II

(Continued from page 24.)

You know that every violation of the Divine law, as it is objectively an infinite evil, lay the sinner under an obligation to endure infinite or eternal wrath, as a punishment answerable to the infinite demerit of the crime. Supposing you could say that your nature was perfectly holy, and that you were never guilty of the smallest actual sin, the law, notwithstanding, would condemn you for your breach of covenant in the first Adam, your representative. We read in the Scriptures of truth, that “in Adam all die;” but how could all die in Adam, if all had not sinned in him? Death is only the wages of sin. Be assured, then, that you are guilty, and condemned as such in the first Adam. Now, are you able, I ask, to answer the just demand of infinite satisfaction for sin? to endure the full execution of the condemning sentence of the broken covenant, to the full satisfaction of sin-avenging justice? How can you dwell with the devouring fire? How can you dwell with everlasting burnings? You are a reasonable creature, capable of reflection; think with yourself, if you be able to satisfy the law in these three articles, or in any one of them. If you be able, you may expect justification and eternal life by the works of the law; but if you are not, why, O why do you not despair of life by your own righteousness, and flee without delay to Christ as the Lord your righteousness? That you are far from being able, whether you believe it or not, is abundantly evident; for,

1. In the last place, I remark, that all the children of men “have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. iii. 23). We all have lost our original righteousness in the first Adam. “Behold,” says the Psalmist, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” We cannot therefore present to the law, now, perfect holiness of nature. We have sinned, not only in the first Adam, but, times and ways, innumerable in our own persons. As to our thoughts, while in our unregenerate state, He who searches the heart declares, that every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil continually (Gen. vi. 5). As to our words, one apostle testifies concerning unconverted sinners, “that their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; and the poison of asps is under their lips.” Another declares, that “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, . . . that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell” (James iii. 6). And as to the actions of sinners, we are told, that “they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” It is evident, then, that sinners are without strength, and that instead of being able to yield perfect and perpetual obedience to the precepts of the law, they cannot perform so much as a single action that is spiritually good and acceptable to God. As to satisfaction for sin, we who are finite creatures, cannot suffer an infinite degree of punishment, otherwise than through an infinite length of duration, or through all eternity. Thus it is manifest that we are utterly unable to yield to the law either perfect holiness of nature, or perfect righteousness of life, or complete satisfaction for sin; and far less, all of them together. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God; for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. iii. 20). Ah, the ignorance and Pharisaical pride of that sinner who is going about to establish his own righteousness in the affair of justification; and who imagines that he shall obtain a title to the favour of God, and to eternal life, by his own performance! And yet multitudes, alas! who call themselves Christians, entertain such sentiments; nay, many among us account none rational Christians but such as do so. The very first lesson, however, that all who are made wise unto salvation learn is, that by their own righteousness they can never be justified in the sight of God, or be entitled to eternal life.

II. I proceed now to the second general head, to show how, and on what accounts the Lord Jesus Christ is called the Righteousness of His people. And,

1. He may be so styled, because He was chosen from everlasting as their Surety and Representative, to fulfil all righteousness in their stead. Accordingly, we read in the Scriptures, that God made a covenant with His chosen One; that He laid on Him the iniquity of us all; and that He “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” God the Father, in consequence of infinitely free and sovereign grace, having chosen some of lost mankind to everlasting life, who, notwithstanding, could not obtain that life in a way consistent with the honour of law and justice, without answering all the demands of the law as a broken covenant, which, because of sin, they became incapable of doing, chose His only-begotten Son, and proposed that He should, in the fulness of time, fulfil all righteousness as their

Surety. Hence the Father is represented as saying, “I have laid help upon One that is mighty; I have exalted One chosen out of the people;” and the Son Himself declares, “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was” (Prov. viii. 23).

1. Christ may be called the righteousness of His people, because as their Surety He engaged with infinite willingness to fulfil it for them. “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart” (Psalm xl.6-8). As if He had said, “The law as a covenant is within my heart, to fulfil all its requirements in the room of my spiritual seed; and therefore I consent with my whole heart to vail my glory; to be made sin for them, and a curse for them; to bear their griefs and carry their sorrows! No sooner did the eternal Father propose it to Him than He cheerfully consented to be made of a woman, made under the law; to assume their nature, and in that nature to sist Himself as their public representative; taking upon Himself the obligation of obeying the precept, and of suffering the penalty of the law as a covenant, in their stead. Hence in I Cor. xv. 45, He is called the last Adam; for, as the first Adam engaged in the covenant of works, as the representative of his natural posterity, to yield perfect obedience for them, as the condition of eternal life; so the last Adam engaged in the covenant of grace, as the representative of His spiritual seed, to fulfil all righteousness for them, as the condition of eternal life. Hence also He is styled the Servant of the Father. “Thou art my Servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” The first man engaged for himself and his posterity in the service of God; but he soon forfeited his good character as a servant, and we all lost our reputation in him. In order, therefore, to recover the reputation of His spiritual seed, Christ “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,” that He might perform all the service which was necessary to entitle them to life.—The Lord Jesus, then, is called the Righteousness of believers, as He cheerfully engaged to fulfil it in their stead.

(To be continued.)