_THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF FAITH._
Righteousness is a term which is applied in different ways. Often it
denotes excellence of personal character. So used, it suggests the idea
of a life whose manifestations agree with the standard by which lives
are tried. Sometimes it denotes rectitude or justice, as distinguished
from benevolence. Sometimes a claim to be approved, or judicially
vindicated, is more immediately in view when righteousness is asserted.
Paul himself freely uses the word in different applications, the sense,
in each passage, being determined by the context. Here we have the
righteousness of faith, as distinguished from the righteousness of
works, or righteousness by the law. The passage belongs to a large class
in which righteousness is spoken of as accruing, through Christ, to
those who are unrighteous, or whose own righteousness has proved
unreliable. Let us try to fix the thought which the Apostle designed to
inculcate in such passages.[5]
[5] The statement which follows in the next six paragraphs is partly
based on Pfleiderer, _Paulinismus_, p. 172 fol. He will perhaps be
regarded as a tolerably impartial reporter on this point.
The Apostle, then, conceives of the righteousness, of which he has so
much to say, as God's: it is the "righteousness of God" (Rom. i. 17,
iii. 22, x. 3). Yet it is not God's in the sense of being an attribute
of His own Divine nature: for (in the passage before us) it is called
"the righteousness _from_ God"; it arises for us by our faith in Jesus
Christ; and so (2 Cor. v. 21) "we are made the righteousness of God in
Christ." It is, therefore, something that is from God to us believing, a
"gift of righteousness" (Rom. v. 17). At the same time it is not, on the
other hand, an attribute or quality of the human mind, whether natural
or imparted; for it is something "revealed" (Rom. i. 17). Also, it is
opposed to the wrath of God. Now, that wrath is indeed an element of our
state as sinners, but not a feature of our character. Further, it could
not be said of any internal character of our own, that we are to be
"obedient," or are to "submit" to it (Rom. x. 3).
In the latter part of Romans v. we have set before us two counter
conceptions: the one of sin and condemnation, deriving from Adam,
antecedent to the personal action and offence of those who descend from
him; the other of free gift unto justification, following from the
righteousness or obedience of Christ, this being a gift of grace
abounding unto many. In either case the Apostle sees arising from one a
relation which pertains to many, and which brings forth its results to
them: on the one hand, sin and death; on the other, righteousness and
life. In both cases a common relation is recognised, under which
individuals are found existing; and in either case it traces up to the
one--to Adam or to Christ. Whatever difficulties may be felt to attach
to this passage, the Apostle's doctrine of the righteousness of faith
must be understood so as to agree with the way of thinking which the
passage expresses.
It appears, then, that the righteousness which is from God, unto or upon
faith, expresses a relation between God and believers that is the proper
basis for fellowship with God, confiding on their part, communicative of
the best blessings on His. It is analogous to the relation conceived to
arise when a perfectly righteous man is approved and set apart to weal;
and like that it stands in contrast with the relation due to sin as it
incurs wrath. It follows that this righteousness, if it exists or
becomes available for those who have sinned, includes the forgiveness of
sins. But it includes more than forgiveness, in so far as it is not
merely negative. It is the concession to us of a standing which is a
positive basis for experiences, pointing towards eternal life, and
rising into it.
This relation to Himself God has founded for us sinful men in Christ,
and specially in His atonement. It is part of what is divinely held out
to us, as life or well-being in Christ. When we do awaken to it, our
whole religious attitude towards God takes character from it, and is to
be ordered accordingly. This way of being related to God is called God's
righteousness, or righteousness "from God," because it is not set up by
us, but by God's grace, through the redeeming work of Christ ("being
justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus"--Rom. iii. 24). On the other hand, it is righteousness "of
faith," or "through faith of Christ," because faith subjects itself to
the order of grace, revealed and made effectual in Christ, and therein
finds the reconciliation. For the believing man the relation becomes
effectual and operative. He is "accepted in the Beloved." He is
"constituted righteous" (Rom. v. 19), and his intercourse with his
Heavenly Father regulates itself accordingly, he being justified
"from--or upon--his faith." The harmony with God on which he has entered
becomes, in some degree, matter of consciousness for himself (Rom. v.
1). With this connection of things in view, the Apostle teaches that
righteousness is imputed, or reckoned, to him who believes in Jesus
(Rom. iv. 24).
Whatever opinion we may choose to entertain of this scheme, it ought not
to be disputed that this, in general, is Paul's conception of the
matter.
However, let us emphatically note that it is as "in Christ," "found in
Him," the Apostle possesses this form of well-being. If there be such a
thing as a real union between the Saviour and Paul, then in the Saviour
and with the Saviour Paul is thus righteous. The faith to which this
righteousness arises is faith that unites to Christ, and not any other
kind of faith. And so, if it be possible for Paul to fall from Christ,
then also he must fall from the righteousness of faith. In Christ a
relation to God appears, made good, maintained, and verified, in which
He gathers to Himself and comprehends all true believers: "for which
cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Hence also this
Christian benefit, though it is distinguishable, is not separated
radically from the other benefits. It is not possible to take the one
and leave the rest; for Christ is not divided. But there is an order in
His gifts; and, for Paul, this gift is primary. God is ours in Christ;
therefore religion, true religion, may begin and go on.
It is of weight with Paul that this righteousness of faith, arising for
him who is "found" in Christ, is founded for us in the atonement. That
is to say, the new relation is not represented as a relation created for
us by a mere Divine fiat that it shall be so. It is represented as
arising for sinful men out of the redemption of Christ; which redemption
is represented as in its own nature fitted to fructify into this result,
as well as into other fruits which are due to it. Christ's atonement is
the way which grace has taken to bring in the righteousness of faith. In
particular, we are made righteous (in this sense) through Christ, in a
manner corresponding to that in which He was made sin for us (2 Cor. v.
21). Hence the blood, the sacrifice, the obedience of Christ are
referred to on all occasions, in connection with the righteousness of
faith, as explicative causes to which this is to be traced. The relation
is first of all a relation completely grounded and made good in Christ;
and then we are participant in it with Him, in virtue of our faith in
Him.
Clearly the Apostle thinks of this righteousness of faith as something
very wonderful. It is for him fundamental. It is the first article in
which he celebrates the worth of the knowledge of Christ; no doubt,
because he felt it transforming his whole moral and spiritual
experience; and, in particular, because it contrasted so vividly with
the nugatory righteousness of earlier days.
In earlier days Paul sought righteousness--an approved and accepted
standing with God--by the works of the law. That project failed when the
great discovery on the road to Damascus showed him to himself as all
astray; in particular, when the law itself, coming home to him in the
fulness of its meaning, both revealed to him the beggarliness of his own
performance, and, at the same time, stung into appalling activity
ungodly elements within him. Then he saw before him the law rising from
its deep foundations in eternal strength and majesty, imperative,
unalterable, inexorable; and over against it his own works lay withered
and unclean. But another vision came. He saw the Son of God in His life,
death, and resurrection. Mere love and pity were the inspiration of His
coming: obedience and sacrifice were the form of it. So in that great
vision one element or aspect that rose into view was righteousness,--
righteousness grounded as deep as the law itself, as magnificent in its
great proportions, as little subject to change or decay, radiant with
surpassing glory. As he saw, and bowed, an trusted, he became conscious
of a new access and nearness to God Himself; he passed into the
fellowship of God's dear Son; he found acceptance in the Beloved. Here
was the answer to that woful problem of the law: righteousness in Christ
for a world of sinners, coming to them as a free gift to faith. Here was
the strong foundation on which faith found itself set to learn its
lessons, and perform its service, and fight its battles. In Christ he
received the reconciliation--merciful, and also righteous. As Paul
thought of the ground on which he once had stood, and of the standing
granted to him now, "in Him,"--it was with a "yea doubtless" he declared
that he counted all to be loss for the gain of Christ, in whom he was
found, not having his own righteousness, which was of the law, but that
which is by the faith of Christ.
Righteousness of faith, as the Apostle conceives it, is to be
distinguished from personal righteousness, or goodness, as an attribute
of human character, but yet is most closely connected with it.
Righteousness of faith opened what seemed to Paul the prosperous way
into righteousness of daily living. In the very hour when he first
believed for righteousness, he felt himself entering a kingdom of light,
and love, and power, in which all things were possible; and ever after
the same order of experience verified itself for him afresh. The
righteousness of faith being the relation in which, through Christ, he
found himself standing to God, fixed at the same time his relation to
all Christian benefits, including, as a principal element, conformity to
the likeness of Christ. To the man in Christ all these benefits
pertained; in Christ he could claim them all: in Christ he found himself
before doors that opened of their own accord to let him in; in Christ it
proved to be a fit thing, grounded deep in the congruities of God's
administration, that God should be for him; therefore, also, the pathway
of holiness lay open before him. The fulness of blessing had not yet
come into possession and experience. But in the righteousness of faith
he apprehended all blessings as stretching out their hands to him,
because through Christ they ought to be his. That he should find himself
in a relation to God so simple and so satisfying was wonderful; all the
more, when it was contrasted with the condemnation belonging to him as a
sinner. This was the righteousness from God to faith, in the strength of
which he could call all things his own.
If Paul had succeeded in the enterprise of his earlier days, when he
sought righteousness by the law, he would, as he hoped, have found
acceptance in the end; and various blessings would have followed. He
would have emerged from his task a man stamped as righteous, and fit to
be treated accordingly. That would have been the end. But now, in
reference to his present enterprise, he has found, being in Christ,
acceptance at the beginning. So often as faith lifts him into the
heavenly places where Christ is, he finds all things to be his; not
because he has achieved righteousness, but because Christ has died and
risen, and because God justifies him who believes in Jesus. The platform
he hoped to reach by the efforts of a lifetime is already under his
feet. Paul faces each arduous step in his new enterprise, strong in the
conviction that his standing before God is rooted, not in his doings nor
in his feelings, but in his Saviour in whom he holds the righteousness
of faith.
We need not conceal from ourselves, however, that many find the doctrine
thus ascribed to Paul unacceptable. If they do not count it positively
misleading, as some do, they yet regard it as unprofitable theory.
Apart from objections drawn from theology or morals or texts, they
argue, for example, that it is all in the air, away from real
experience. Christian religion is a practical matter,--a question of
improved dispositions, improved habits, and improved prospects. If,
through Christ, such things as these arise for us, if, through Him,
influences reach us that tend to such results, then those are the
practical specimens which interpret to us a Saviour's kindness. To know
Christ in these must be the true knowledge of Him. To carry us away
beforehand into the region of a supposed relation to God is a
precarious, and may be a delusive business; it is, at any rate, a
dogmatic nicety rather than a vital element in religion. If we are to
experience God's mercy or Christ's kindness in any practical form, then
that is to be so; and it is shorter to say so at once. Let us fix on
that, without interposing any doctrine of "righteousness by faith."
But it must be said, in reply, that to speak of this righteousness of
faith as unpractical, is a strange mistake. All religion aims at
fellowship with God; and in Christian religion that fellowship becomes
real and authentic in Christ. Through all exercises and attainments of
Christian religion that are genuine, this thread goes. We have access to
God, and we abide in the Father and the Son. How imperfectly this takes
place on our part need not be said. The imperfection on our part is,
indeed, only exceeded by the condescension on His. Yet our faith is that
this is real, otherwise Christianity would not be for us the opening of
an eternal blessedness. How can it be judged unpractical, if God reveals
to men, first, that in the room of those confused and melancholy
relations to God which arise for us out of our own past history, He has
constituted for us a relation, apprehensible by faith, in which we find
ourselves pardoned, accepted, commended to God to be made partakers of
life eternal; and, secondly, that this is grounded in the service and
sacrifice of His Son, sent forth to save us; so that we enter this
relation and hold it, not independently, but in fellowship with the Son
of God, His sonship becoming the model of ours? Is this unpractical? Is
it unpractical to be conscious of such a relation between God and men,
for ever embodied and made accessible in His Son our Saviour? Is it
unpractical to apprehend God in the attitude towards us which is due to
such a relation, and to take, ourselves, the attitude of gratitude and
penitence and trust which on our side corresponds to it? It cannot be
unpractical. It may be pernicious, if it takes the form of a cold,
presumptuous arrogance, or of a self-satisfied Pharisaism; that is to
say, if God be not in it. But if God in Christ is reaching us along
those lines, or if we, alive to His eternal character, and conscious of
our guilt and need, are reaching out to real relations and real
fellowship with Him through His Son our Lord, then it cannot be
unpractical. And, indeed, however men may differ as to theological
explanations, some sense of the worth of the thing intended has reached
the hearts of all true Christians.
Perhaps the state of the case will more clearly appear if we fix
attention on one Christian benefit. Let us take the forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness of sins is the primary grace, and it sets the type of the
grace to which we owe all benefits. Forgiveness, as it were, leads in
all other blessings by the hand; or, each blessing as it advances into a
Christian life comes with a fresh gift of forgiveness in the heart of
it. If this is so, then the tendency, which is observable in various
quarters, to pass forgiveness by, as a matter of course, and to hurry on
to what are reckoned more substantial, or more experimental benefits,
must be attended with loss. It must, so far, damage our conceptions of
the manner in which it befits God to bestow blessings on sinful men, and
also our conception of the spirit in which we should receive them.
But then, in the next place, the forgiveness of sins itself is referred
to the mediation of Christ, and the work accomplished in that mediation,
as its known basis. Forgiveness of sins was to arise out of an order of
grace, embodied in history--namely, in the history of the Incarnate Son
of God; and we are not entitled to take for granted it could fitly arise
otherwise. Apparently Christ Himself came into the inheritance which He
holds for us, by an order of things which it was imperative on Him to
regard, and by a history which He must fulfil. And we, believing in Him,
find, in consequence, a new place and standing; we receive a "gift of
righteousness" which contains the forgiveness of sins; we obtain,
through Christ, a mode of access to God, of which forgiveness is a
feature. So the place of forgiveness in the Divine administration is
vindicated and safe-guarded; and while forgiveness comes to us as a gift
of the Father's compassionate heart, it is found to be true also that
"Christ washed us from our sins in His own blood." "God sent His Son,
made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the
law." "God hath sent Him forth for a propitiation, through faith in His
blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
past, ... that He might be just, and the Justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus." Our forgiveness is a free gift of God's goodness;
yet also, it is our participation with Christ, sent to us from the
Father, in a wonderful relation which He has come to hold to sin and to
righteousness. If we overlook this, we conceal from ourselves great
aspects of the work undertaken for us by the love of God.
But if forgiveness, which is itself a meeting with God in peace, refers
itself to the mediation of Christ as preparing for us a blessed relation
to God--a righteousness of faith--how should our whole fellowship with
God, in grace, fail to presuppose the same foundation?
But argument upon this topic might lead us far. Let us close the chapter
in another vein.
All religion, worth recognising in that character, implies earnestness,
serious aspiration and endeavour. It supposes human life to place itself
under the influence of an order of motives that is to be comprehensive
and commanding. And this is true also of Christian religion. But
Christian religion, as we know, does not begin with a consciousness of
ability to achieve success; it is not grounded in an expectation that by
strenuous or apt effort of ours, we may achieve the aims and secure the
benefits at which religion points. That is not the root of Christian
religion. It begins with a consciousness and confession of weakness: the
soul owns its incompetency to deal with the great interests that reveal
themselves in the light of Christ; it is without strength for tasks like
these. And so the deepest and earliest exercise of Christian religion
is Prayer. It asks great things from a great God. "This poor man cried,"
and the Lord heard him. Paul's Christianity began thus: "Behold, he
prayeth."
Now just so Christian religion does not begin with a consciousness of
deserving something, or an idea that by taking pains we may deserve
something, may single ourselves out for at least some modest share of
favourable recognition. Rather it often begins with the fading away of
such ideas when they were present before. Christian religion roots
itself in the confession of sin, and therefore of ill-desert; it
signalises itself by a deepening sense of the seriousness of the
situation in this respect. With this it comes face to face before God.
"I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord." "God be merciful to me
a sinner." We have nothing that is not sinful to bring before Him; so,
at length, we come with that. It is all we have. Our prayer rises not
merely out of the sense of weakness, but out of the consciousness of
demerit.
But in Christian religion we are aware, as of strength which can remedy
our weakness, so of forgiveness which can put away our sins. "There is
forgiveness with Thee." "Through this Man is preached to us the
forgiveness of sins." It is clear also that this forgiveness comes,
wherever it comes, as full and free forgiveness, "forgiving you all
trespasses." So that in Christian religion we listen at Christ's feet to
the testimony directed to all penitent believers, that instead of
reckoning in part or whole about the guilt of sins committed, we are to
find God in Christ to be One who simply puts away our sin. That shall
hold us apart from God no more. Rather, the putting of it away brings
with it the strangest, lowliest access to God. "O God, thou art my God."
"Who is a God like unto Thee?" Forgiveness is by no means mere immunity
(least of all for Christian religion). Punishment, certainly, in the
sense of the separation and evil which sin deserves, passes away. But
forgiveness, in Christian religion, is forgiveness _with the Forgiver in
it_. We meet God in the forgiveness of sins. We abide with God in the
forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness, too, as we already foresee, is but the foundation and
beginning of a history in which we are called to go forward. This
history may have sad passages in it; but in going forward in it in faith
we are assured that on God's part it is a history of most painstaking
and most sublime benefaction: all of it ordered so as to be of a piece
with His sending of His Son; all of it instinct with the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Faith looking to Christ believes this, and receives
it. And to faith upheld by Him on whom we trust all this is more and
more made good, and comes true. It is a history of progress in true
goodness. And the end is life everlasting.
Now the words before us suggest, upon the one hand, very strongly, the
simply gratuitous character of the Christian benefits, and the sense of
undeserved kindness with which they are to be received. In Christian
religion we begin as those who have no righteousness, who plead no
merit, who owe and are to owe all to Divine mercy. From the base upwards
Christian religion is a religion of grace; and "it is of faith, that it
might be by grace." Whatever activities, whatever successes may fall
into the Christian's career, whatever long possession of accustomed good
may eventually mark his experience, all is to be informed and inspired
by this initial and perpetual conviction, "Not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law."
At the same time, the same words of the Apostle suggest very strongly
the Divine stability of the good which meets us in Christ. A very strong
foundation has been laid for those who flee for refuge to lay hold of
the hope set before them in the gospel. To our sense, indeed, things may
seem to be most mutable. But when faith reaches to the things not seen,
it learns another lesson. In Christ believers are graced with entrance
into an order of salvation divinely strong and durable. When God gave us
Christ, He gave us, in a sense, "all things," and indeed all things
ordering themselves into an eternal expression of fatherly love and
care. In Christ comes into view not goodness only, but goodness allying
itself for us with Wisdom and Power and Right. It makes its way by
incarnation and atonement and resurrection to a kingdom which, being
first Christ's, appointed to Him, is also His people's, appointed to
them. Now a relation to God which looks forward to all this, which is
the basis for it and the entrance to it, descends on the believing man
through Christ. It is due to Christ that it should come so. It is the
Father's loving will that it should be so. All that is needful to ground
and vindicate that most gracious relation is found in Christ, who of God
is made unto us righteousness; in whom we hold the righteousness which
is of God on faith.
The Apostle's course of thought has not led us to raise any question
about the nature and the virtue of the faith which apprehends and
receives the righteousness of God. It is a subject on which much has
been said. What seems needful here may be soon spoken.
The only way of entering on new relations with God, or ourselves
becoming new men, is the way of faith. This Christian way is the only
way. Every other is simply impossible. Let any man seriously try it, and
he will find it so. But the question, What kind of faith? is best
answered by saying, Such faith as is called for by the object of faith
set before us, when that is honestly and intently regarded. As the
gospel is, the faith must be; for the gospel is the instrument by which
faith is evoked, sustained, and guided. The great object of faith is
God, graciously revealing Himself through Christ. Every genuine aspect
of this revelation takes its significance from its disclosure of God.
The faith, so called, which misses this, is wrong faith; the faith which
marks and welcomes this is right faith. And such faith is already, even
in its earliest life, breaking forth into repentance and love and
obedience. It must be, for God is in it.
So, to confine ourselves to the aspect of things which occupies this
chapter, the faith which meets God in the forgiveness of sins through
Christ, and genuinely accepts from Him the wonderful position of holding
fellowship with God forgiving, is already, virtually, repentance as well
as faith. The man who so meets with God, is therein agreed with God
about his own sin: he feels God to be in the right and himself to be
wholly in the wrong; he feels, in particular, God to be most sublimely
and conclusively in the right in the holy pity of His forgiveness. The
man who does not feel this, is _not accepting forgiveness_. He may be
posturing as if he were, but he is not doing it.
There is just one difficulty in faith--the difficulty of being real. But
when it _is_ real, it makes all things new.
_RESURRECTION LIFE AND DAILY DYING._
"That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the
fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if
by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the
dead."--PHIL. iii. 10, 11.