Justification: Forensic or Moral? (Francis Turretin, 1623-1687)

Is the word Justification always used in a forensic sense in this argument, or also in a moral and physical? The former we affirm, the latter we deny, against the Romanists.

I. As in the chain of salvation Justification follows Vocation, Rom. 8:30, and is everywhere set forth as the primary effect of faith. The topic concerning Vocation and Faith begets the Topic concerning Justification, which must be handled with the greater care and accuracy as this saving doctrine is of the greatest importance in religion. It is called by Luther, the article of a standing and falling church; by other Christians it is termed the characteristic and basis of Christianity not without reason, the principle rampart of the Christian religion, and, it being adulterated or subverted, it is impossible to retain purity of doctrine in other places. Whence Satan in every way has endeavored to corrupt this doctrine in all ages; as has been done especially in the Papacy: for which reason it is deservedly placed among the primary causes of our Secession from the Roman Church and of the Reformation.

II. Although, however, some of the more candid Romanists, conquered by the force of the truth, have felt and expressed themselves more soundly than others concerning this article; nor are there wanting also some among our divines, who influenced by a desire to lessen controversies, think there is not so great matter for dispute about it, and that there are here not a few logomachies: still it is certain that up to this time there are between us and the Romanists in this argument controversies not verbal, but real, many and of great importance, as will be made manifest in what follows.

III. Because from a false and preposterous explanation of the word, the truth of the thing itself has been wonderfully obscured, in the first place, its genuine sense, and in this question most especially, must be unfolded, which being settled we will be able the more easily to reach the nature of the thing itself.

Homonyms of the verb Justificare
IV. The [hebrew] verb tsayke, to which the greek dikaioun answers, and the Latin Justificare, is used in two ways in the Scriptures, Properly and Improperly. Properly the verb is forensic, put for to absolve any one in a trial, or to hold and to declare just, as opposed to the verb to condemn and to accuse, Ex. 23:7, Deut. 25:1, Prov. 17:15, Luke 18:14, Rom. 3-5. Thence apart from a trial it is used for to acknowledge and to praise one as just, and that too, either deservedly, as when it is terminated on God, in which way men are said to justify God, when they celebrate him as just, Ps. 51:4, Wisdom is said to be justifed of her children, Matt. 11:9, Luke 7:35, that is acknowledged and celebrated as such, or presumptously, as the Pharisees are said to justify themselves, Luke 16:15. Improperly it is used either ministerially, for to bring to righteousness, Dan. 12:3, where mtsdyqy seems to be exegetical of mskylym: because while the preachers of the gospel instruct and teach believers, by this very thing they justify them ministerially in the same sense in which they are said to save them, 1Tim. 4:16. Or by way of synecdeche, the antecedent being put for the consequent, for to free, Rom. 5:7, “He that is dead is justified from sin,” that is, freed. Or comparatively, Ez. 16:51-52, where on account of a comparison between the sins of Israel and Samaria, Israel is said to justify Samaria, and, the sins of Judah increasing, Judah is said to have justified Israel, Jer. 3:11, because Israel was more just than Judah, that is, her sins were fewer than the sins of Judah.

State of the Question
V. Hence arises the Question of the Romanists, concerning the acceptation of this word, whether it is to be taken precisely in a forensic sense, in this affair; or, whether it ought also to be taken in a physical and moral sense for the infusion of righteousness and Justification, if it is allowable so to speak, either by the acquisition or the increase of it? For they do no deny, indeed, that the word Justification and the verb justificare are often taken in a forensic sense, and even in this affair, as Bellarmine, De Justificatione, chap. 1, Tirinus, Theologiae elenchticae, cont. 15.1, Toletus Ad Romanos, anno 13, and many others. But they do not wish this to be the constant meaning but that it often signifies a true production, acquisition, or increase of righteousness, and this is especially the case, when employed about the justification of man before God. Whence they distinguish Justification into first and second. The first is that by which man who is unjust is made just, the second, by which a just man is made more just. Whence Bellarmine, lib. ii, chap. 2, “Justification undoubtedly is a certain movement from sin to righteousness, and takes its name from the terminus to which it leads, as all other similar motions, illumination, calefaction; that is true justification, where some righteousness is acquired beyond the remission of sin.” Thomas, I-II, q. 113, “Justification taken passively implies a motion to making righteous, just as calefaction a motion to heat.” Now although we do not deny that this word has more than one signification, and is taken in different ways in the Scriptures, now properly, then improperly, as we have already aid, still we maintain that it is never taken for an infusion of righteousness, but always as often as the Scriptures speak professedly concerning our justification, it must be explained as a forensic term.

The word Justification is forensic
VI. The reasons are: 1) Because the passages, which treat of Justification, admit no other than a forensic sense, Job 9:3. Ps. 143:2, Rom. 3:28 and 4:1-3, Acts 13:39, and elsewhere, where a judicial process is set forth, and mention is made of an accusing law, of accused persons, who are guilty, Rom. 3:19, of a handwriting contrary to us, Col. 2:14, of divine justice demanding punishment, Rom. 3:24, 26, of an advocate pleading the cause, 1 John 2:1, of satisfaction and imputed righteousness, Rom. 4and 5; of a throne of grace before which we are absolved, Heb. 4:16, of a Judge pronouncing sentence, Rom. 3:20, and absolving sinners, Rom. 4:5.

VII. 2) Because justification is here opposed to condemnation; “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” Rom. 8:33. As therefore accusation and condemnation occur only in a trial; so also justification. Nor can it be conceived how God can be said to condemn or to justify, unless either by adjudging to punishment, or absolving us from it judicially, which Toletus is compelled to confess on this passage; “The word justification in this place is taken with that signification, which is opposed to its antithesis, namely, condemnation, so that it is the same in this place to justify as to pronounce just, as a Judge by his sentence absolves and pronounces innocent.” Cornelius, a Lapide, who otherwise earnestly strives to obscure the truth still overcome by the force of the truth, acknowledges that God justifies,that is, absolves the threatened action of sin and the devil, and pronounces just.

VIII. 3) Because the equivalent phrases, by which our justification is described; such as not to come into judgment, John 5:24; not to be condemned, John 3:18; to remit sins, to impute righteousness, Rom. 4; to be reconciled, Rom. 5:10-11 2Cor. 5:19; and the like. 4) This word word ought to be employed in the sense in which it was used by Paul in his dispute against the Jews. And yet it is certain that he did not speak there of an infusion of righteousness, viz; whether from faith, or from the works of the law the habit of righteousness should be infused into man, but how the sinner could stand before the judgment seat of God, and obtain a right to life, whether by the works of the law, as the Jews imagined or by faith in Christ; and since the thought concerning Justification arose without doubt from a fear of divine judgment, and of the wrath to come, it cannot be used in any other than a forensic sense; as it was used in the origin of those questions, which were agitated in a former age upon the occasion of Indulgences, satisfactions and remission of sins. 5) Finally, unless this word is taken in a forensic sense, it would be confounded with sanctification, and that these are distinct, both the nature of the thing and the voice of Scripture frequently prove.

Sources of Explaination
IX. Although the word Justification in certain passages of scripture should recede from its proper signification, and be taken in another than a forensic sense, it would not follow that it is taken judicially by us falsely, because the propersense is to be looked to in those passages in which is the seat of this doctrine. 2) Although perchance it should not be taken precisely in a forensic sense, for to pronounce just, and to absolve in a trial, still we maintain that it cannot be taken in a physical sense for the infusion of righteousness, as the Romanists hold, as is easily proved from the passages brought by Bellarmine himself.

X. For, in Is. 53:11, where it is said Christ by his knowledge shall justify many; it is manifest that reference is made to the meritorious and instrumental cause of our absolution with God, namely, Christ, and the knowledge or belief of him. For the knowledge of Christ here ought not to be taken subjectively, concerning the knowledge by which he knows what was agreed upon between himself and the Father, which has nothing to do with our satisfaction. But objectively, concerning that knowledge, by which he is known by his people unto salvation, which is nothing else than faith, to which justification is everywhere ascribed. The following words show that no other sense is to be sought, when it is added, for he shall bear their iniquities, to denote the satisfaction of Christ, which faith ought to embrace, in order that we may be justified.

XI. No more does the passage of Daniel, 12:3, press us. Because, as we have already said, justification is ascribed to the ministers of the gospel, as elsewhere the salvation of believers, 1 Tim. 4:16, 1Cor. 9:22. Not assuredly by an infusion of habitual righteousness, which does not come within their power; but by the instruction of believers, by which, as they open the way of life, so they teach the mode, by which sinners can obtain justification in Christ by faith. Whence the Vulgate does not translate it justificantes, but erudientes ad justitiam.

XII. The passage Rev. 22:11, he that is righteous, let him be righteous still, does not favor our opponents, so as to denote an infusion or increase of righteousness. Because thus it would be tautological with the following words, he that is holy, let him be holy still, for that justification would not differ from sanctification. But it is best to refer it to the application and sense of justification, for although on the part of God justification does not take place successively, still on our part, it is apprehended by us by varied and repeated actions, while by new acts of faith we apply to ourselves from time to time the merit of Christ as a remedy for the daily sins into which we fall. Nay, although it should be granted that the exercise of righteousness is here meant, as in a manuscript we have dikaiosynen poiesato, that is may be opposed to the preceding words. He that is unjust, let him be more unjust, the opinion of the Romanists will not on that account be established.

XIII. The justification of the wicked, of which Paul speaks, Rom. 4:5, ought not to be referred to an infusion or increase of habitual righteousness, but belongs to the remission of sins, as it is explained by the Apostle from David. Nay, it would not be a justification of the wicked, if it were used in any other sense than for a judicial absolution at the throne of grace. I confess that God in declaring just, ought also for that very reason to make just, that his judgment may be according to truth. But man can be made just in two ways, either in himself, or in another, either from the law, or from the gospel. God therefore makes him just whom he justifies, not in himself as if from a sight of his inherent righteousness he declared him just, but from the view of the righteousness, imputed, of Christ. It is indeed an abomination to Jehovah to justify the wicked without a due satisfaction, but God in this sense justifies no wicked one, Christ having been given to us as a Surety, who received upon himself the punishment we deserved.

XIV. Although certain words of the same order with justification denote an effecting in the subject, there is not the same reason for this, which otherwise barbarous has been received into Latinity, to express the force of htsdyq and dikaioun, neither of which admit a physical sense. Thus we magnify and justify God, not by making him great from small, or just from unjust, but only declaratively celebrating him as such.

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The Meaning Of Justification (Charles Hodge, 1797-1898)

How can a man be just with God? The answer given to this question decides the character of our religion and, if practically adopted, our future destiny. To give a wrong answer is to mistake the way to Heaven. It is to err where error is fatal because it cannot be corrected. If God requires one thing and we present another, how can we be saved? If He has revealed a method in which He can be just and yet justify the sinner, and if we reject that method and insist upon pursuing a different way, how can we hope to be accepted? The answer, therefore, which is given to the above question, should be seriously pondered by all who assume the office of religious teachers and by all who rely upon their instructions. As we are not to be judged by proxy,5 but every man must answer for himself, so every man should be satisfied for himself what the Bible teaches on this subject. All that religious teachers can do is to endeavor to aid the investigations of those who are anxious to learn the way of life. In doing this, the safest method is to adhere strictly to the instructions of the Scriptures and to exhibit the subject as it is there presented.

It is one of the primary doctrines of the Bible—everywhere either asserted or assumed—that we are under the Law of God. This is true of all classes of men, whether they enjoy a divine revelation or not. Everything that God has revealed as a rule of duty enters into the constitution of the Law that binds those to whom that revelation is given and by which they are to be ultimately judged. Those who have not received any external revelation of the divine will are a law unto themselves. The knowledge of right and wrong, written upon their hearts, is of the nature of a divine law, having its authority and sanction; by it, the heathen are to be judged in the last day.

God has seen fit to annex the promise of life to obedience to His Law. “The man which doeth those things shall live by them” (Rom 10:5) is the language of Scripture on this subject. To the lawyer who admitted that the Law required love to God and man, our Savior said, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live” (Luk 10:28). And to one who asked Him, “What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” He said, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” (Mat 19:17). On the other hand, the Law denounces death as the penalty of transgression: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). Such is the uniform declaration of Scripture on this subject.

The obedience that the Law demands is called righteousness, and those who render that obedience are called righteous. To ascribe righteousness to anyone, or to pronounce him righteous, is the Scriptural meaning of the word “to justify.” The word never means “to make good” in a moral sense, but always “to pronounce just or righteous.” Thus, God says, “I will not justify the wicked” (Exo 23:7). Judges are commanded to justify the righteous and to condemn the wicked (Deu 25:1). Woe is pronounced on those who “justify the wicked for reward” (Isa 5:23). In the New Testament it is said, “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight” (Rom 3:20). “It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns?” (Rom 8:33-34). There is scarcely a word in the Bible the meaning of which is less open to doubt. There is no passage in the New Testament in which it is used out of its ordinary and obvious sense.

When God justifies a man, He declares him righteous. To justify never means “to render one holy.” It is said to be sinful to justify the wicked, but it could never be sinful to render the wicked holy. And as the Law demands righteousness, to impute or ascribe righteousness to anyone is, in Scriptural language, to justify. To make (or constitute) righteous is another equivalent form of expression. Hence, to be righteous before God and to be justified mean the same thing as in the following passage: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified” (Rom 2:13). The attentive and especially the anxious reader of the Bible cannot fail to observe that these various expressions—to be righteous in the sight of God, to impute righteousness, to constitute righteous, to justify, and others of similar import—are so interchanged as to explain each other and to make it clear that to justify a man is to ascribe or impute to him righteousness. The great question then is, “How is this righteousness to be obtained?” We have reason to be thankful that the answer that the Bible gives to this question is so perfectly plain.

In the first place, that the righteousness by which we are to be justified before God is not of works is not only asserted, but also proved. The Apostle’s first argument on this point is derived from the consideration that the Law demands a perfect righteousness. If the Law were satisfied by an imperfect obedience, or by a routine of external duties, or by any service that men are competent to render, then indeed justification would be by works. But since it demands perfect obedience, justification by works is, for sinners, absolutely impossible. It is thus the Apostle reasons, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10). As the Law pronounces its curse upon every man who continues not to do all that it commands, and as no man can pretend to this perfect obedience, it follows that all who look to the Law for justification must be condemned. To the same effect in a following verse he says, “And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.” That is, the Law is not satisfied by any single grace or imperfect obedience. It knows and can know no other ground of justification than complete compliance with its demands. Hence, in the same chapter Paul says, “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Gal 3:21). Could the Law pronounce righteous and thus give a title to the promised life to those who had broken its commands, there would have been no necessity of any other provision for the salvation of men; but as the Law cannot thus lower its demands, justification by the Law is impossible. The same truth is taught in a different form when it is said, “For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal 2:21). There would have been no necessity for the death of Christ, if it had been possible to satisfy the Law by the imperfect obedience that we can render. Paul therefore warns all those who look to works for justification that they are debtors to do the whole law (Gal 5:3). It knows no compromise; it cannot demand less than what is right, and perfect obedience is right. Therefore its only language is as before, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3:10); and, “That the man which doeth those things shall live by them” (Rom 10:5). Every man, therefore, who expects justification by works must see to it, not that he is better than other men, or that he is very exact and does many things, or that he fasts twice in the week and gives tithes of all he possesses, but that he is sinless.

That the Law of God is thus strict in its demands is a truth that lies at the foundation of all Paul’s reasoning in reference to the method of justification. He proves that the Gentiles have sinned against the law written on their hearts, and that the Jews have broken the Law revealed in their Scriptures; both Jews and Gentiles, therefore, are under sin; and the whole world is guilty before God (Rom 3:19). Hence, he infers, by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.

There is, however, no force in this reasoning, except on the assumption that the Law demands perfect obedience. How many men, who freely acknowledge that they are sinners, depend upon their works for acceptance with God! They see no inconsistency between the acknowledgment of sin and the expectation of justification by works. The reason is that they proceed upon a very different principle from that adopted by the Apostle: they suppose that the Law may be satisfied by very imperfect obedience. Paul assumes that God demands perfect conformity to His will, that His wrath is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom 1:18). With him, therefore, it is enough that men have sinned to prove that they cannot be justified by works. It is not a question of degrees, more or less, for as to this point there is no difference, since “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).

This doctrine, though so plainly taught in Scripture, men are disposed to think very severe.6 They imagine that their good deeds will be compared with their evil deeds and that they will be rewarded or punished as [one outweighs the other]; or that the sins of one part of life may be atoned for by the good works of another; or that they can escape by mere confession and repentance. They could not entertain such expectations if they believed themselves to be under a law. No human law is administered as men seem to hope the Law of God will be. He who steals or murders—though it be but once, though he confesses and repents, though he does any number of acts of charity—is not less a thief or murderer. The Law cannot take [notice] of his repentance and reformation. If he steals or murders, the Law condemns him. Justification by the Law is for him impossible. The Law of God extends to the most secret exercises of the heart (Heb 4:12). It condemns whatever is in its nature evil. If a man violates this perfect rule of right, there is an end of justification by the Law; he has failed to comply with its conditions, and the Law can only condemn him. To justify him would be to say that he had not transgressed.

Men, however, think that they are not to be dealt with on the principles of strict law. Here is their fatal mistake. It is here that they are in most direct conflict with the Scriptures, which proceed upon the uniform assumption of our subjection to the Law. Under the government of God, strict law is nothing but perfect excellence; it is the steady exercise of moral rectitude.7 Even conscience, when duly enlightened and roused, is as strict as the Law of God. It refuses to be appeased by repentance, reformation, or penance.8 It enforces every command and every denunciation of our Supreme Ruler and teaches—as plainly as do the Scriptures themselves—that justification by an imperfect obedience is impossible. As conscience, however, is fallible, no reliance on this subject is placed on her testimony. The appeal is to the Word of God, which clearly teaches that it is impossible [for] a sinner [to be] justified by works because the Law demands perfect obedience.

The Apostle’s second argument to show that justification is not by works is the testimony of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. This testimony is urged in various forms. In the first place, as the Apostle proceeds upon the principle that the Law demands perfect obedience, all those passages that assert the universal sinfulness of men are so many declarations that they cannot be justified by works. He therefore quotes such passages as the following: “There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom 3:10-12 cf. Psa 14:3). The Old Testament, by teaching that all men are sinners, does thereby teach, in the Apostle’s view, that they can never be accepted before God on the ground of their own righteousness. To say that a man is a sinner is to say that the Law condemns him—and of course, it cannot justify him. As the ancient Scriptures are full of declarations of the sinfulness of men, so they are full of proof that justification is not by works.

But in the second place, Paul cites their direct affirmative testimony in support of his doctrine. In the Psalms it is said, “And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psa 143:2). He often quotes this passage, and to the same class belong all those passages that speak of the insufficiency or worthlessness of human righteousness in the sight of God.

In the third place, the Apostle refers to those passages that imply the doctrine for which he contends; that is, to those that speak of the acceptance of men with God as a matter of grace, as something that they do not deserve and for which they can urge no claim founded upon their own merit. It is with this view that he refers to the language of David: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Rom 4:7-8). The fact that a man is forgiven implies that he is guilty, and the fact that he is guilty implies that his justification cannot rest upon his own character or conduct. It need hardly be remarked that, in this view, the whole Scriptures from the beginning to the end are crowded with condemnations of the doctrine of justification by works. Every penitent confession, every appeal to God’s mercy is a renunciation of all personal merit, a declaration that the penitent’s hope was not founded on anything in himself. Such confessions and appeals are indeed often made by those who still rely upon their good works or inherent righteousness for acceptance with God. This, however, does not invalidate the Apostle’s argument. It only shows that such persons have a different view of what is necessary for justification from that entertained by the Apostle. They suppose that the demands of the Law are so low that although they are sinners and need to be forgiven, they can still do what the Law demands. Paul proceeds on the assumption that the Law requires perfect obedience, and therefore every confession of sin or appeal for mercy involves a renunciation of justification by the Law. The Law knows nothing of anything but obedience as the ground of acceptance. If the Scriptures say we are accepted through faith, they thereby say that we are not accepted on the ground of obedience (Gal 2:16).

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Christ—Our Substitute (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1860)

2 Corinthians 5:21

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 

Sometime ago an excellent lady sought an interview with me, with the object as she said, of enlisting my sympathy upon the question of "Anti-Capital Punishment." I heard the excellent reasons she urged against hanging men who had committed murder, and though they did not convince me, I did not seek to answer hem. She proposed that when a man committed murder, he should be confined for life. My remark was, that a great many men who had been confined half their lives were not a bit the better for it, and as for her belief that they would necessarily be brought to repentance, I was afraid it was but a dream. "Ah," she said, good soul as she was, "that is because we have been all wrong about punishments. We punish people because we think they deserve to be punished. Now, we ought to show them," said she, "that we love them; that we only punish them to make them better." "Indeed, madam," I said, "I have heard that theory a great many times, and I have seen much fine writing upon the matter, but I am no believer in it. The design of punishment should be amendment, but the ground of punishment lies in the positive guilt of the offender. I believe that when a man does wrong, he ought to be punished for it, and that there is a guilt in sin which justly merits punishment." "Oh no; she could not see that. Sin was a very wrong thing, but punishment was not a proper idea. She thought that people were treated too cruelly in prison, and that they ought to be taught that we love them. If they were treated kindly in prison, and tenderly dealt with, they would grow so much better, she was sure." With a view of interpreting her own theory, I said, "I suppose, then, you would give criminals all sorts of indulgences in prison. Some great vagabond who has committed burglary dozens of times—I suppose you would let him sit in an easy chair in the evening before a nice fire, and mix him a glass of spirits and water, and give him his pope, and make him happy, to show him how much we love him." "Well, no, she would not give him the spirits, but, still, all the rest would do him good." I thought that was a delightful picture certainly. It seemed to me to be the most prolific method of cultivating rogues which ingenuity could invent. I imagine that you could row any number of thieves in that way; for it would be a special means of propagating all manner of roguery and wickedness. These very delightful theories to such a simple mind as mine, were the source of much amusement, the idea of fondling villains, and treating heir crimes as if they were the tumbles and falls of children, made me laugh heartily. I fancied I saw the government resigning its functions to these excellent persons, and the grand results of their marvellously kind experiments. The sword of the magistrate transformed into a gruel-spoon, and the jail become a sweet retreat for injured reputations.

Little however, did I think I should live to see this kind of stuff taught in pulpits; I had no idea that there would come out a divinity, which would bring down God's moral government from he solemn aspect in which Scripture reveals it, to a namby-pamby sentimentalism, which adores a Deity destitute of every masculline virtue. But we never know to-day what may occur to-morrow. We have lived to see a certain sort of men—thank God they are not Baptists—though I am sorry to say there are a great many Baptists who are beginning to follow in their trail—who seek to teach now-a-days, that God is a universal Father, and that our ideas of his dealing with the impenitent as a Judge, and not as a Father, are remnants of antiquated error. Sin, according to these men, is a disorder rather than an offence, an error rather than a crime. Love is the only attribute they can discern, and the full-orbed Deity they have not known. Some of these men push their way very far into the bogs and mire of falsehood, until they inform us that eternal punishment is ridiculed as a dream. In fact, books now appear, which teach us that there is no such thing as the Vicarious Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. They use the word Atonement it is true, but in regard to its meaning, they have removed the ancient landmark. They acknowledge that the Father has shown his great love to poor sinful man by sending his Son, but not that God was inflexibly just in the exhibition of his mercy, not that he punished Christ on the behalf of his people, nor that indeed God ever will punish anybody I his wrath, or that there is such a thing as justice apart from discipline. Even sin and hell are but old words employed henceforth in a new and altered sense. Those are old-fashioned notions, and we poor souls who go on talking about election and imputed righteousness, are behind our time. Ay, and the gentlemen who bring out books on this subject, applaud Mr. Maurice, and Professor Scott, and the like, but are too cowardly to follow them, and boldly propound these sentiments. These are the new men whom God has sent down from heaven, to tell us that the apostle Paul was all wrong, that our faith is vain, that we have been quite mistaken, that there was no need for propitiating blood to wash away our sins; that the fact was, our sins needed discipline, but penal vengeance and righteous wrath are quite out of the question. When I thus speak, I am free to confess that such ideas are not boldly taught by a certain individual whose volume excites these remarks, but as he puffs the books of gross perverters of the truth, I am compelled to believe that he endorses such theology.

Well, brethren, I am happy to say that sort of stuff has not gained entrance into this pulpit. I dare say the worms will eat the wood before there will be anything of that sort sounded in his place; and may these bones be picked by vultures, and this flesh be rent in sunder by lions, and may every nerve in this body suffer pangs and tortures, ere these lips shall give utterance to any such doctrines or sentiments. We are content to remain among the vulgar souls who believe the old doctrines of grace. We are wolling still to be behind in the great march of intellect, and stand by that unmoving cross, which, like the pole star, never advances, because it never stirs, but always abides in its place, the guide of the soul to heaven, the one foundation other than which no man can lay, and without building upon which, no man shall ever see the face of God and live.

Thus much have I said upon a matter which just now is exciting controversy. It has been my high privilege to be associated with six of our ablest brethren in the ministry, in a letter of protest against the countenance which a certain newspaper seemed willing to lend to this modern heresy. We trust it may be the means, in the hands of God, of helping to check that downward march—that wandering from truth which seems by some singular infatuation, to have unsettled the minds of some brethren in our denomination. Now I come to address you upon the opic which is most continually assailed by those who preach another gospel "which is not another—but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ," namely, the doctrine of the substitution of Christ on our behalf, his actual atonement for our sins, and our positive and actual justification through his sufferings and righteousness. It seems to me that until language can mean the very reverse of what it says, until by some strange logic, God's Word can be contradicted and can be made to belief itself, the doctrine of substitution can never be rooted out of the words which I have selected for my text "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

First, then, the sinlessness of the substitute; secondly, the reality of the imputation of sin to him; and thirdly, the glorious reality of the imputation of righteousness to us.

I. First, THE SINLESSNESS OF THE SUBSTITUTE.

The doctrine of Holy Scripture is this, that inasmuch as man could not keep God's law, having fallen in Adam, Christ came and fulfilled the law on the behalf of his people; and that inasmuch as man had already broken the divine law and incurred the penalty of the wrath of God, Christ came and suffered in the room, place, and stead of his elect ones, that so by his enduring the full vials of wrath, they might be emptied out and not a drop might ever fall upon the heads of his blood-bought people. Now, you will readily perceive that if one is to be a substitute for another before God, either to work out a righteousness or to suffer a penalty, that substitute must himself be free from sin. If he hath sin of his own, all that he can suffer will but be the due reward of his own iniquity. If he hath himself transgressed, he cannot suffer for another, because all his sufferings are already due on his own personal account. On the other and, it is quite clear that none but a perfect man could ever work out a spotless righteousness for us, and keep the law in our stead, for if he hath dishonoured the commandment in his thought, there must be a corresponding flaw in his service. If the warp and woof be speckled, how shall he bring forth the robe of milk-white purity, and wrap it about our loins? He must be a spotless one who shall become the representative of his people, either to give them a passive or active righteousness, either to offer a satisfaction as the penalty of their sins, or a righteousness as the fulfilment of God's demand.

It is satisfactory for us to know, and to believe beyond a doubt, that our Lord Jesus was without sin. Of course, in his divine nature he could not know iniquity; and as for his human nature, it never knew the original taint of depravity. He was of the seed of the woman, but not of the tainted and infected see of Adam. Overshadowed as was the virgin by the Holy Ghost, no corruption entered into his nativity. That holy thing which was born of her was neither conceived in sin nor shapen in iniquity. He was brought into this world immaculate. He was immaculately conceived and immaculately born. In him that natural black blood which we have inherited from Adam never dwelt. His heart was upright within him; his soul was without any bias to evil; his imagination had never been darkened. He had no infatuated mind. There was no tendency whatever in him that to do that which was good, holy, and honourable. And as he did not share in the original depravity, so he did not share in the imputed sin of Adam which we have inherited—not, I mean, in himself personally, though he took the consequences of that, as he stood as our representative. The sin of Adam had never passed over the head of the second Adam. All that were in the loins of Adam sinned in him when he touched the fruit; but Jesus was not in the loins of Adam. Though he might be conceived of as being in the womb of the woman—"a new thing which the Lord created in the earth,"—he lay not in Adam when he sinned, and consequently no guilt from Adam, either of depravity of nature, or of distance from God, ever fell upon Jesus as the result of anything that Adam did. I mean upon Jesus as considered in himself though he certainly took the sin of Adam as he was the representative of his people.

Again, as in his nature he was free from the corruption and condemnation of the sin of Adam, so also in his life, no sin ever corrupted his way. His eye never flashed with unhallowed anger; his lip never uttered a treacherous or deceitful word; his heat never harboured an evil imagination. Never did he wander after lust; no covetousness ever so much as glanced into his soul. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." From the beginning of his life to the end, you cannot put your finger even upon a mistake, much less upon a wilful error. So perfect was he, that no virtue seems to preponderate, or by an opposing quality give a bias to the scale of absolute rectitude. John is distinguished for his love, Peter for his courage; but Jesus Christ is distinguished for neither one above the another, because he possesses all in such sublime unison, such heavenly harmony, that no one virtue stands out above the rest. He is meek, but he is courageous. He is loving, but he is decided; he is bold as a lion, yet he is quiet and peaceful as a lamb. He was like that fine flour which was offered before God in the burnt offering; a flour without grit, so smooth, that when you rubbed it, it was soft and pure, no particles could be discerned: so was his character fully ground, fully compounded. There was not one feature in his moral countenance which had undue preponderance above the other; but he was replete in everything that was virtuous and good. Tempted he was, it is true, but sinned he never. The whirlwind came from he wilderness, and smote upon the four corners of that house, but it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. The rains descended, heaven afflicted him; the winds blew, the mysterious agency of hell assailed him; the floods came, all earth was in arms against him, but yet he stood firm in the midst of all. Never once did he even seem to bend before the tempest; but buffetting the fury of the blast, bearing all the temptations that could ever happen to man, which summed themselves up and consummated their fury on him, he stood to the end, without a single flaw in his life, or a stain upon his spotless robe. Let us rejoice, then, in this, my beloved brothers and sisters, that we have such a substitute—one who is fit and proper to stand in our place, and to suffer in our stead, seeing he has no need to offer a sacrifice for himself; no need to cry for himself, "Father, I have sinned;" no need to bend the knee of the penitent and confess his own iniquities, for he is without spot or blemish, the perfect lamb of God's passover.

I would have you carefully notice the particular expression of the text, for it struck me as being very beautiful and significant,—"who knew no sin." It does not merely say did none, but knew none. Sin was no acquaintance of his; he was acquainted with grief, but no acquaintance of sin. He had to walk in the midst of its most frequented haunts, but did not know it; not that he was ignorant of its nature, or did not know its penalty, but he did not know it; he was a stranger to it, he never gave it the wink or nod of familiar recognition. Of course he knew what sin was, for he was ver God, but with the sin he had no communion, no fellowship, no brotherhood. He was a perfect stranger in the presence of sin; he was a foreigner; he was not an inhabitant of that land where sin is acknowledge. He passed through the wilderness of suffering, but into the wilderness of sin he could never go. "He knew no sin;" mark that expression and treasure it up, and when you are thinking of your substitute, and see him hang bleeding upon the cross, think that you see written in those lines of blood written along his blessed body, "He knew no sin." Mingled with the redness of his blood—that Rose of Sharon; behold the purity of his nature, the Lily of the Valley—"He knew no sin."

II. Let us pass on to notice the second and most important point; THE ACTUAL SUBSTITUTION OF CHRIST, AND THE REAL IMPUTATION OF SIN TO HIM. "He made him to be sin for us."

Here be careful to observe who transferred the sin. God the Father laid on Jesus the iniquities of us all. Man could not make Christ sin. Man could not transfer his guilt to another. It is not for us to say whether Christ could or could not have made himself sin for us; that certain it is, he did not take this priesthood upon himself, but he was called of God, as was Aaron. The Redeemer's vicarious position is warranted, nay ordained by divine authority. "He hath made him to be sin for us." I must now beg you to notice how very explicit the term is. Some of our expositors will have it that the word here used must mean "sin-offering." "He made him to be a sin-offering for us." I thought it well to look to my Greek Testament to see whether it could be so. Of course we all know that the word here translated "sin," is very often translated "sin-offering," but it is always useful, when you have a disputed passage, to look it through, and see whether in this case the word would bear such a meaning. These commentators say it means a sin-offering,—well, I will read it: "He hath made him to be a sin-offering for us who knew no sin-offering." Does not that strike you as being ridiculous? But they are precisely the same words; and if it be fair to translate it "sin-offering" in one place, it must, in all reason, be fair to translate it so in the other. The fact it, while in some passages it may be rendered "sin-offering," in this passage it cannot be so, because it would be to run counter to all honesty to translate the same word in the same sentence two different ways. No; we must take hem as they stand. "He hath made him to be sin for us," not merely an offering, but sin for us.

My predecessor, Dr. Gill, edited the works of Tobias Crisp, but Tobias Crisp went further than Dr. Gill or any of us can approve; for in one place Crisp calls Christ a sinner, though he does not mean that he ever sinned himself. He actually calls Christ a transgressor, and justifies himself by that passage, "He was numbered with the transgressors." Martin Luther is reputed to have broadly said that, although Jesus Christ was sinless, yet he was the greatest sinner that ever lived, because all the sins of his people lay upon him. Now, such expressions I think to be unguarded, if not profane. Certainly Christian men should take care that they use not language which, by the ignorant and uninstructed, may be translated to mean what they never intended to teach. The fact is, brethren, that in no sense whatever—take that as I say it—in no sense whatever can Jesus Christ ever be conceived of as having been guilty. He knew no sin." Not only was he not guilty of any sin which he committed himself, but he was not guilty of our sins. No guilt can possibly attach to a man who has not been guilty. He must have had complicity in the deed itself, or else no guilt can possibly be laid on him. Jesus Christ stands in the midst of all the divine thunders, and suffers all the punishment, but not a drop of sin ever stained him. In no sense is he ever a guilty man, but always is he an accepted and a holy one. What, then, is the meaning of that very forcible expression f my text? We must interpret Scriptural modes of expression by the verbage of the speakers. We know that our Master once said himself, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood;" he did not mean that the cup was the covenant. He said, "Take, eat, this is my body"—no one of us conceives that the bread is the literal flesh and blood of Christ. We take that bread as if it were the body, and it actually represents it. Now, we are to read a passage like this, according to the analogy of faith. Jesus Christ was made by his Father sin for us, that is, he was treated as if he had himself been sin. He was not sin; he was not sinful; he was not guilty; but, he was treated by his Father, as if he had not only been sinful, but as if he had been sin itself. That is a strong expression used here. Not only hath he made him to be the substitute for sin, but to be sin. God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if he had taken up the sins of his people, or as if they were laid on him, though that were true, but as if he himself had positively been that noxious—that God-hating—that soul-damning thing, called sin. When the Judge of all the earth said, "Where is Sin?" Christ presented himself. He stood before his Father as if he had been the accumulation of all human guilt; as if he himself were that thing which God cannot endure, but which he must drive from his presence for ever. And now see how this making of Jesus to be sin was enacted to the fullest extent. The righteous Lord looked on Christ as being sin, and therefore Christ must be taken without the camp. Sin cannot be borne in God's Zion, cannot be allowed to dwell in God's Jerusalem; it must be taken without the camp, it is a leprous thing, put it away. Cast out from fellowship, from love, from pity, sin must ever be. Take him away, take him away, ye crowd! Hurry him through the streets and bear him to Calvary. Take him without the camp—as was the beast which was offered for sin without the camp, so must Christ be, who was made sin for us. And now, God looks on him as being sin, and sin must bear punishment. Christ is punished. The most fearful of deaths is exacted at his hand, and God has no pity for him. How should he have pity on sin? God hates it. No tongue can tell, no soul can divine the terrible hatred of God to that which is evil, and he treats Christ as if he were sin. He prays, but heaven shuts out his prayer; he cries for water, but heaven and earth refuse to wet his lips except with vinegar. He turns his eye to heaven, he sees nothing there. How should he? God cannot look on sin, and sin can have no claim on God: "My God, my God," he cries, "why hast thou forsaken me?" O solemn necessity, how could God do anything with sin but forsake it? How could iniquity have fellowship with God? Shall divine smiles rest on sin? Nay, nay, it must not be. Therefore is it that he who is made sin must bemoan desertion and terror. God cannot touch him, cannot dwell with him, cannot come near him. He is abhorred, cast away; it hath pleased the Father to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. At last he dies. God will not keep him in life—how should he? Is it not the meetest thing in the world that sin should be buried? "Bury it out of my sight, hide this corruption," and lo! Jesus, as if he were sin, is put away out of the sight of God and man as a thing obnoxious. I do not know whether I have clearly uttered what I want to state, but what a rim picture that is, to conceive of sin gathered up into one mass—murder, lust and rapine, and adultery, and all manner of crime, all piled together in one hideous heap. We ourselves, brethren, impure though we be, could not bear this; how much less should God with his pure and holy eyes bear with that mass of sin, and yet there it is, and God looked upon Christ as if he were that mass of sin. He was not sin, but he looked upon him as made sin for us. He stands in our place, assumes our guilt, takes on him our iniquity, and God treats him as if he had been sin. Now, my dear brothers and sisters, let us just lift up our hearts with gratitude for a few moments. Here we are to-night; we know that we are guilty, but our sins have all been punished years ago. Before my soul believed in Christ, the punishment of my sin had all been endured. We are not to think that Christ's blood derives its efficacy from our faith. Fact precedes faith. Christ hath redeemed us; faith discovers his; but it was a fact of that finished sacrifice. Though still defiled by sin, yet who can lay anything to he charge of the man whose guilt is gone, lifted bodily from off him, and put upon Christ? How can any punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sins, because his sin has eighteen hundred years ago been cast upon Christ, and Christ has suffered in his place and stead? Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, "Yes, it is true, but my Lord is answerable for it all, for he has taken it all upon himself, and suffered in my room, and place, and stead." How precious when I see my debts, to be able to say, "Yes, but the blood of Christ, God's dear Son, hath cleansed me from all sin!" How precious, not only to see my sin dying when I believe, but to know that it was dead, it was gone, it ceased to e, eighteen hundred years ago. All the sins that you and I have ever committed, or ever shall commit, if we be heirs of mercy, and children of God, are all dead things.

"Our Jesus nailed them to his cross,
And sung the triumph when he rose."

These cannot rise in judgment to condemn us; they have all been slain, shrouded, buried; they are removed from us as far as the east is from the west, because "He hath made him to be sinf or us who knew no sin."

III. You see then the reality of the imputation of sin to Christ from the amazing doctrine that Christ is made sin for us. But now notice the concluding thought, upon which I must dwell a moment, but it must be ver briefly, for two reasons, my time has gone, and my strength has gone too. "THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM." Now, here I beg you to notice, that it does not simply say that we might be made righteous, but "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him;" as if righteousness, that lovely, glorious, God-honouring, God-delighting thing—as if we were actually made that. God looks on his people as being abstract righteousness, not nly righteous, but righteousness. To be righteous, is as if a man should have a box covered with gold, the box would then be golden; but to be righteousness is to have a box of solid gold. To be a righteous man is to have righteousness cast over me; but to be made righteousness, that is to be made solid essential righteousness in the sight of God. Well now, this is a glorious fact and a most wonderful privilege, that we poor sinners are made "the righteousness of God in him." God sees no sin in any one of his people, no iniquity in Jacob, when he looks upon them in Christ. In themselves he sees nothing but filth and abomination, in Christ nothing but purity and righteousness. Is it not, and must it not ever be to the Christian, one of his most delightful privileges to know that altogether apart from anything that we have ever done, or can do, God looks upon his people as being righteous, nay, as being righteousness, and that despite all of the sins they have ever committed, they are accepted in him as if they had been Christ, while Christ was punished for hem as if he had been sin. Why, when I stand in my own place, I am lost and ruined; my place is the place where Judas stood, the place where the devil lies in everlasting shame. But when I stand in Christ's place—and I fail to stand where faith has put me till I stand there—when I stand in Christ's place, the Father's everlastingly beloved one, the Father's accepted one, him whom the Father delighteth to honour—when I stand there, I stand where faith hath a right to put me, and I am in the most joyous spot that a creature of God can occupy. Oh, Christian, get thee up, get thee up into the high mountain, and stand where thy Saviour stands, for that is thy place. Lie not there on the dunghill of fallen humanity, that is not thy place now; Christ has once taken it on thy behoof. "He made him to be sin for us." Thy place is yonder there, above the starry hosts, where he hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in him. Not there, at the day of judgment, where the wicked shriek for shelter, and beg for the hills to cover hem, but there, where Jesus sits upon his throne—there is thy place, my soul. He will make thee to sit upon his throne, even as he has overcome, and has sat down with his Father upon his throne. Oh! That I could mount to the heights of this argument to-night; it needs a seraphic preacher to picture the saint in Christ, robed in Christ's righteousness, wearing Christ's nature, bearing Christ's palm of victory, sitting on Christ's throne, wearing Christ's crown. And yet this is our privilege! He wore my crown, the crown of thorns; I wear his crown, the crown of glory. He wore my dress, nay, rather, he wore my nakedness when he died upon the cross; I wear his robes, the royal robes of the King of kings. He bore my shame; I bear his honour. He endured my sufferings to this end that my joy may be full, and that his joy may be fulfilled in me. He laid in the grave that I might rise from the dead and that I may dwell in him, and all this he comes again to give me, to make it sure to me and to all hat love his appearing, to show that all his people shall enter into their inheritance.

Now, my brothers and sisters, Mr. Maurice, McLeod, Campbell, and their great admirer, Mr. Brown, may go on with their preaching as long as they like, but they will never make a convert of a man who knows what the vitality of religion is; for he who knows what substitution means, he who knows what it is to stand where Christ stands, will never care to occupy the ground on which Mr. Maurice stands. He who has ever been made to sit together with Christ, and once to enjoy the real preciousness of a transfer of Christ's righteousness to him and his sin to Christ, that man has eaten the bread of heaven, and will never renounce it for husks. No, my brethren, we could lay down our lives for this truth rather than give it up. No, we cannot by any means turn aside from this glorious stability of faith, and for this good reason, that there is nothing for us in the doctrine which these men teach. It may suit intellectual gentlefolk, I dare say it does; but it will not suit us. We are poor sinners and nothing at all, and if Christ is not our all in all, there is nothing for us. I have often thought the best answer for all these new ideas is, that the true gospel was always preached to the poor;—"The poor have the gospel preached to hem."—I am sure that the poor will never learn the gospel of these new divines, for they cannot make head or tail of it, nor the rich either; for after you have read through one of their volumes, you have not the least idea of what the book is about, until you have read it through eight or nine times, and then you begin to think you are a very stupid being for ever having read such inflated heresy, for it sours your temper and makes you feel angry, to see the precious truths of God trodden under foot. Some of us must stand out against these attacks on truth, although we love not controversy. We rejoice in the liberty of our fellow-men, and would have them proclaim their convictions; but if they touch these precious things, they touch the apple of our eye. We can allow a thousand opinions in the world, but that which infringes upon the precious doctrine of a covenant salvation, through the imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ,—against that we must, and will, enter our hearty and solemn protest, as long as God spares us. Take away once from us those glorious doctrines, and where are we brethren? We may lay us down and die, for nothing remains that is worth living for. We have come to the valley of the shadow of death, when we find these doctrines to e untrue. If these things which I speak to you to-night be not the verities of Christ; if they be not true, there is no comfort left for any poor man under God's sky, and it were better for us never to have been born. I may say what Jonathan Edwards says at the end of his book, "If any man could disprove the doctrines of the gospel, he should then sit down and weep to think they were not true, for," says he, "it would be the most dreadful calamity that could happen to the world, to have a glimpse of such truths, and then for them to melt away in the thin air of fiction, as having no substantiality in them." Stand up for the truth of Christ; I would not have you be bigotted, but I would have you be decided. Do not give countenance to any of this trash and error, which is going abroad, but stand firm. Be not turned away from your stedfastness by any pretence of intellectuality and high philosophy, but earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to he saints, and hold fast the form of sound words which you have heard of us, and have been taught, even as ye have read in this sacred Book, which is the way of everlasting life.

Thus then, beloved, without gathering up my strength for the fray, or attempting to analyse the subtleties of those who would pervert the simple gospel, I speak out my mind and utter the kindlings of my heart among you. Little enough will ye reck, over whom the Holy Ghost hath given me the oversight, what the grievous wolves may design, if ye keep within the fold. Break not the sacred bounds wherein God hath enclosed his Church. He hath encircled us in the arms of covenant love. He hath united us in indissoluble bonds to the Lord Jesus. He hath fortified us with the assurance that the Holy Spirit shall guide us into all truth. God grant that those beyond the pale of visible fellowship with us in this eternal gospel may see their danger and escape from he fowler's snare!

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Justification (Charles H. Spurgeon, 1834-1892)

Job 9:2

“I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?” 

"HOW shall man be just with God?" (Job 9:2) is a question of infinite importance to every child of Adam; a question, however, which could never have been answered if Jehovah had not manifested his sovereign grace towards his apostate creatures. Far from being a merely speculative point, it permeates the whole system of Christianity, and lies at the foundation of personal religion, and of all right views of the character and moral government of God. Whatever, else may be considered indifferent or non-essential this cannot be: it is a capital article of that faith which was once for all delivered to the saints, and a mistake here may prove eternally fatal. Well might Luther call it "the article of a standing or falling church," i.e., the article on the reception or rejection of which the stability or subversion of the church depended. This then is the subject to which we invite the attention of our readers in this paper.

THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION

The term justification is forensic, referring to the proceedings in a court of judicature, and signifies the declaring a person righteous according to law. It is not the making a person righteous by the infusion of holy habits, or by an inherent change from sin to holiness, this is sanctification; but the act of a judge pronouncing the party acquitted from all judicial charges. This is the sense in which the words just and justify are used in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. For example it is said, "If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked" (Deut 25:1). Here it is evident that to justify the righteous, signifies not to make him righteous but to adjudge him to be so, just as to condemn the wicked is not to make him wicked but to declare him to be so. See also Prov 17:15; Psalm 143:2; Luke 7:29-35; Rom 2:13, and chapter 8:33. We must not confound justification with the doctrine of sanctification, for though inseparably connected, they are quite distinct and widely different, and ought, when we are treating of the way of a sinner's acceptance with God, to be kept apart. Justification respects the person in a legal sense, is a single act of grace, and terminates in a change of state. Sanctification regards him in a physical sense, is a continued work of grace, and terminates in a change of character. The former is by the work of Christ without us; the latter is by the work of the Spirit within us. That precedes as a cause; this follows as an effect. Justification, then, is a change of state in the eye of the law and of the lawgiver. It includes pardon, but it is something more than mere pardon. Among men and before an earthly tribunal these two things are opposed to each other, for an individual cannot be at the same time pardoned and justified; but before the bar of God, he who is pardoned is justified, and he who is justified is pardoned. When a person is pardoned, he is considered as a transgressor, but when he is justified, he is considered as righteous. A criminal when pardoned is freed from an obligation to suffer death for his crimes; but he that is justified is declared worthy of life as an innocent person. There are then two constituent parts in this justification; there is the pardon of sin and the acceptance of our persons; a removal of guilt and condemnation and a right to life.

THE GROUNDS OF JUSTIFICATION

If justification is, as we have seen, a judicial sentence, absolving man from guilt and accepting him as righteous, such a sentence can be passed only on some valid grounds, some just cause shown, for he who justifies is God, the holy and righteous Judge. How then shall, man be just with God? I answer, Not on the ground of innocence, for all are by nature under guilt and condemnation. In the first three chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, where the doctrine of justification is logically discussed, the apostle Paul established it as an undeniable truth, that every man in his natural state lies under the just condemnation of God as a rebel against him in all the three ways in which he has been pleased to reveal himself, whether by the works of creation, the work of the law written on the heart, or by the revelation of grace. It has been well remarked that God having purposed to establish but one way of justification for all men has permitted in his providence that all should be guilty. For if there had been any excepted, there would have been two different methods of justification, and consequently two true religions, and two true churches, and believers would not have that oneness of communion which grace produces. "The Scripture hath concluded all under sin." Not on the ground of human desert. The apostle Paul having proved by an appeal to undeniable facts that the Gentiles and the Jews were both guilty before God, he draws the following obvious and inevitable conclusion. "Therefore by the deeds of the Law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight;" i.e., by our own obedience to it, however sincere, shall no flesh be justified, accepted of God, and pronounced righteous. No law, human or divine, can justify the transgression, and the law of God far from justifying the offender denounces utter destruction against him. "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." We see from this that there is no acceptance with God on the ground of law without perfect obedience. Such an obedience none of the human race can possibly exhibit, and hence it follows that man cannot procure his own justification. There are two ways in which he might attempt it, but neither jointly nor severally could he accomplish it. First, by a voluntary return to his former obedience. But this he could not do. He has by his sin lost his original power, and a return to obedience is an act of greater power than a persistency in the way of it. As man could not effect his own justification, so he would not attempt it. He is entirely alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him, because of the hardness of his heart. "He possesseth a carnal mind which is enmity against God, which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."
Secondly, man must make satisfaction to justice. This, added to obedience, would effect restitution and result in justification. But as a return to obedience is impossible, so was satisfaction for the injury done to the moral government of God by his rebellion. All that he could do under any circumstances was due from him in that instant of time in which it was performed. Impossible then that by anything a man can do well, he should make satisfaction for anything he has done ill. An old debt cannot be discharged by ready-money payments for the future. Man, sinful man, then, cannot merit his own justification. I notice, lastly, that justification cannot take place on the ground of compromise. A man must be justified wholly by law or wholly by grace. If by law, he must keep the law perfectly; if by grace, he must trust exclusively on the merit of another. There can be no compromise, no commixture. Paul's strong language in reference to the Galatian perverters of the gospel is applicable here, "Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." Paul excludes all works of every kind, works before and after conversion, works moral and works ceremonial, yea, he even excludes the works of Abraham, the father of believers. (See Rom 4:2; Rom 11:6; Titus 3:5; 2 Tim 19.)
What, then, is the meritorious ground of a sinner's justification? If all mankind are sinners under condemnation, if the supreme Governor of the world neither will nor can justify any without a perfect righteousness, and if such a righteousness cannot possibly be exhibited by man, it is absolutely necessary that righteousness wrought out by a substitute should be imputed to us or placed to our account. Where, then, but in the finished work of Immanuel, can we find this vicarious, law-magnifying, justice-satisfying, God-honouring righteousness? "Deliver him from going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom." The justice of God had been trampled upon, and it must be satisfied; the law of God had been violated, and it must be fulfilled; the debt had been contracted, and it must be discharged; heaven had been lost, and it must be regained; therefore on restoring the sinner, the lost sinner, God must, he cannot but have respect to every attribute of his offended majesty, to every requirement of his unalterable law. In no other way could the forfeitures of the law be restored, in no other way could mercy be sent to the guilty. God sends his own Son, Christ undertakes our desperate cause and says, "Lo I come to do thy will, O God." In order to do this he assumes our nature, that as our kinsman redeemer, he might have the right to redemption. Justice recognises him as the sinner's surety, and exacts from him the full penalty due to sin. God puts the cup of wrath into his hand, and Jesus drains it to the very last dregs. The sword awakes against Jehovah's fellow; the shepherd is smitten that the sheep might go free. Hence he said to the representatives of justice, "If ye seek me, let these go their way." "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." "Christ," says the apostle, "redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Nor is this all. If nothing beyond the suffering of the penalty of the law had taken place, men would only have been released from the punishment due to sin. If they were to obtain the reward of obedience, its precepts must also be obeyed; and this was accomplished to the utmost by Jesus Christ. To every requirement of God's holy law he yielded a complete and sinless obedience; every command it enjoined as well as every prohibition it contains were in all respects fully honoured by him. The righteousness of Jesus therefore is two-fold, consisting in his spotless obedience and meritorious sufferings, and this is that very righteousness by which sinners are justified before God. To this and to this only the Moral Governor of the universe has respect, when he pronounces the sinner just and acquits him in judgment. "Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory." "He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." This obedience of the Son of God conferred more honour on the law and on the lawgiver than could have resulted from the obedience of the whole human race had Adam never sinned.

"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress,
Midst flaming worlds in these array'd,
With joy shall I lift up my head."

THE MEANS OF JUSTIFICATION

How does a sinner obtain an interest in this righteousness in order to justification? The Scriptures are very clear on this. Simply by faith. (See Rom 3:21-28; 4:4, 24, 25; 5:1; Gal 2:16; Acts 13:38, 39.) Faith is the divinely-appointed medium of union to Christ, whose righteousness is imputed to the believer: "Even as David describeth the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works." It is of the nature of faith to lead the sinner away from self, self-confidence and self-righteousness, to the finished work of Jesus. Hence we are said to be justified by faith, not by love or humility, or any other grace, but by faith only because faith is opposed to all works, and all graces too in the matter of our justification. Yet not for faith, or on account of faith, as if faith itself were our righteousness or that for the sake of which we are justified. This is obvious from the following considerations. No man's faith is perfect, and if it were it would not be equal to the demands of the law. That obedience by which the sinner is justified is called the righteousness of faith, righteousness by faith, and is represented as revealed to faith. Consequently, it cannot be faith itself. This is apparent from Phil 3:9. Again, if we are justified by the act of believing, then, as there are degrees of faith, some believers are justified by a more and some by a less perfect righteousness, in exact, proportion to the strength or weakness of their faith; which is absurd. Faith is as necessary in justification as the righteousness of Christ, but necessary for a different purpose. Faith is the hand by which we lay hold on Christ, the eye that looks to Christ, the ear that hears the voice of Christ, the feet that run in compliance with Christ's invitation, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I shall only add that this justification which is by faith, is perfect and complete at once, the moment a sinner believes in Jesus, so that he may triumphantly challenge the universe to lay anything to his charge: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." It is also irreversible and everlasting; once justified, the believer can no more come under condemnation. "There is now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Whom he hath justified, he hath also glorified" (Rom 8:1, 30). No justified person now dead ever failed to reach glory, and all believers are kept by the power of God unto final and eternal salvation.

THE EVIDENCES OF JUSTIFICATION

Lastly, their justification is evidenced by good works (Titus 3:8; Micah 6:8; James 2:17, 18, 26). Hence the decisions of the final judgment will be according to men's works (Matt 25:34-46). Observe, however, that though it is said that men shall be judged according to their works, it is not said that any one shall be justified on account of his works. The righteous are brought unto the judgment to be there manifested and acknowledged as the Lord's people. Justified already in God's sight and in their own, they are now to be justified in the sight of men and angels, and that in such a way that the equity of the divine procedure will be apparent to all. Hence, then, works are appealed to as fruits and evidences of their union to Christ whose righteousness justified them. The sum of the whole is this: we are justified freely by God's grace, meritoriously by Christ's righteousness, instrumentally by faith, and evidentially by good works. 

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