Accordingly this is what is here said: “But now God's righteousness without law hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.” Observe the exceeding accuracy of the language. The law and the prophets did not manifest God's righteousness; yet the law, in various forms, bore witness to another kind of righteousness that was coming (the prophets bringing it out, if possible, still more clearly in respect of language). The one furnished types, the others assured that Jehovah's righteousness was near to come. But now the gospel tells us it is come. Divine righteousness is now a revealed fact. God's righteousness without law not only was witnessed by the law and the prophets, but is actually manifested as an accomplished standing fact. There is no veil now; there was once, but the death of Christ rent it from top to bottom. God's righteousness therefore is no longer a shadow of coming good, no longer a blessing locked up in promises or looming in a prediction, however truly the law and the prophets bore their witness all the way through, from the time that man broke down and his righteousness entirely failed. Now there is far more than a witness to it, even a permanent manifestation of it since the cross. Such is the present result of that great fact. Divine righteousness is not only being revealed (ἀποκαλύπτεται) in the gospel; it has been and is manifested (πεφανέρωται).
The matter is more fully explained as “God's righteousness by faith of Jesus Christ.” Here then was another place to have affirmed for our justification the value of what the Lord Jesus was doing when here below; but not one word is said about it. All that the passage really adds is the statement that God's righteousness (in contrast with man's, which should have been by his accomplishing the law) is “by faith of Jesus Christ.” Still one can understand the objection raised that this is not conclusive. Believing in Christ does not settle the point, they say; for all hold that it is by faith of Jesus Christ. But is it the value of what He was doing in His life, or is it the efficacy of His atonement—of His death? Is scripture silent? It is, on the contrary, explicit against mixing up the law. It is most express against turning away the eye of faith from Christ in His sacrificial death.
Thus at the very outset, if the object had been to withdraw attention, in the matter of righteousness, from the active life of Christ and to fix it by faith upon His blood, how could the task have been accomplished more effectually than in the passage? Is not this an extraordinary way of handling the truth, if the ground of God's righteousness were Christ's obedience to the law? If it be the all-important point in order to justifying, if it be the great indispensable preparation, and the solid ground on which a man is righteous before God, how comes it that scripture preserves such absolute and singular silence in the fullest passage where the Holy Ghost discusses the ground and means of justification before God?
It is not so that reasonable men would act. When we have to bring out a truth dear to us, and important for those to whom we are about to explain it, do we hide the most characteristic portion? do we omit the smallest reference to the very turning-point? Surely not. And does not God reveal His own truth infinitely better than we can explain it, or convey our own thoughts? Listen to the man who holds the Puritan doctrine on the subject: does he conceal the distinctive feature? Does he keep back Christ's observance of the law for us? On the contrary it is the uppermost idea, and continually pressed in his discourses. It is the law kept by Christ, he tells you, which specially, yea alone, constitutes the righteousness of the believer before God. He does not deny that the blood of Christ is the means of the sinner's pardon: but then it will never do, he argues, to approach heaven with pardon merely; one must have righteousness also, and this for him is found in the legal obedience of Christ. Thus, if it is a question of justifying (and in general the popular theologian sharply distinguishes between the two things), his justification is made to depend on the fact that Christ kept the law for him, which he could not keep for himself—that Christ omitted no duty of his, and performed all perfectly in which he himself broke down.
But how comes it to pass that God does not put the matter thus? Because it is not the truth. Nothing simpler, if the truth lie elsewhere. It is the truth that man has failed in every way; it is the truth that Christ obeyed the law of God; it 'is not the truth that even His keeping of the law is the real source of God's righteousness, or the ground of our justification before God. Let me press this upon every candid mind among such as contend for this theory. Account for it if you can; account for it with the maintenance of the inspired character of God's word. How comes it, that the Holy Ghost, Who certainly understands justification in perfection, does not treat the subject as your system demands? Is it not, because He and you do not agree? How serious that believers should, on so fundamental a truth, differ from the mind of the Spirit, and that man should prefer his own thoughts, because they are the common quasi-evangelical tradition, a sort of “short cut” to understanding how a person is justified!
Now it is the invariable fact that, where we are subject to God in any truth, no matter what, His way is always the best, although it may not be the most obvious one, for bringing a soul into comfort and blessing to His own glory. Thus, in the present instance, the first thing that God proclaims when He is presenting His own righteousness is this: “By faith in Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe.” “Unto all” is the direction which God's righteousness takes. It is not limited to a particular people, as the law was to the Jew. Divine righteousness goes out, as far as its tendency is concerned, to every one without exception. So the Lord Himself said, “Preach the gospel to every creature.” His message is just the manifestation of the righteousness of God. Accordingly it is here said to be “unto all.” But then every creature does not believe it. Consequently we have the other side of the truth, that God's righteousness by faith of Jesus Christ is only “upon all them that believe;” “for,” again, “there is no difference.” All sinned and do come short of the glory of God. Hence grace is the only hope: “being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Thus, on the one hand, it is clear and certain that there is not a word about the keeping of the law; and, on the other, what the apostle does expatiate on is justification freely by God's grace (not law-keeping), and this through the redemption that is in Christ, not His legal observance. Hence it is said further, “Whom God set forth a propitiatory.”
Mark the place that God takes in all this. It is not that Christ put Himself forward, but God set Him forth. Why so? and what its importance? Because it is a question of the righteousness of God. There is no doubt that Christ was righteous, as no other ever was; yet Christ's righteousness is not the truth here affirmed, but God's. There is not the smallest doubt, as we all agree, that He fulfilled all righteousness; but is this to be a reason why any man should pervert scripture? Why are not the faithful content to take the word as God has written it; and if He speak of His righteousness, why should they read it as the righteousness of Christ? Is it not to eke out a peculiar school of doctrine? What plainer than the truth, that God accounts us righteous by virtue of Christ's work? Can they not understand, that divine righteousness in so justifying us goes far beyond the righteousness of the law, be it done by whom it may?
It is not that scripture never speaks of the righteousness of Jesus. In 1 John 2 we read, that “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ [the] righteous.” It would be wrong to alter that scripture, and to understand the righteousness of God there. Equally unwarrantable is it to say, that we have the righteousness of Christ in Rom. 3. The advocacy of “Jesus Christ the righteous” is the important truth in 1 John 2, because it is a question of One that acts for me, that undertakes my cause, if alas! I break down as a follower and confessor of the Lord here below. Hence I want a living person, active in love for me, before the Father; and such a One grace has provided for the need, even “Jesus Christ the righteous.” “The righteousness of God” would not suffice for the case, or suit me in my failure; other truth is that which the soul then wants. “The righteousness of God” one must know in order to be on the ground, which in case of inconsistency, needs “Jesus Christ the righteous;” but the two truths, though connected, are perfectly distinct, and ought never to be confounded. Scripture does not sacrifice one to the other. In 1 John 2 we have Jesus Christ the righteous as our advocate with the Father—precious provision if any one sin; while in Rom. 3 it is the character and application of God's righteousness which is in question, as the starting-point of faith.
The more we weigh the passage, the clearer is its import. “Whom [Jesus] God hath set forth to be a propitiation,” [a propitiatory or mercy-seat, in fact the same word that is so translated in Heb. is.,] “through faith in his blood.” Can any proof more conclusive be conceived? How, if it be the truth, comes the absence of that which men now-a-days plead for? To what can one attribute the presence of that only which they would put in the shade? Certainly God's word is plain enough. Error in doctrine springs from the heart's natural opposition to the truth of God. Why should not believers accept what the word presents so plainly and definitely? Is it that it would shiver some favorite thoughts? Is it that it would open out new views of God and His ways? Why should an enlarging knowledge of His word be a matter of suspicion? Why should the thoughts of man be pleasanter to them than the precious truth of God? Let them answer it for themselves. Account for their liking or disliking as they may, this is what scripture says: “Whom [Christ] God set forth a propitiatory (or mercy-seat) through faith in his blood.” Indeed what God gives, what He could not do without, is precisely what man wants as a sinner. It is not well-doing, were it even the blessed Lord's, in place of our sins and guilt. The sinner wants a propitiatory, before God, and finds through faith there the blood of Jesus. As man, He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. He was subject to the law; He wrought miracles; He walked in grace. But if we were to be justified, our ruin demanded a deeper dealing, even redemption, redemption through His blood.
Such then, in part at least, is God's righteousness; and large and rich is the comfort of the truth. But the language is precise also. We have very distinct statements on the subject here. If God set forth Christ as a propitiatory by faith in His blood, it is “for showing forth his righteousness because of the pretermission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; for showing forth at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that is of faith in Jesus.” Thus was God declared to be righteous in His ways toward the Old Testament believers (ver. 25), as well as at present (ver. 26). In the first case His righteousness was shown forth on account of the passing by the sins that had been before. He could not have justly remitted their sins, strictly speaking, for the atoning work was not yet done; but He did pretermit them, and this through His forbearance. In the second case He shows forth His righteousness in the present time, without question of forbearance, because now the work of atonement is done. For who speaks of the creditor's “forbearance” when the debt is paid in full? By the actual accomplishment of redemption, instead of barely passing the sins by, God is just, and justifies him that is [not of law-works, but] of faith in Jesus.
May I not ask any fair mind, Who is here meant? “That he might be just and the justifier,” &c.
That who might be just? Let us answer uprightly without reference to our previous thoughts, and before that word which will judge in the last day. “That he might be just.” Who is He? Is it Christ just? or is it not God just by virtue of Christ? There can be no doubt. He who understands the Bible could give but one answer. The assertion is of God, “just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” “It is God that justifieth” (Rom. 8). Such is “the righteousness of God.” It is on the ground of Christ's work on the cross, or God could not be thus righteous in behalf of the sinner. Redemption is the righteous basis. The blood of Christ deserves at God's hands that the believer should be justified, and God Himself is just in so justifying him.
Astonishing fact and truth! His is a new righteousness altogether. It is not God righteous apart from the blood of Jesus; it is the righteousness of God apart from law. It is God Who thus set Christ forth, but not merely as a righteous man obeying Him in every thought, feeling, word, and way, manifesting perfect righteousness upon earth: even all this never made one sin of yours or mine a whit less in the sight of God. Our sins were as grievous after as they were before. One might almost venture to say that they pressed more heavily; for whatever we, might say for ourselves, and however God might look down in pity upon poor sinful men on the earth heaping up their sins before, how did those sins appear after Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, the righteous dependent Man, the obedient Servant, was here below? What was the effect of it? Light brought out the darkness of all others more conspicuously. It did not lighten their load; it rather displayed how deep, dark, indelible, were the stains of sin. Had God merely acted after this sort, would it not have been comparing men in their sins with the perfect Man without sin? How could He have such as companions of the Second Man, the Lord Jesus Christ? It could not be. This would have been very far from the righteousness of God. It might have been styled, if you please, the righteousness of Christ; but how could even this have availed to meet our desperate case? How could it have vindicated God as to sin? Christ was absolutely perfect; but death, His death, was needed for us, for “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” There was nothing to save us in the fact of His being the righteous Man that obeyed God all His life. There was nothing in this which could get rid of our sins, nothing which could give us a standing apart from sin in the presence of God.
(To be continued, D.V.)