ROMANS V. I -II.
" Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
The apostle has already concluded his argument as to the impossibility of man being justified on the principle of law. He has shown the hopeless ruin of man, be he the lawless Gentile or the religious Jew. The difficulty as to the law, in the minds of so many, lies not in what the law is, but in what it was given for. There can be no question as to the plain fact, and we cannot insist too strongly upon it, that, "The law is holy and just and good." But when the question arises, For what purpose did God give the law ? many who will readily assent to the truth of what the law is, will here answer wrongly.
It is not that Scripture is not plain enough in its utterances on this point. Its own question is:"Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of (1:e., that we might have) transgressions, till the Seed should come, to whom the promise was made" (Gal. 3:19). "Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound" (Rom. 5:20). "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. 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 " (Rom. 3:19, 20).
These texts, and many more, show clearly the purpose of the law was to bring out what was actually
in the heart of man-to give him a knowledge of sin, and of what it is as a principle of evil, acting in power when provoked by the interdict of law; for from law sin derives its strength. "The strength of sin is the law" (i Cor. 15:56). The gracious object which God had in this was the ministration of death and of condemnation. The sentence of this received by man would be the opening of his eyes to the provision of God for his need as seen typically in the Jewish sacrifices, or as. now, in all its divine fulness, in the sacrifice of Christ. The law was a ministration-something by which man was to be served, if only he would accept the service.
The question is raised in Rom. 3:31, " Do we then make void the law through faith ? " The answer is:"God forbid; yea, we establish the law." One or other of two things was demanded by the law- fulfilment or death. It could not demand both. Fulfil it we cannot – we are hopelessly sinners. Establish it we can. Its purpose was to serve the sentence of death upon us, and by the acceptance of this we establish the law. We establish it as being holy and just and good when we accept, on the testimony of the word of God, which is faith, its sentence upon ourselves as breakers of it. "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law " (Rom. 3:28).
Two witnesses are produced in proof of this principle; such two that would-be law-keepers must sanction as competent to testify – Abraham and David. As to Abraham, "If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:2-5). God here imputes righteousness, apart from works, to Abraham. "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin " (Rom. 4:6-8). And again, as to Abraham, Scripture declares:'' Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification " (Rom. 4:23-25). "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:i)-justified by faith, declared righteous by the acceptance of God's testimony to His Son. '' This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (i Tim. 1:15).
It is in the owning in the presence of God that we are sinners, that we find eyes to see Christ as the way to the arms of His saving love. It is here, in the owning that we are sinners, His voice is heard, "Come unto Me." The convicted soul may say, But I might dishonor Thee. His answer is, "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out." "Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God." Peace with God! Oh, the blessedness of it! Where disquiet reigned, where dread laid hold on the soul, where terror was, as we thought of God in His holiness looking upon us in our sins, where the conscience cowered in guilty abasement, -now, peace! Precious word! Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:Christ the object of faith; the One to whom our trust is invited, the One who has met sin's just deserts in our stead. Peace, grounded on the wondrous fact that the Son of God has met the sword of divine justice wielded by the hand of the righteous Judge, the thrice holy God, and met and satisfied its every claim. Satisfied it too, in such fashion that He, the claims of whose righteousness demanded such an awful penalty, has had that claim transformed to debt, so that divine righteousness owes to itself the justification of him that believeth in Jesus.
Moreover we have also by Him access, through faith, into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Faith gives us access into the place of favor in which grace has now placed us. The favor of God to sinners, undeserved surely, has through the work of Christ, given all who have faith in Him an indisputable, abiding, and unchanging place before the throne of the Majesty on high. For by one offering He hath perfected forever (in continuity) them that are sanctified, and we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb. 10:10, 14).
This place of standing gives boldness,-grounded as it is on that which is external to, and not of, ourselves in any wise, that is, on the blood of Jesus,- boldness to rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We can speak with boldness and gladness of heart when we think of that future hour of bliss which shall reveal God in all the wonders of His own perfection as displayed in the person, attributes, and offices of Christ.
But meantime we pass through a world wherein tribulation is our lot. We glory however in tribulations, (that is, in the midst of them) knowing that the gracious purpose of God through these tribulations is to work patience in us, and through that, experience-that is, a larger knowledge of His ways, and being weaned from the world. How often He has to put bitter trials in our path to wean us from this world so attractive to our sinful hearts. Experience worketh hope-begets it in power in the soul. Thus, not only in view of our place of standing but also in the midst of all our trials, undauntedly we may boast in hope of the glory of God; for those trials are designed by Wisdom's hand of love to clarify our vision; and thus hope, the hope of the glory of God, becomes an active principle in the soul, sustaining and comforting us as we pass on to the scene of its display. It is a hope that cannot be disappointed, and so cannot leave the soul ashamed. We know this because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. We have tasted the preciousness and the faithfulness of that love, the Spirit of God Himself filling our hearts with a sense of it, as looking at Calvary, where, when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. "Yet"! After ages of patient trial, during which God sought to bring home to the heart and conscience of man his utter ruin, that in his helplessness he might turn to Him and find mercy.
Those ages of trial ran their course, and the due time came-the time for a settlement of the question of sin, the question of God's righteousness in dealing with it while yet showing mercy. These questions must now find their solution:and solved they are by Christ dying for the ungodly. The love that provided for us as without strength will surely have patience with our weakness while working in us conformation to that which is its desire for us. Nor yet will failure, shameful as, alas, it may be, stop the flow of that love which manifested itself for us while we were ungodly.
Man was proven to be ungodly when he, as representatively tried in the trial of the nation of Israel, set up the golden calf in the face of the commandment which he had accepted of God:"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." It did not alter, but only aggravated, the intrinsic idolatry when they linked the name of Jehovah to their idol and their feast. How active is this principle to-day -men attaching the name of Christ to things that are openly contrary to that name; cheating themselves into believing that this "christening" gives sanction to all else, thus showing how the power of desire dominates that of reason, when the will, while away from God, is set towards its object.
Man was proven to be without strength when, in the second giving of the law, for centuries he was afforded opportunity to recover himself, provision having been made for his failure in the sacrificial system. But he still drifted toward idolatry, and finally was so given up to it that God sent him into captivity. When returned from the captivity his religious inventiveness produced that master-piece of delusion-Phariseeism,-the first necessity of which is a heart away from God, so far away from Him as to mistake the glow of self-complacency for the warmth of His approval. Phariseeism is that which makes of the law of God a thing of rags and patches, that it may bolster up a fancied righteousness. The pure light of truth streaming from the gracious Son of God exposed so thoroughly its hollowness and corruption, that it rested not till it saw Him in the tomb, sealed and made sure-sure as man could make it. We must always bear in mind it was the religious people who were primarily responsible for the murder of the Son of God. It was the religious people who said:"This is the Heir, come let us kill Him." It was the religious people, who, when Pilate was minded to let Him go, clamored for His blood. The natural man at his best, in the midst of his own religious excellence, is but an enemy of God and a hater of His truth.
Truly the law did its work well. He who gave it knew how to bring to the light that which was in the heart of man. The law was added that the offence might abound. But, blessed be God-"where sin abounded there did grace much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." How different this love to that of man. '' For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die,"-human love is attracted by merit in its object-"but God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." No merit-only helplessness, corruption and ruin in the objects of His love. That love finds its motive in itself; and so a world of sinners is no barrier to its display, but on the contrary, a fit place for the shining forth of its holy unselfishness.
Oh, that men could see how wondrous and how great is the love of God which He commends to us in the gift of His Son as a sacrifice for sin! It is not difficult, ordinarily, to show men they have sinned; but while they admit this, the treachery of a deceitful heart would whisper the hope of a bettering change. The common confounding of effect with cause, always mischievous, is most seriously so here when men argue they are sinners because they have sinned; while the truth is they have sinned because they are sinners.
When one lays hold of the appalling fact that he is a sinner, and the reforming of his ways as affecting for the better his moral conduct can in no wise alter this fact, then a true turning-point toward God is reached; then true repentance is possible, and not merely a passing remorse because of some specific acts of sin; then the soul will be ready to accept God's judgment upon itself personally, as separated from its fellows, and having to do with God alone in strict personal responsibility. Then how good for the soul to be brought to know the love of God, a love that was always there, a love with a wondrous commendation-the love of God as displayed in the sacrifice of Christ. Then the meaning of the cross, the meaning of these words, " The Son of man must be lifted up," comes upon the soul bringing with it a deep sense of shame and humiliation that such awful necessity confronted divine love ere it could pour itself out in grace and truth-ere the truth of what I am could come to me in the grace of what God is toward me. Truly "herein is love:not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." In my need I am led by the goodness of God to repentance, and to the acceptance of the truth that God in His grace has met my soul's deep need by the blood of Jesus.
"Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." I am now declared righteous because in the shedding of the blood of Jesus my sins have been atoned for in righteousness, and I am covered by the sheltering blood that has been shed under the wrath of a just God against my sins. Therefore I shall be saved from wrath through Him whose blood has met the judgment which was my due. The wrath-meeting blood of Jesus is the only shelter for a sinner from judgment. How good to know there is no wrath for me; to know it too on the testimony of the word of God set forth in plain statement and argued from the logic of divine facts. "For if, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son," the argument is, "much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."
I am brought to the arms of eternal love-saved from wrath; reconciled to God. How wonderful! yes-but not only so:for we also joy in God. Nothing could be further removed from the fear of God's wrath than to find our joy in Him. But how can joy be found in a holy God by one who has been an enemy?-"through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." G. M.