In verses 21 and 22 it was stated generally that Christ was the
channel, and faith the condition, of righteousness. The personal
object of faith was declared, but not the special thing in Christ
which was to be trusted in. That is fully set forth in verses 24-26.
We cannot attempt to discuss the great words in these verses, each of
which would want a volume. But we may note that 'justified' here
means to be accounted or declared righteous, as a judicial act; and
that justification is traced in its ultimate source to God's
'grace,'--His own loving disposition--which bends to unworthy and
lowly creatures, and is regarded as having for the medium of its
bestowal the 'redemption' that is in Christ Jesus. That is the
channel through which grace comes from God.
'Redemption' implies captivity, liberation, and a price paid. The
metaphor of slaves set free by ransom is exchanged in verse 25 for a
sacrificial reference. A propitiatory sacrifice averts punishment
from the offerer. The death of the victim procures the life of the
worshipper. So, a propitiatory or atoning sacrifice is offered by
Christ's blood, or death. That sacrifice is the ransom-price through
which our captivity is ended, and our liberty assured. As His
redemption is the channel 'through' which God's grace comes to men,
so faith is the condition 'through' which (ver. 25) we make that
grace ours.
Note, then, that Paul does not merely point to Jesus Christ as
Saviour, but to His death as the saving power. We are to have faith
in Jesus Christ (ver. 22). But that is not a complete statement. It
must be faith in His propitiation, if it is to bring us into living
contact with His redemption. A gospel which says much of Christ, but
little of His Cross, or which dilates on the beauty of His life, but
stammers when it begins to speak of the sacrifice in His death, is
not Paul's Gospel, and it will have little power to deal with the
universal sickness of sin.
The last verses of the passage set forth another purpose attained by
Christ's sacrifice; namely, the vindication of God's righteousness in
forbearing to inflict punishment on sins committed before the advent
of Jesus. That Cross rayed out its power in all directions--to the
heights of the heavens; to the depths of Hades (Col. i. 20); to the
ages that were to come, and to those that were past. The suspension
of punishment through all generations, from the beginning till that
day when the Cross was reared on Calvary, was due to that Cross
having been present to the divine mind from the beginning. 'The judge
is condemned when the guilty is acquitted,' or left unpunished. There
would be a blot on God's government, not because it was so severe,
but because it was so forbearing, unless His justice was vindicated,
and the fatal consequences of sin shown in the sacrifice of Christ.
God could not have shown Himself just, in view either of age-long
forbearance, or of now justifying the sinner, unless the Cross had
shown that He was not immorally indulgent toward sin.