LECTURE XIII.

JUSTIFICATION; ITS RELATION TO GRACE, AND WORKS.

THE great cardinal question on the subject of Justifi

cation, and that on the right settlement of which the determination of every other mainly depends,-relates to its immediate ground; and amounts in substance to this,-What is the righteousness, on account of which a sinner is forgiven and accepted as righteous, in the sight of God? or, What is the righteousness to which God has regard in bestowing, and on which the sinner should rely for obtaining, the forgiveness of his sins, and a title to eternal life? or in yet another form,-Whether the righteousness which is revealed as the ground of our Justification be the vicarious righteousness of Christ imputed, or our own personal righteousness, infused and inherent? This is the real ultimate question; but the fact that our Justification is, in Scripture, connected, in various ways, with the source from which it is derived,— the manner in which it is bestowed,-the means by which it is appropriated and enjoyed, the effects which flow from it, and the evidence by which it is attested and proved, renders it necessary to consider some subordinate questions which have been raised concerning it.

PROP. XXI. When God forgives sinners, and accepts them as righteous in His sight, they are 'justified freely by His grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.'

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Some have imagined that these two-Grace and Redemption are necessarily incompatible with each other, or mutually exclusive; and have held that, if Justification be 'by grace,' it cannot be 'through a redemption,' or, conversely, that if it be 'through a redemption,' it cannot be by grace.' That the Apostle felt no difficulty in combining them, and no need to harmonize or reconcile the one with the other, is sufficiently evident from the fact, that he speaks of both in the same sentence, and invariably represents our Justification as depending equally, although in different respects, on each of them. 'Being justified freely,' says he, 'by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.' His language is peculiarly strong; he affirms, not only that we are 'justified by His grace,' but that we are 'justified freely by His grace' (δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι). Nor is this a solitary instance of the same combination; for he says elsewhere, 'He hath made us accepted in the Beloved; in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us:" both the 'redemption through His blood,' and 'the forgiveness of sin' which was procured by it, are here said to be, not only 'by grace,' but 'according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us.' So that, according to the Apostle, the 'forgiveness of sins' is the fruit both of 'grace' and 'redemption.' In other passages, he speaks of 'the righteousness of Christ,' just as he here speaks of 'redemption through His blood,' in immediate connection with the riches and freeness of God's grace. He speaks of those 'who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness;' and even of 'grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." The reason is clear. The 2 Eph. i. 7; also Col. i. 14. 3 Rom. v. 17, 21.

1 Rom. iii. 24.

grace of God was manifested, not only, nor even chiefly, in the forgiveness and acceptance of sinners, but also, and far more signally, in the divine provision for that end,-in the Father's gift of His only-begotten Son,-in His 'setting Him forth to be a propitiation,'—in His providing the satisfaction which His justice demanded,-and in His thus making mercy and truth to meet together, righteousness and peace to kiss each other.' For 'herein. is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Our sense of the riches and the freeness of His grace, so far from being impaired, is immeasurably enhanced, by the consideration of the costly sacrifice by which our justification was secured; and it is only when that consideration is kept in view, that we feel the full force of the Apostle's argument, when, founding upon it, he infers that there is no other blessing which the same grace will not bestow, when it delivered up His own Son to die for us. For 'God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us;' and 'if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." It may be safely affirmed, that all our highest views of the riches and freeness of God's grace are derived from the work of redemption; and that those who seek to separate the pardon of sin from a sacrifice of propitiation have comparatively very slight impressions, both of the justice of God in punishing, and of the mercy of God in forgiving, the transgressors of His law. (1)

It is when we take into account both the privilege of Justification, and the divine provision which was made for its being bestowed, that we are enabled to form, not only a right estimate of the riches and freeness, but also a 1 Ps. lxxxv. 10; 1 John iv. 10. 2 Rom. v. 8, 10.

scriptural conception of the nature, of God's grace. The meaning of the term is fixed by the manner in which His grace has been manifested. Its scriptural import has been misunderstood and perverted, in a way which would have been impossible, had this obvious remark been duly attended to. It has been held to denote, not the free love and favour of God, from which every good and perfect gift proceeds, but merely one of these gifts as bestowed on men, not the grace which resides in the Divine Mind, and is the fountainhead of every blessing whatever, but the grace which is infused into the mind of man, and becomes subjectively inherent there,-not the mercy which pardons and accepts the sinner, but the divine energy which renews and sanctifies him. That we may neutralize or correct this pernicious error, it is not necessary to deny that the term grace may be legitimately used to denote every one of the gifts which grace bestows,-for, by an easy figure of speech, that which properly belongs to the cause is often applied derivatively to the effect; and we may speak of the grace of pardon, or the grace of adoption, or the grace of sanctification, or the graces of faith, hope, and charity, merely for the purpose of indicating the source from which they flow. But it is a dangerous error, to confound these effects with their common cause,-and still more to restrict the grace of God, which is revealed in the Gospel, as if it meant only the grace which is infused into, and inherently subjective in, the soul of man. It is an attribute essential to the divine nature, and acting freely according to the counsel of the divine will. Some even of the blessings which it bestows on man,such as the free pardon of sin, and the gracious acceptance, and adoption, of the sinner,-are not, in their own nature, infused habits or inherent graces, but a change merely in his relation to God;-a change which is always connected

with a renewal of his moral character, but should never be confounded with it, or supposed to rest upon it, as its ground and reason, and which implies only an act of God's grace, of which he is the object through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. But the crowning proof that this is the scriptural meaning of the term is supplied by the fact, that His grace had its first and highest manifestation in the gift of His Son, and in the scheme of redemption through Him,-a manifestation in which there was nothing else than a free, unprompted, unsolicited expression of His sovereign love, and which consisted in a gift bestowed,-not in a grace infused, yet such a gift as included in it every other fruit of His 'good-will to men.' (2)

PROP. XXII. Justification by grace' is identified, in Scripture, with Justification 'by faith,' and opposed to Justification by works.'

Its gracious character, so far from being obscured, is only made the more manifest, by its being connected with faith;-'Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace;" and the two expressions, 'by grace,' and 'by faith,' are used indifferently to express the same truth. There can be no reasonable doubt, therefore, that if we are justified by grace,' we are justified also 'by faith;' and, conversely, that, if we are justified 'by faith,' we are justified also by grace.' It is the more necessary to mark the convertible use of these two expressions, as being substantially equivalent to each other, because the Apostle often uses them interchangeably, and sometimes makes use of the first where we should have expected him to employ the second. When he is reasoning, for example, from the justification of Abraham to that of

1 Rom. iv. 16.