the gospel.
Now the good deeds of the saints can never accomplish their justification as here before God. Christ Jesus our Lord alone is made unto us righteousness to this end.
Hence “justifications” should be rejected as ambiguous and tending to mislead; and “righteousnesses” accepted as the sense meant. Never was there greater need than now for the saints of God to be on the watch against the subtleties of the enemy. W. M. S.