(Continued from page 420).
5. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.
THE doctrine of justification by faith is one of the great doctrines of the Christian faith and should always be given a prominent place in teaching and in preaching. At the Reformation it was rescued from that mass of enslaving legalism that had been accumulating for centuries and it shone forth as a bright star of hope to those who were enslaved by that legalism.
*It is not meant by this statement that the doctrine was altogether lost sight of for Downham, Davenant, Usher, O’Brien, Buchanan, etc., have produced abundant evidence to prove that the doctrine of justification by faith had faithful witnesses in every age of the Church from Apostolic times to Bernard.
A view of this doctrine in the personal experience of the believer brings cheer and comfort. This comes out strikingly in the experience of Rev. James Clerk, Thurso, one of the Haldane preachers, who became so depressed in mind that he gave up preaching. His friend, Rev. John Cleghorn, Wick, went to see him and on remarking to the disconsolate man that “the salvation of the guilty is in harmony with the rights of justice” he rose to a sitting posture in his bed and said with great feeling: “Blessed be God’s name sinners are not taken to heaven by stealth—the Court into which they are taken is in the face of open day in the full blaze of the light of eternal justice. There is no flaw in His work!” To Luther it was not merely a doctrine to be received by the understanding but a blessed truth making its appeal to the heart. He judged a church by the place it gave to this doctrine. It is well therefore that we should never forget that no amount of zeal on matters ecclesiastical will ever condone wrong or defective views of this doctrine. It is necessary that those who teach others should have sound and scriptural views on this subject.
The modern mind is troubled over the question: “How can God be just and punish sinners forever?” But the pressing question on the consciences of those brought in guilty before God is: “How can God be just and justify the sinner?” In the epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians we have the answer to this all important question. All our readers, at least most of them, are familiar with the answer given in the Shorter Catechism to the question “What is justification?” The whole burden of the gospel preached by the Apostles was “Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus, iii. 5). The faith by which the sinner is justified, usually termed justifying faith is thus described in the Larger Catechism: “Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and His righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation” (Answer to Question 72). God never justifies sin but He justifies the sinner that believes in Christ by a way that is in accordance with all the claims of His inflexible justice. It is this way of salvation that is set before us by the Apostle in all its noble grandeur in the Epistle to the Romans. It is impossible to deal with the various points involved in the Larger Catechism answer in a short article—it would require a treatise to do anything like justice to it. Fortunately we have excellent treatises in which this doctrine has been discussed and we take the liberty of directing the attention of such of our readers who would desire further instruction in this important doctrine to some of these. There is Luther’s classic commentary on Galatians* which came from his very heart as one that found deliverance from the death-bringing legalism under which he laboured. Then there are, among others, Dr. Owen’s treatise on Justification and Bishop O’Brien’s Essays on Faith. In the second volume of his Historical Theology Principal Cunningham deals with the subject in his masterly way. Dr. James Buchanan’s Cunningham Lecture, The Doctrine of Justification, is also a very useful work as he treats the subject historically and doctrinally.
*Bunyan said about it: “I prefer this book of Martin Luther’s (except the Bible) before all the books that I have ever seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience.”
6. REGENERATION.
At the outset it is necessary to point out that Regeneration is used by theologians in a two-fold sense. In the more comprehensive sense it is used to describe the first stages in the work of conversion or even more extensively the whole work of sanctification. In a narrower sense it is used to describe the instantaneous change from spiritual death to spiritual life. It is in the former sense that it is used by the Reformation and Puritan theologians. In its more restricted sense it is used by such outstanding theologians as Dr. Hodge, Dr. Shedd, etc. The distinction referred to above deserves our attention as certain statements made by these latter divines have caused confusion in the minds of those who have come across them. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to give a statement from Shedd in which the position of these divines on this point is clearly stated. “Regeneration,” he says, “is not effected by the use of means, in the strict signification of the term ‘means’ . . . . The appointed means of grace are the word, the sacraments, and prayer. None of these means are used in the instant of regeneration; first, because regeneration is instantaneous, and there is not time to use them; secondly, because regeneration is a direct operation of the Holy Spirit upon the human spirit. It is the action of Spirit upon spirit, of a divine Person upon the human person, whereby spiritual life is imparted. Nothing, therefore, of the nature of means or instruments can come between the Holy Ghost and the soul that is to be made alive” (Dogmatic Theol., II. 506). This statement we feel does not do justice to the teaching of Scripture nor to our Confession of Faith as far as the Word is concerned. (1). The following Scriptures seem to us to oppose it—”Of His own will, begat He us with the word of truth” (James i. 18); “In whom ye also trusted after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation” (Eph. i. 13); “Wherof ye heard before, in the word of the truth of the gospel, which is come unto you as it is in all the world” (Col. i. 5); and “Being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever” (I Pet. i. 23). There is no getting away from the fact that the “word of truth,” “the word of God,” is given a very important place here in connection with regeneration and if our definition of regeneration does not leave a place for it, it is wiser to revise our definition. Dr. Shedd, we are aware endeavours to explain away the bearing of “the word” in these texts in connection with regeneration but quite unsuccessfully in our opinion (Dogmatic Theol., II. 509). Again, the Westminster Divines, though not devoting a chapter to the subject make the following statement in chap. x. sec. iii.—”Elect infants dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.” These words, if we read them aright, seem to say quite plainly that the elect are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word—the two exceptions being (1) elect infants dying in infancy, and (2) other elect persons incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word. No doubt the theologians whose views we have noticed above might say and that rightly that the Westminster Divines are referring to regeneration its wider aspect. But whatever difference of views exist among conservative theologians on this point they are all agreed that the work of regeneration, of the new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not only superhuman but divine. The discourse delivered by the Lord Himself in the hearing of Nicodemus settles that point for ever for all those who accept the Master’s teaching. The absolute necessity of being born again before a sinner can enter into the kingdom of God is stated in the simplest and most emphatic way. The Saviour’s announcement, therefore, that this birth is wrought by the Holy Spirit shuts out all hope of getting into the kingdom of God by merely human means. In his great work on the Holy Spirit, Dr. Owen deals with the subject of regeneration and discusses it in Book iii. chaps. i-v of this work to which Dr. Smeaton pays the high tribute—”It has long been regarded, and justly, as the most important work on the Spirit in any literature” (Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, p. 329).