2 Corinthians 5
For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.
For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance, and not in heart. For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. 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.
"The Romanist and the Protestant both proclaim the death of Jesus; but both [to this day] also put the perplexed soul under law, and thus neutralize the blessed truth of the cross. The Romanist preaches the law for justification, and thus makes the cross of no effect; as it is written,
"Christ is become of no effect to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace." (Gal. 5:4.)
Many Protestants preach the law for righteousness — put the saved person under it for righteousness as a rule of life; and thus to them also Christ is dead in vain.
"I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."
Suppose a river separated a slave state from a free state: a bridge of escape is laid across that river. Now suppose another bridge is laid across the river back again. A poor slave escapes; but instead of going onward on free soil, he is persuaded to recross the other bridge; surely he is back again in bondage, and the first bridge is made of none effect. The cross of Jesus is that bridge, by which those who were in bondage under law have been brought into liberty. Now in the days of the apostles, some of Satan's builders erected another bridge, and sought to persuade the freemen of Christ to recross the river, and become again entangled in bondage. Against these the apostle wrote the Epistle to the Galatians. Alas! in our day, so generally has Christendom recrossed this Jordan, that to defend the ancient doctrines of the Church is called a new gospel. I would ask my reader a very important question. On which side of the river are you? In the land of bondage, under the yoke of law? or risen with Christ in the liberty of the new creation? If in the latter, it is a miracle of grace. We in this day are born, so to speak, in bondage. We first breathe the very air of legalism. If any one doubts this, let him take up the catechisms, and early books for the young, and he will be astonished how "do" and "live" are written everywhere. And thus that is habitually taught as gospel, which is the very opposite of the ancient doctrine of the Church.
I desire, then, in entire dependence on the teaching of the Spirit of God, to enquire in this paper, What was the ancient doctrine of the Church on the all-important subject of Justification?
To justify a lost, guilty sinner must have astonished angels. None but God could have conceived the thought. To justify implies not merely to pardon from guilt — that is negative justification; but the necessity of positive righteousness. To pardon a wrong-doer is one thing; but how to justify the wrong-doer seems impossible — nay, with man it is impossible.
The Scriptures and facts prove all men guilty. Then the great difficulty was how could God be just or righteous in justifying the guilty? . . . To the awakened sinner this is a tremendous question, How can I be justified and have peace with God? It must be evident that if man cannot justify that which is not positively righteous, surely then God cannot justify anything short of righteousness. But in man there is no righteousness. All are guilty.
"So that death is passed upon all men, for all have sinned."
How does Scripture, then, deal with this amazing question — the justification of the sinner, and God's righteousness in thus justifying him? I answer, Through Jesus, the resurrection from among the dead — Jesus and the resurrection — Jesus
"bearing our sins in his own body on the tree" —
"the Just dying for the unjust."
Yes, Jesus crucified and Jesus risen was what the Holy Ghost did set before lost sinners: His death for atonement — His resurrection for righteousness or justification.
"Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Rom. 4:25)
Thus, whilst His precious blood clears from all sin, His resurrection brings me into a state of absolute righteousness in Him risen, and therefore complete justification. And it is on this positive righteousness for justification that ancient and modern teaching so widely differ — modern teachers having got to the wrong side of the river; that is, having left the christian ground of a new life in resurrection, and gone back to the land of legalism and bondage, finding themselves, as they suppose, under law; say they, The law must be kept perfectly, and without this there is no justification. They thus go back to law for righteousness.
But, then, finding that practically the believer thus put under it only breaks it, what must be done? Oh, say they, you are under it, and break it; but Christ kept the law for you in His life, and this is imputed to you for righteousness. I would say, in answer to many enquiries on this solemn subject, I cannot find this doctrine in Scripture: it cannot be the ancient doctrine of God's Church. The basis is wrong — to refer to the illustration, on the wrong side of the river. Justification is not on the principle of law at all.
"The righteousness of God without law is manifested."
"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Read Rom. 3:19-26)
Now every doctrine of God's word is clearly stated, not in one verse merely, but in many. Take the atonement:
"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many" —
"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" —
"For Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust:"
and hundreds of other passages. But does Scripture ever say that Christ kept the law for us for justifying righteousness? I am not aware of a single text. And yet, if it were so, there are many places where it should say so. Take Rom. 8:33.
"It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns?"
Does it say that it was Christ that kept the law? No; but,
"Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
Now is not this the full statement of Scripture as to God's justification of the elect? And yet, plainly, not one thought in it of Christ's keeping the law for the justified. And the most careful examination of every passage will be found in perfect harmony with this statement. Look through the Acts. Not once does the apostle preach, Christ kept the law for us, but "Christ died for our sins," &c. 2 Cor. 5 is a notable proof of this. The apostle does not say, We thus judge that all men are under the law, and that Christ kept it for them; no; but,
"We thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead."
There is not a thought of keeping the law for them, but
"died for them and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more."
Does not this prove that the apostle did not go back to Christ under law for righteousness, but onwards to resurrection.
"Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become new, and all things of God."
Thus resurrection is the right side of Jordan. Thus the old things of the law, its righteousness and its condemnation, passed away. I am not taken back to Christ under it for righteousness, but taken forward to Christ in resurrection; and there I am made the positive righteousness of God in Him, as surely as He was made sin for me.
"For he has made him sin for us who knew no sin," (surely that was on the cross,) "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."What deep, solid peace this gives! It is thus risen in Him, one with Him, we are made "the righteousness of God in him." Thus, as our fall in the first Adam not only brought condemnation, but the actual death-state of sin, much more resurrection in Christ not only brings acquittal from condemnation, but an everlasting state of life and actual righteousness absolutely perfect and sinless, the righteousness of God in Christ. Thus, for the believer, Christ, by His obedience to death, has become the end of the law for righteousness. The end of the law was the curse, and our adorable Jesus became a curse. In Him, our dying Substitute, the life once forfeited by us has been given up, the condemnation due to us fully executed. And when God raised him from the dead, He raised Him as our justified Surety. So the Holy Ghost applies Isa. 1:6-9 in Rom. 8:34.
If you ask what do I make of the life of Christ, I answer, Whatever the word of God makes of it. Surely my precious example (1 Peter 2:21-23) — surely the food of my soul, the bread of life (John 10) — and surely the revelation of the Father. (John 14.) Oh! to follow Him. This is far more than legal righteousness — to have His spirit, to tread in His steps, who, the last moment before He was bound, put forth His hand to heal His enemy's ear. This was not an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In the midst of the solemnities and sufferings of Calvary, I hear Him cry,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!"
Yes, even here He could say, (was ever love like this?)
"Lo I come to do thy will O God!"
But when I come to the solemn question of justification, it is by His blood from all sin, and in His resurrection made the righteousness of God in Him. He once was condemned to death for us; but now God has raised Him from the dead, for our justification, as our Surety. Now, as man, in the very body once broken for us, God has justified Him in highest glory as the Surety and Head of the Church, His body. That elect body is raised from the dead with Him, and seated in Him where He is, as He is,
"that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."
I might multiply page after page of this resurrection-righteousness.
With the apostle, if there were no resurrection gospel, then there were no gospel at all;
"for if Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins."
But Christ is risen, and the believer is risen with Him, and therefore not in his sins, but righteous in the risen Christ, the beginning of the new creation. I have no doubt, that ignorance of the new creation in Christ risen, is the cause why men defend legal righteousness. No wonder that to one ignorant of resurrection, the gospel of the righteousness of God, in justifying the believer through the death and resurrection of Christ, is a new gospel. Jesus and the resurrection is as new a doctrine as it was at Athens 1800 years ago. Indeed it is one of the sad wonders of these last days, that the ancient doctrine of "through Jesus the resurrection" should have been so lost. The modern doctrine is, through Jesus the justification of the old man under law. The ancient doctrine was, death and burial to the old man, (see Rom. 6) and perfect justification, not of the old man, but of the new man, in the risen Christ Jesus. Oh! my reader, if you are dead with Christ, are you not justified from all sin? If you are risen with Him, are you not righteous in Him? He is your righteousness: not was, but is. (1 Cor. 1:30.) You are God's righteousness in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21.) Thus clothed in the risen Christ, is not this the righteousness which is of God by faith. (See Phil. 3:9-10.) Thus is thy need met, fellow-believer — so met, that there is now no condemnation. Dead with Christ, risen with Christ,
C. Stanley
Justification in the risen Christ; or "The faith which was once delivered to the saints."
"there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ." (Rom. 8.)And now as to obedience. Here again I find ancient and modern teaching equally opposed, as in the justification of a sinner. The ancient doctrine was the obedience of faith — the modern, the obedience of law. The one has all power for a holy walk — the other has no power. I do not find the law ever presented as the rule of life or walk to the risen child of God. The law was perfect for the purpose for which it was given. But the new commandment goes much farther:
"That ye love one another, as I have loved you."
"He that says he abides in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."Solemn words!
"As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance. But as he which has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16.)The principle of obedience in this chapter is very beautiful. The first thing named is the election of God the Father; then the sanctification or work of the Spirit in separating the soul to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Then the abundant mercy of God the Father in begetting us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Thus, being children of the resurrection, our obedience is not on the principle of bondage under law, but the obedience of children of resurrection. And was not this the ardent wish of the apostle Paul as to his walk and obedience?
"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings; being made conformable to his death." (Read the whole passage, Phil. 3:4-14.)Now could anything be more clear than this? The risen Christ was his rule of life, as well as his righteousness for justification. Surely we may all say, how little have we attained to this power of resurrection in our walk!"
C. Stanley
Justification in the risen Christ; or "The faith which was once delivered to the saints."
"May I not ask any fair mind, Who is here [Romans 3:26] meant? "That he might be just and the justifier," etc., — that who might be just? Answer uprightly, — if possible, without reference to your 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 in the world. No man who understands the Bible could give save one answer. It may seem a bold challenge, and some may think it too bold; but I am sure of my ground, and repeat that there is no man acquainted with the scriptures who would dare to say the assertion is wrong. It is, that God
"might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."
"It is God that justifieth." (Rom. 8)It is, therefore, "the righteousness of God," without a hint of transferring to us the legal righteousness of Christ. It is by virtue of Christ, or God could not be thus righteous in behalf of the sinner. Redemption is the righteous groundwork. 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 Jesus; it is the righteousness of God apart from law. It is God who has 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 heavy after as they were before. I 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 upon the earth heaping up their sins before, what were those sins when 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 proved 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 we, or any others, 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
"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. There was nothing in this which could give us a standing apart from sin in the presence of God.
Hence came in another thing. God set Christ forth, it is said here, as a propitiatory. Christ became the true mercy-seat. God gave Him up as a sacrifice for sin, that through His body, offered once for all, every soul that believes on Him might be sanctified — nay, more than that,
"by one offering perfected for ever."It is done in His death. He came to do, not merely the law, but the will of God, by the which will, the apostle carefully adds, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
*The hypothesis of Justification by the law-keeping of Christ involves the extraordinary consequence that our righteousness is made out in the days of His flesh, before His blood was shed to procure our pardon! But when was a theological idol not mis-shapen and incongruous?
Here, then, we have the righteousness of God developed in the simplest and clearest way. It means that God is just, and justifies in virtue of Christ. He is just, because sin has been met in the cross: sin has been judged of God; it has been suffered and atoned for by Christ. More than that: the Lord Jesus has so magnified God, and so glorified His character, that there is a positive debt now on the other side. Instead of the obligation being, as it was, altogether on man's side, who was accumulating that which never could be paid for by him, God now has interposed, and, having been so magnified in the man Christ Jesus in His death, He is now positively just when He justifies the soul that believes in Jesus. It is consequently the righteousness of God. For God is now approving Himself righteous to the claims of Christ. It is God now that owns and discharges His debt to Christ. Christ has undertaken the cause for God, and also for man. Very God, still He was a man; and it was in human nature, not before its assumption, that the wonderful work of atonement was done. The consequence is, although it was the witness of God's love that He gave His own Son, and gave His Son to become a man and die for men, that now the scale is turned. The debt of man to destroy him is not so great as that which Christ has paid to deliver him. Scripture makes it a matter of God righteously justifying him that believes, in virtue of what Christ has suffered for sins. Thus nothing can be clearer or fuller, nothing more blessed and precious, than the meaning of this remarkable expression. It is, indeed, a priceless treasure. What Christ did, as living here, is not the point; or surely, where we have the great unfolding of divine righteousness was just the place to bring in what occupied Christ in His life, if it were the ground of this truth.
But I go further. Show me anywhere an unambiguous portion of the word of God, where His fulfilling of the law is treated as a part of the righteousness of God. You can produce none. I can tell you some of those Scriptures which, perhaps, you think about; but I affirm that there is no proof whatever. It is better to be plain about that which is certain. Let others venture to say, if they will, what can be contradicted; it were well, in such a case, not to speak at all. But really there is no Scripture which makes what Christ was doing as under law, — I will not say the exclusive ground, but — any ground at all, of God's righteousness. Why not produce one? . . .
In Scripture, then, nothing can be more certain than that God's righteousness means His justice in justifying by virtue of Christ. We have seen in Christ, as the ground of justification, first, blood to put away the guilt of the old man before God; and next, resurrection, the spring of a new, more abundant, and holy life, where no condemnation can be.
"Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."And what do men substitute for this? A mere patching up of the old man as living under the law! Are you prepared to follow them? Can you accept this traditional earthly scheme as Christianity? It is really no better than lowering Christ, and His work for our justification, to a making up of the flesh's deficiencies as responsible under the law.* Is this YOUR Christianity? You ought to know by experience the disastrous effects — uncertainty of soul, anxiety, doubt, fear, frequent, if not habitual, sense of bondage and condemnation before God, which is precisely and naturally the result for the conscientious mind. As long as the first covenant stood, it was the old man schooled and disciplined by the action of the law; and such was the external condition in which even the saints of God were held, whatever might be their faith and its fruits individually. (Gal. 4) "Through fear of death," as we are told, "they were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Heb. 2) Alas! how very many are in this day of ours practically in the same condition. How many really abide as if they knew not whether the Holy Ghost were or not! as if they were not quite sure that Christ had died for them, or that He, risen from the dead, had procured them present and eternal nearness to God! Do you think this a calumny? The truth is, men are themselves too much under the darkening influence of the error to be competent judges. But even they ought not to be ignorant of the fact, that there are now in the world thousands and millions bearing the name of Christ who are still going on their legal round, just as if the glorious Deliverer had not yet come. How comes this to pass? Because they do not submit to nor understand the righteousness of God; because they pertinaciously cling to their bald thought of law-righteousness made up by Christ, which they have made into a kind of party badge and banner under which to fight. In a measure, God leaves even saints to taste the bitter fruit of their own folly. Hence it is that, though believers, they are kept from all enjoyment of peace and joy in Christ.
*Hence, as all men before conversion, in every age and country, are imagined to be equally under the law, the Gentile no less than the Jew, so the Christian is put under the same law, not (they say) for justification, but for a rule of life. Every whit of the system is false; the whole is a denial in principle both of Judaism and Christianity, of law and gospel, and even of sin and holiness, as taught in God's word. It is certain, from Rom. 2, 3, that the Jew is under law in contrast with the Gentile. It is certain, from Rom. 4, 5, that between the fall and Moses not one could be said to be under law. It is certain, from Rom. 6, 7, that the Christian is not under law but under grace, and this not only for justification, but for his walk; so that, even if he had been a Jew, he is become dead to the law and belongs to another, Christ risen: to be connected now with both is spiritual adultery, and leads to bad fruit. Rom. 8 is distinct that God has wrought in Christ the mighty work of condemning sin and delivering ourselves who believe, in order that the δικαίωμα or righteous sum, of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. And, in truth (as we are shown in Gal. 5), walking in the Spirit is the true guard against the lusts of the flesh; and if we are led by the Spirit, we are not under law, and yet we love, in which one word the whole law is fulfilled. For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc., against which there is assuredly no law. He that is under law does not love, but breaks the law; while he that loves fulfils the law (Romans 13) without being under it (indeed, by being under grace and not law). For the law is the strength of sin, never of holiness (1 Cor. 15), and applies not to a righteous man, but to the lawless and disobedient. (1 Tim. 1) Those who desire to be law-teachers in our day are evidently, therefore, equally unsound as to justification and the walk of the Christian, and, what is more serious they virtually frustrate God's grace, and annul for righteousness the death of the Saviour. "For" (says the Apostle)
"I through law am dead to the law that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God [not who kept the law for me, but] who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."Do you say Christ was only keeping the law in dying on the cross? Then you ignorantly blot out grace and debase the Saviour's infinitely precious death to the mere doing of a man's duty; for the law is just the expression of man's duty to God, not of God's grace to the sinner, nor of the saint's devotedness to God, still less of all Christ did to glorify God in either life or death. But the notion is utterly false. "By the grace of God" [in contrast with His law] Christ tasted death for every man.
Such is the practical state of those who commit themselves to the error; for thoroughly is it allowed, that — as in other cases, so in this — where there is simplicity of heart in cleaving to Christ, where there is a fervent sense of the personal worth of Christ, it is wonderful how God cheers them, spite of their perverse bias. It is no otherwise with so many persons who see not Christ's coming as an immediate hope: God in His grace sustains them blessedly where there is an eye single to Christ; and if they have written hymns, others can sing their hymns as well as they can, and perhaps better; but then, this is no effect of their doctrine as to the coming of Christ. The insertion of a heap of intervening events practically puts Him aside as our hope; for one is thus waiting for the happening of this and that event rather than for Christ. I attribute it to the Spirit of God raising them above the withering influence of their system.
Just so is it with those who, in lieu of the righteousness of God, advocate the idea of Christ under law as a substitute for it, and as our standing before God. In such persons, where there is liveliness of faith and a hearty sense of the Saviour's grace and glory, they rise, more or less, above their false views. But the inevitable native effect of the doctrine, as far as it is carried out in the soul, is to bring persons back into the condition in which saints were before Christ came to accomplish redemption. And so it is that, beginning with Roman Catholicism, you will find that the language of such persons is founded very much more upon the Psalms misapplied than on the truth and grace of God displayed in Christianity. And very naturally; for Popery (and, alas! not Popery alone) will tell you that Jerusalem and Zion are the Church of God. Popery acts as if, like Israel, commissioned to beat down all the Canaanites in the name of Jehovah. "O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us! Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones!" So now, Popery is happy where it acquires power to found the Inquisition — is happy where it can punish recusants and heretics soundly for their spiritual sins. Such is the effect of grafting the law on their system. Would that it were confined to one religious body only!
My reason for referring to it is, because it shows the issue, practically, of slipping outside the blessed region of liberty, and light, and life in resurrection, into which Christ has brought the saint now by virtue of His own redemption. Thus one loses sight of the new standing of grace, and returns to what could not but be before the cross, instead of following on through the cross into the presence of Christ on high, made the righteousness of God in Him.
Let me call your attention to an expression in the beginning of Romans 8, which illustrates the immense importance of the resurrection-side of justification: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them . . . ." — for whom Christ died, is it? No. For whom Christ shed His blood? No; but
"to them which are in Christ Jesus."Redemption by His blood we have seen, — not pardon only, as these misleaders say, but justification by the blood of Christ. It is the value Godward of Christ dying for us; but in that aspect there is no such thing as being "in Christ." But here is another character of privilege, because our justification is not only by the blood, but in the life of Christ risen from the dead. Accordingly, the believer not only has Christ for him on the cross, but he is "in Christ." What is the effect of this? "No condemnation." To justify, therefore, is not, as some teach, "to declare judicially the innocence of the party justified." For innocence, the condition of man unfallen, once lost, is gone for ever. But God, as always, brings in something better. The gospel, accordingly, is no return by law to the first Adam condition, even if it were conceivable, but the gift of relationship by grace to the Second man, founded on the judgment of sin, root and branch, in the cross, and displayed in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Now let us just look back at the scene where this victory was achieved for us in the grace of God. There are those who will tell you that there is nothing beyond the precious blood of Christ. This I do admit, that for depth of vindicating God, for thorough clearing of sin, and for intense manifestation of love, such as never else was conceived of, there is nothing that equals the cross and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you mean to affirm that there is no privilege founded upon His blood beyond pardon and cleansing — if you mean to deny that there is any new region of life and liberty for us to be ushered into, as God's sons, beyond the blood of Christ in itself, I cannot but infer that you labour under a profound mistake. It is to exalt, not to depreciate, His precious blood, if I say that I follow Him into resurrection, that I am one with Him glorified in heaven, and that Christ dead, risen, and ascended, alone gives me, through the Holy Ghost sent down, the true place of a Christian, and of the Church. No doubt His blood is the foundation, but His life in resurrection is the new character in which the believer stands before God. And here is one effect of it —
"No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."Why so?
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."It is not the blood of Christ, but the Spirit of life in Him after redemption was accomplished. The blood of Christ was the sacrificial basis on which the freedom is conferred; but He, risen from the dead, is the spring, pattern, and power of the freedom He confers. His blood cleanses from all sin.
"This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, not by water only, but by water and blood."But all this, indispensable as it may be, is not the same thing as the life of Christ risen. Upon the cross I see our Divine Saviour suffering for our sins; there too I see the heavens in darkness, and earth a scene of utter confusion and rebellion against Him; yea, not even God espousing His cause, but, on the contrary, forsaking Him — the true God, His own God, abandoning Him, the Holy One, whom He made sin for us. Does that give me my conscious peace, and joy, and liberty? Peace I never could have without it; but were there only the cross thus seen, how could we have it? Absolutely needed by us, absolutely needed to vindicate and glorify God, as the cross is, it seems to me that we ought to be in the darkness, the grief, and the shame of the cross, yea, that we ought to abide there still, if God were only thus dealing with His beloved Son. Why should we expect anything more? What right should we have to look beyond, were this all?
Once more look at the resurrection. What a new and pregnant fact! The same God who smote Jesus, raised Him: the same God who then forsook Him, now ranges Himself on His side, and, not satisfied with raising Him up from the grave, takes and sets Him,
"far above all principalities and powers,"in the very highest place,
"at the right hand of the Majesty on high."And what is all that, you ask, for you, me, and all who believe? Beloved friends, it is Christianity. It is not merely the cross, though the cross be the sole sufficient foundation; but you cannot separate Christianity from the person of Christ exalted on high, consequent on redemption. That risen Second Man in the presence of God it is who determines the acceptance of the believer now. Is Jesus not the object of the perfect favour of God? His work has brought every Christian into the same place of favour and relationship.
"You that were sometime alienated . . . . yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and unblamable, and unreproveable in His sight."Such is the cloudless grace in which all now stand who believe. There is no difference whatever as to the standing of the Christian.
"Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."If there is no difference as to sin, there is none as to acceptance: for Christ is all and in all.
''What shall we, then, say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 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. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,"etc. Here we have the apostle, in Rom. 8, triumphantly closing his comprehensive exposition of justification. But there is no weakening, modifying, or supplementing of the doctrine. Death and resurrection, or their results, remain, as ever, his theme, — the security for the believer, no less than the ground and character of divine righteousness. In our baptism we owned ourselves dead with Christ, buried with Him into death, that, like as He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life, reckoning ourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and delivered from the law, being dead to that wherein we were held. In the Lord's Supper it is His death we show forth till He come, not His living for us under law, which is nowhere so said, but eating of His body broken for us, and drinking of His blood shed for us. So again under the pain and pressure of our daily path, we have His intercession for us at God's right hand, His ever living on high to plead for us; nowhere a repairing of our faults in the flesh, as on earth and under law. There is no going back for comfort there;
"for such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens."It is all in pointed contrast with an earthly, legal state. For us it is the Son perfected for evermore.
"Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."Most sweet it is, that if any sin, "Jesus Christ the righteous" is the advocate we have with the Father; and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
The deep general want is, that Christians should know Christ, and their blessing in Him, far, far better; not merely read and hear occasionally, and even seem to enjoy at times, but that they should never allow or join in any lower or different language; for they know the Shepherd's voice, not that of strangers;
"and a stranger will they not follow," says the Lord, "but will flee from him."To slight the Lord's warning word is not the way to live in the new place into which the resurrection of Christ has carried us; but, on the contrary, for one exposed to the tones and ways of a worldly sanctuary, as temptations increase and thicken, the taste for and enjoyment of the truth impoverishes. Is it a matter for wonder if those who retrograde at last become the enemies, ay, the bitterest enemies, of that very testimony that once seemed so grateful to their hearts? For, allow me to ask, who at this moment are so keen, persistent, and implacable as those who, having once confessed, now turn away from the confession of an exalted Christ and of His speedy coming for us? This deadly opposition is going on, and you need be on your guard "lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness." Not that God does not, will not work, who will surely call out those who have ears to hear as long as Jesus tarries. May He grant them such faith and faithfulness to Christ, that they may walk far better than we have done! Not, of course, that we could desire to be put to shame; but that, even so, Christ might be magnified, and His heavenly testimony have a better answer in the hearts and ways of His own on earth. But be not deceived nor self-secure. There is such a thing as having had the truth and selling it. There are those who, having once appeared to value the truth, have allowed painful circumstances and mortified feelings to carry them away against those that were the instruments of God's gracious power for their good. And, depend upon it, when men become the antagonists of such, under various and plausible pretexts, they will ere long fall into the deeper guilt of becoming the enemies of God's testimony itself.
To return, however. The evident scope of the righteousness of God is, that He himself is righteous in justifying the believer by virtue of Christ's work in all its extent and blessedness — a work first viewed in the efficacy of His blood-shedding upon earth, but alone fully displayed in His resurrection, that we might stand in Him, cleared from all charge, the very old nature being thus judged dead and gone, and a new life given according to the power and character and acceptance of Him risen from the grave. Legal obedience is essentially individual. The law is the measure of duty as in the flesh to God. Its righteousness, therefore, wholly differs from God's righteousness, not in degree or sphere only, but in source and kind. To the sinner the law was necessarily a ministry of death and condemnation; to our blessed Lord an occasion for manifesting His perfectness, and having its own character retrieved. But never did the law hold out such a prospective reward as quickening or justifying others. The idea is purely imaginative, and entirely false. Nor did Christ earn life by doing the law: such a thought denies the glory of His person. In Him was life; yea, He was
