Article in British and Foreign Evangelical Review, July, 1880.
THE justification of a sinner is a Divine transaction full of wonders. It is emphatically and eminently “the doing of the Lord” for “It is God that justifieth,” and “It is marvellous in our eyes.” Nor can it be understood with that spiritual intelligence which calls forth our admiration and gratitude and praise, without our being led to see, as a first principle—what is three times stated in the compass of a single verse (Gal. ii, 16), that “a man is not justified by the works of the law.”
The justification of an unfallen, ever-dutiful creature and holy subject of God is an act most simple, involving not the slightest moral difficulty, and illustrating no marvellous or peculiar principles. It consists simply in judicially declaring the obedient and righteous one, whose case is to be disposed of, to be what he really is—obedient and righteous. It acquits of all blame or charge him who by stainless purity and innocence has incurred none; and it pronounces to be worthy of reward or entitled to the promise, him who by his own merit and service according to the stipulated condition, has earned his right and title and reward to the full. Nothing can be more simple in its procedure, or more obvious in its principle, than justification in such a case as this. The innocence of the innocent is investigated and admitted: the righteousness of the righteous is brought to light and acknowledged and rewarded. The just is pronounced to be just, and accepted and dealt with as such. The just is justified.
But when we pass from the justification of the holy and unfallen to contemplate the justification of the sinner, it immediately becomes clear that if such a thing is not an utter impossibility—if it is not, as reason would at first sight pronounce, a contradiction in terms—it must be through
* The author of this article, although written under a pen-name, is considered to be Dr. Hugh Martin, D.D.—Editor.
the introduction of other principles—principles otherwise unnecessary and inadmissible, and indeed altogether new and astonishing.
For, let it be observed that justification in this case, precisely as in the other, is to consist in a judicial announcement that the party is free from blame and righteously entitled to reward. This is to be the import of the act performed or privilege conferred—a full acquittal from all charge or condemnation, and a full acknowledgment of a perfect right and title to all honour, inheritance, and life eternal. This is to be the deliverance from the tribunal of the Holy One—the tribunal from which no error can proceed, and from which no appeal can be taken; and this deliverance, accurate, final, irresistible, is to be anent a sinner—a sinner guilty before God and his mouth stopped—declaring that sinner, notwithstanding that he is such to be free from blame and entitled to favour and blessing and heaven. Here we again repeat, is a marvellous thing; and the marvel is that it is not an impossibility, an unrighteousness, a contradiction. To save it from being such, it is requisite that certain principles be introduced, unknown in the simple transaction of justifying the holy and unfallen.
These principles are three—namely, Grace, Suretyship, and Faith.
We shall, in the first place, notice the manner in which they are introduced, rendering the justification of a sinner possible, holy, and real; and, in the second place, we shall show how each of these three principles excludes the presence and influence of works or merit from this same act of a sinner’s justification—thus demonstrating the thrice repeated declaration or doctrine of Gal. ii, 16, that “a man is not justified by the works of the law.”
I. In the first place, we propose to give a sketch of the manner in which these three principles, unnecessary and unknown in the justification of the innocent and obedient, become requisite and indispensable in justifying the ungodly.
- And first, Grace must appear, else the sinner lies unpitied, unrelieved, beneath the sentence due to his iniquity; for “cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them,” and “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men.” Hence grace must interpose.
In justifying the holy and unerring, grace is not required nor admissible. “To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” Omnipotent accuracy in examining his work or obedience, and then inflexible justice announcing and rewarding its faultless perfection—this is all that is required where the law has been fulfilled and its reward been earned. Justice, simple and alone, rules this simple case. But where the subject is a sinful man, confessedly rebellious and apostate, alienated by an evil heart and by wicked works from God, and worthy of the Divine abhorrence and wrath—if the penalty, righteously incurred, is nevertheless to be remitted, and the reward not earned is nevertheless to be conferred, this result must accrue from the grace of God; and the grace thus coming into action must obviously be absolutely sovereign and free. For the sinner, having broken a law that is holy and just and good, is in the hands and at the disposal of an offended righteous lawgiver; justice awards to him the wrath of God and the second death; it does so with unimpeachable righteousness. There can be no principle of holy government traversed, no
rights in God’s whole creation violated, no rightful claims dishonoured or neglected, if this guilty and condemned transgressor be forsaken to the doom he has incurred. And the Sovereign Lord is in the position therefore—a position standing out in bold relief against the dark background of the sinner’s dreadful doom, strongly and sharply delineated in the light of unanswerable justice as it fills the court of heaven and discloses the rectitude of the sinner’s condemnation and the terrors of the sinner’s peril—the Sovereign Lord is in the position to vindicate his pure sovereignty and the free good pleasure of his will, and to declare that “he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy; he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion.” Any dislike to his sovereignty, any appeal against his mere sovereignty in such a case, is an infatuated retreat into the hands of justice, as it is offended by our sin, and demands our death. The one door of hope here, in this valley of Achor, is the good pleasure of the will of God—the introduction and inbringing of singular, signal, sovereign grace; the only grace, free, sovereign, and unfettered, that can be seasonable or suitable, or sufficient for the crisis. The grace of God must appear, bringing salvation. For while the sinner stands condemned, shut up to the righteously deserved wrath of God, sovereign grace holds the key of the position, the key of David that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth. Save for the introduction of grace, the sinner must go down into the pit.
If you are saved from going down into the pit, if you are acquitted and accepted notwithstanding your demonstrated and acknowledged guilt, if after lying in the hands of Divine justice you nevertheless appear at liberty again no more condemned but justified of God, most obvious it is that you are justified freely by his grace. In proportion to the force with which you realised the fact and the righteousness of your former condemnation must you now be ready with the deeper emphasis to say, “According to his mercy he saved me, that being justified by grace, I might be made an heir according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit. iii, 7). Thus all throughout Holy Scripture the sinner’s acquittal from guilt and acceptance as righteous are attributed to the grace, the mercy, the free love of God. “According to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. i, 5, 6, 7). Expressly, indeed, to illustrate the existence, in the glorious depths of his own nature, of this lovely attribute of grace, does God justify the ungodly revealing at the same time its unsearchable riches, its infinite fulness, its absolute all-sufficiency, which can meet the case of literally the chief of sinners. He willeth to make known the riches of his glory in the vessels of mercy. His heart is set on demonstrating the boundlessness of the mercy he hath kept in store for them. Yea, and his grand design is not merely to show his grace in this life and in this world, during the ages of this world only, or to the inhabitants of this world only, but that in the ages to come, and unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places; in coming ages and in other worlds; he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ (Eph. ii, 7). Hence, while we were yet without strength, while we were ungodly, while we were enemies guilty and condemned, God commendeth his love to us, in that he made provision to save us from wrath, to justify us freely, to reconcile us to himself as
righteous and pleasing in his sight. And herein “God is rich in mercy, even for the great love wherewith he loved us, when we were dead in trespasses and in sins: for by grace are ye saved” (Eph. ii, 4).
Hence, the saints in Scripture, in seeking relief from the sentence of condemnation and the sense of sin, are found betaking themselves to the mercy, the grace, the loving kindness of God. “Hear me, O God; for thy loving kindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies” (Ps. lxix, 16). “Remember, O Lord, they tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions; according to thy mercy remember me, for thy goodness’ sake, O Lord” (Ps. xxv, 6, 7). “Where is the sounding of thy bowels and of thy tender mercies towards me?” (Isa. lxiii, 15). “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions” (Ps. li, 1). And having found relief, to this attribute of God and this principle in his procedure towards them, to the sovereign and free introduction of this principle of grace, of gratuitous compassion, of unclaimable, unexpected love, they uniformly attribute all the glory. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy” (Ps. cvii, 1, 2).
Thus in the justification of the ungodly, Grace is conspicuous. It is a free gift that comes upon sinners unto justification of life; abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness. And under the reign of grace alone could the ungodly be acquitted or accepted as righteous. But this principle of Grace has been introduced, to the praise of the glory of God, and in a measure of full sufficiency for every hearer of the gospel: for “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. v, 20).
(To be continued.)