(Continued from page 332, Vol. of 1915.)

7.JUSTIFICATION BY HIS GRACE.

Rom. 3:24:"Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

Titus 3:7:" That being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

To be justified by grace means that no merit whatsoever is found in us. All is from God Himself. By it we become heirs according to "hope of eternal life." As sure as the hope is to be realized, so sure is our heirship also; for, as the life is eternal, so also is our heirship, for it is according to this life. As to the difference between this and justification by blood, the latter is the righteous ground upon which God clears us.

In Titus we have the ways in which His grace has acted toward us, and which, it is stated, justifies (chap. 3 :4, 6). He has saved us according to His mercy, "through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." Here a blessed fulness is opened up. God's merely- has acted in saving, and that in a twofold way. First, by the "washing of regeneration." This " washing " is of the whole person-the bath- which applies to or affects the individual in his entirety. It corresponds to the washing of Aaron and his sons (Lev. 8 :6), when they were to be fitted for the priesthood.

This word "regeneration" is used in only one other passage of Scripture (Matt. 19 :28), where it refers to the millennial kingdom, from which we may gather a most important lesson as to the meaning of this " washing of regeneration" referred to in Titus. What will be true of the earth in Christ's millennial kingdom, when righteousness shall reign, sin having no more dominion over the earth (though not yet wholly removed from it), is true of us already in such a way as to affect our whole position and relationship. For us, too, as a present thing, righteousness reigns through Jesus Christ, and we having died and risen with Christ can now reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Thus we are under .the reign of righteousness. And in this reckoning of faith there is power, so that sin shall not have dominion over us. We are thus delivered from the power of sin. This is truly regeneration for us ; and being thus washed means a complete washing from all of the old creation.

Typically, this lesson is unfolded to us in the six days' work of Gen. i, where the regeneration of the earth is effected for the new order of life to inhabit it. Thus we go on to what follows, "the renewing of the Holy Spirit," which is not only a continual refreshing, but the internal work of the Spirit, changing from what is of the old into the new, so that as to our manner of life we are transformed by the Spirit's internal work, "the renewing of mind" (Rom. 12 :2). Both of these things look on to the completion of salvation, when their fulness shall be made good to us. John Bloore

(To be continued.)