the world[4], no law {159} was introduced into the relationship. It
was purely a matter of God promising and Abraham taking God at His
word. Indeed it could not have been otherwise. Introduce law, and you
introduce a compact between God and man which annuls the relationship
of God simply promising and man simply believing--a compact which
throws a strain on man's independent powers, which they are not able to
bear. The one inevitable result of the law is to put man in the
position, in which apart from law he cannot find himself, of a
defaulter who knows himself, as a defaulter, under the divine wrath.
The true relationship leaves matters in the hands of God, who purely
promises of His good favour--man simply in faith receiving (vers.
13-16a). This resting everything on God's promise and man's faith
gives security for the fulfilment of the promise to 'all the seed.'
And the 'seed to whom the promise was made' includes, not only the race
chosen later to receive the law, but believers of all races; Abraham
being in this sense 'a father of many nations,' as he stands under the
eyes of God whom he believed in--God who had power to make His promise
good, even by recalling to life again the dead faculties of Abraham's
old age, and summoning children {160} which did not yet exist as if
they were already there. Here is the point: Abraham believed that God
had the power to be as good as His word, in spite of all obvious
reasons to the contrary. Therefore he looked the facts steadily in the
face--his own and Sarah's great age. But he did not suffer this to
weigh in the balance against God's promise. He made quite sure that
God would do as He promised, and glorified God by this strong act of
faith. This it is that was reckoned to him for righteousness, i.e.
this it is that enabled God to accept him as righteous without any
consideration of deeds done. And the record of this acceptance is made
for our sakes to-day. God is still taking men into the number of the
righteous, and He still does it on the same principle. He will reckon
us for righteous if we will take Him at His word, and believe in His
power to do as He has promised. And in our case He has given us fresh
ground for such confident belief; for Jesus, on whom as Lord our hopes
rest and who died to make atonement for our sins, He has by His power
raised up from the dead, that by faith in Him, dead and yet alive
again, we might be taken like Abraham without more ado into the number
of the righteous.
{161}
What then shall we say[5] that Abraham, our forefather according to the
flesh, hath found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he hath
whereof to glory; but not toward God. For what saith the scripture?
And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for
righteousness. Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as
of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth
on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for
righteousness. Even as David also pronounceth blessing upon the man,
unto whom God reckoneth righteousness apart from works, _saying_,
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin.
Is this blessing then pronounced upon the circumcision, or upon the
uncircumcision also? for we say, To Abraham his faith was reckoned for
righteousness. How then was it reckoned? when he was in circumcision,
or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision: and
he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of
the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision: that he might be
the father of all them that believe, though they be in uncircumcision,
that righteousness might be reckoned unto them; and the father of
circumcision to them who not only are of the circumcision, but who also
walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had in
uncircumcision. For not through the law was the promise to Abraham or
to his seed, that he should be heir of the world, but through the
righteousness of faith. For if they which are {162} of the law be
heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect: for
the law worketh wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there
transgression. For this cause _it is_ of faith, that _it may be_
according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the
seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is
of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written,
A father of many nations have I made thee) before him whom he believed,
_even_ God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth the things that are
not, as though they were. Who in hope believed against hope, to the
end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that
which had been spoken, So shall thy seed be. And without being
weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he
being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb:
yea, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief,
but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully
assured that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Now it was
not written for his sake alone, that it was reckoned unto him; but for
our sake also, unto whom it shall be reckoned, who believe on him that
raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our
trespasses, and was raised for our justification.
1. No doubt, on the text of Gen. xv. 6, St. Paul is right. It was
Abraham's _faith_ that is declared to have been reckoned to his account
by God as equivalent to righteousness. But when we get beyond a mere
text, is it not, we are inclined to ask, more true to the general {163}
spirit of scripture to say, with the author of the First Book of the
Maccabees, 'Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, and it was
reckoned unto him for righteousness[6]?' or with St. James, 'Was not
Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his
son upon the altar? Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and
by works was faith made perfect[7].' No doubt certain Rabbis state the
principle pedantically when they speak of Abraham having kept the whole
Mosaic law by anticipation[8], but is it not true to say that Abraham
was accepted by God, and on the whole is represented in the Bible as so
accepted, _not_ only because he believed, but also because he 'was
found faithful in temptation,' and did good works, or acted as a good
man?
Now, if by 'accepted' is meant 'finally accepted,' St. Paul would say
this as of Abraham, so of every other accepted man. He must be finally
judged and must receive according to his works or character. As we
shall see, there is no real discrepancy between St. Paul and St. James
on this matter. And St. Paul never disparages 'good works' which are
the fruit of {164} faith, only 'works' or 'works of the law' which
represent a false attitude of man to God. But the question which he is
here asking is, What is the ground of acceptance for a man _at
starting_? What is it puts him at starting in the right relation to
God? In other words, What is the root of real righteousness? And his
answer to this question is, it is only self-surrendering faith which
brought Abraham, or which brings any other man, into acceptance.
In giving this answer St. Paul had in view another attitude with which
he had been long familiar, and which he calls 'seeking to be justified
by works of the law.' It was the attitude of the Jews, especially as
they appear in St. John's Gospel. They were proud of their divine law
and of belonging to the chosen people, the children of Abraham and
Moses. They knew how to make good their standing-ground with God. By
keeping the law, as the law had come to be understood among themselves,
they could accumulate merits altogether out of proportion to their
failures or demerits. They could even be helped by the merits of the
old saints[9]. Thus they could {165} stand before God on the basis of
a certain engagement or covenant, into which God had entered with His
people, and claim their due reward.
This utterly demoralizing attitude--leading as it does to formalism and
hypocrisy, or, at the best, unprogressive stagnation--this attitude,
which left out of sight all the higher and infinite elements in the Old
Testament, was the actual attitude of contemporary Pharisaic Jews. The
characteristics with which it endowed them were pride in the law; a
sense of personal merit coupled with a contempt for 'sinners of the
Gentiles,' or the common 'people which knew not the law'; a
self-satisfied stagnation which made them utterly resent the new light
of the gospel; a regard for the public opinion of their class, which
made them slaves to convention; and moral hollowness and rottenness
within. It was because this was their attitude that they rejected the
Christ. 'Going about to establish their own righteousness, they did
not submit themselves to the righteousness of God.' It was because St.
Paul had been brought up in the school of the Pharisees, but had come
to perceive its moral rottenness and to accept Jesus as the Christ,
that he bases all his {166} doctrine on the substitution of
justification by faith for justification by works.
By 'works' or 'works of the law' he means an attitude towards God which
left a man largely independent of Him. Under the divine covenant the
man of the covenant has a certain task to do, a certain law to keep:
that kept, especially in its external requirements as contemporary
authority enforces it, he is his own master. He is entitled to resent
any further claims upon him. This religious ideal means, as we have
seen, pride, stagnation, conventionalism, hypocrisy. And the more it
is considered the more unnatural it appears. For
(1) It ignores the fundamental relation of man to God, viz. that, as a
creature, he depends absolutely and at every stage on God. He has no
initiative in himself. Thus the only attitude towards God which
expresses the reality is one in which God is recognized as continually
supplying, or promising, or offering, or claiming, and man is
continually accepting, or believing, or corresponding, or obeying.
(2) It ignores the ineradicable taint of sin in man, and the
accumulated guilt of particular sins. A man may gloss over his inward
sinfulness, and cloak and ignore his secret sins; he {167} may live
outwardly in high reputation; but if he comes to know himself, he knows
himself as a sinner, who depends, at starting, absolutely on God for
forgiveness and 'deliverance from coming wrath.'
(3) It is quite contented to leave all mankind, except a small elect
body, out of the conditions of acceptance with God.
In substituting 'faith' for works of the law, then, as the principle of
justification, St. Paul was really 'returning to nature'; he was
realizing facts, and supplying a basis for a morality both progressive
and universal. Further, he was true to all the highest teaching of the
Old Testament, which continually finds the source and ground of sin and
failure in man's independence of God; which is averse to nothing so
conspicuously as to substituting external conformity for moral
character; which is heavy with the consciousness of sin; which humbly
expects a fuller, wider, and richer disclosure of the kingdom of God.
Finally, he was true to that deep and summary teaching of our Lord to
the Jews, 'This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath
sent.' No doubt it may still be said St. Paul argues in an
'uncritical' manner on the basis of a particular {168} text. But in
doing this he was doing as his Jewish contemporaries did; and if the
particular text is used to prove a real or true principle, who shall
complain of it?
2. And now to conciliate St. Paul and St. James. It is a satisfactory
task, for the statements which appear so contradictory admit, when they
are examined, of an easy harmony.
Let us suppose, what is highly probable, that the report of St. Paul's
teaching reached St. James at Jerusalem at second-hand, in a
fragmentary and perverted manner--perhaps as illustrated by unfortunate
specimens of its influence where it was wilfully misunderstood. 'Men
are justified before God by faith without consideration of works.' St.
James' holy and beautiful, but no doubt somewhat unphilosophical mind,
was alarmed and scandalized. By faith he understood an intellectual
quality--the acceptance of the divine truth revealed; and he points out
with the simplicity of moral common sense, that never in the Old
Testament is right belief represented as the ground of acceptance with
God without the right conduct which is its natural sequence. Who can
deny that the devils have a 'right belief' in the existence of God?
Faith, in fact, without {169} works--orthodox belief without moral
obedience--is a lifeless form, a body without spirit[10].
To all this St. Paul would of course have agreed, in St. James' sense
of the word faith. In fact, St. James' faith, i.e. bare orthodox
belief, is closely akin to, and apt to keep company with, formal
ecclesiastical observance, which is part of what St. Paul means by
'works.' Both were characteristic of the Pharisaic Jews. St. Paul and
St. James would have been at one in saying, 'There must be life in this
dead shell of orthodox belief, if it is to have value with God; and
what alone can give it life is the real spirit of moral obedience to
the will of the holy and good God'--which is what St. James means by
'works.' The disagreement between them is then, so far, only verbal.
But St. Paul goes deeper, into a region where St. James does not follow
him, and asks what is the real starting-ground of the truest
obedience--the real root of the moral life? And he finds this
starting-ground, this fundamental establishment of the right relation
to God, in what he called faith; that is, no mere orthodoxy of
intellect, but a fundamental relationship of man towards God--the
utterly receptive faculty, {170} the profound quality of the
self-surrendering will.
3. There is a young philosophical inquirer in Plato's Dialogue of the
_Republic_ who is so anxious to get at the ultimate principle of
justice, as distinct from its consequences and secondary qualities,
that Socrates laughingly tells him he is 'scrubbing and polishing it
like a statue.' Now St. Paul has the philosopher's instinct to get at
a principle in its pure simplicity. He scrubs faith clean of all
extraneous accidents. He is most anxious that we should disengage its
activity from all the other closely-interconnected elements in human
nature; and so perceive that, whatever a man has been or is in race or
conduct or antecedents, once let him exhibit faith, the faith which
takes God at His word, and by that very fact and no other, all the
obstacles to God's acceptance of him are overcome. The true relation
of the man to God is restored in its elementary principle. And nothing
but this, however elaborate its apparent performances, can restore the
fundamental relationship. It is faith only, and not works, however
splendid, which justifies or enables God to take a man, place him
amongst the righteous, and work upon and in him. But this elemental
{171} act of simply abandoning independence, trampling on pride and
taking God at His word, is an act or attitude of the whole man which
necessarily (granted that it be not withdrawn) becomes correspondence
of the whole being with God, a lifelong obedience, an allegiance and
homage of every faculty of will, and emotion, and intellect. 'Faith,'
then, as Calvin once said, 'is pregnant with good works, but it
justifies before they are brought forth.'
That the rudimentary justifying faith, on which St. Paul is here
insisting, is a developing thing, a living and germinating principle,
the basis of a life which grows--but always 'from faith to faith,' from
one stage of faith to another--will appear clearly enough as we go on.
But even here, in this chapter, it appears already that faith is
something quite inconsistent with remaining as we are. Faith looks to
a divine promise--a promise of astounding change--and believes that God
is able to realize it in us. Such was Abraham's faith. Such, we may
add, was the faith of those in the Gospels who came to be healed, and
to whom it was said, 'According to your faith be it unto you.' Our
faith then also must expect and desire some amazing transformation of
our human nature, {172} according to a divine promise--nothing less
than power out of impotence, life out of death.
And it is from this point of view that the Resurrection is apparently
regarded in this chapter, as holding the place it does in the 'scheme'
of our justification by faith. We are to believe that God is able to
bring life morally out of death. He makes that act of faith possible
or easier for us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This evidence of
God's power in the case of Jesus, the person on whom our divine faith
is to rest, gives an adequate support and reasonable security to our
faith. 'He was designated as the Son of God with power, by the
resurrection from the dead,' and thus becomes the natural object for
such a faith in the power of God to carry out His promises as is
necessary for our justification. This is probably the meaning of the
particular words with which the fourth chapter closes--'Who died for
our sins (that is, in order that, in virtue of His atoning sacrifice,
our sins might be forgiven) and rose again for our justification' (i.e.
in order that our faith might have in the risen Lord an adequate
object). But of course the relation of faith to the risen Lord is by
no means exhausted in this thought.
{173}
4. We Englishmen are possessed with the idea that there is nothing so
alien to our characters as the temper of the Pharisees or the doctrine
of the merit of good works. But if we can look at the matter below the
surface, we can hardly fail to realize that the spirit which St. Paul
so mightily repudiates lies in some respects very close to our natural
instincts. The Englishman has a standard, of his class, his college,
his profession, which it is his pride not to fall short of; but he is
intensely alarmed at any claim upon his moral independence over and
above this allowed standard; he is inclined to turn his back completely
upon the idea of fundamental surrender to the unknown and infinite
claim of God; he is contented with himself and his standard, and
occupies himself in comparing it favourably with the standards of other
classes, or still more of other nations. But what is this spirit but,
for good or for evil, the spirit of Pharisaism under a wholly different
dress? 'They going about to establish their own righteousness, have
not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.' 'How can ye
believe which seek glory one of another, and the glory that cometh from
the only God ye seek not?' 'They measuring themselves by {174}
themselves and comparing themselves amongst themselves are not wise.'
Here are typical condemnations of the self-satisfied Pharisaic temper
so expressed as to prevent us from supposing that we shall escape
condemnation with the Pharisees merely because we do not say long
prayers in public places, or distinguish ourselves by a careful
ritualism.
[1] Gen. xv. 5, 6.
[2] Ps. xxxii.
[3] Gen. xvii.
[4] None of the promises are verbally to this effect. But this is the
substantial outcome of them.
[5] Or 'of Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh' (margin).
[6] 1 Macc. ii. 52; cf. Ecclus. xliv. 20.
[7] James ii. 21, 22.
[8] Cf. S. and H. p. 101.
[9] There is contemporary evidence for this illustration of their
position; see _Ephesians_, app. note C.
[10] James ii. 14-26.
{175}
DIVISION III. CHAPTERS V-VIII.
_The accepted life or the moral consequences of justification._
Sec. 1. CHAPTER V. 1-11.
_The holy confidence of the justified._
Peace is a fundamental spiritual need of the human soul. But the peace
that is God's gift comes only through the breaking up of the peace of
soul which comes from ignoring God. The Pharisee on the temple steps
was at peace when he thanked God that he was not as other men are--at
peace in his misplaced pride. The mass of men in heathen Corinth,
where St. Paul was writing, were at peace in their sins. And St. Paul
has set himself with all his might, as in his preaching generally, so
in this particular letter, to break up this false peace of conscience.
Like the prophet of old he spurns those who would 'heal the hurt of the
daughter of God's {176} people lightly, saying, Peace, peace, when
there is no peace.' Thus he has been arousing the conscience of
Gentiles and Jews equally, and forcing upon them the conviction that
their present life is a condemned life, under the doom of a righteous
God. But when the conviction is driven home, when the wound is fairly
recognized and probed, comes in due course the healing remedy. It lies
in the recognition of what God really is--of the sort of character
which He is manifesting now in His Son Jesus Christ. For behold!
wholly apart from any question of what we are or have been, God is
found waiting for us with the offer of His love, which is also the
power to accomplish what He offers. It is pardon and new life He
offers to us. It is for us simply to take Him at His word, and without
any delay or reckoning up of accounts, to be acquitted and accepted for
righteous simply because we have believed His word.
The secure ground of peace in the soul, therefore, lies in the frank
and severe recognition of our own sinfulness, but also, and even more,
in looking away from ourselves and simply fixing our whole
consideration on the character of God, who in certain acts has shown
His {177} good-will toward us, and His power to make His goodwill
effectual. All hope for us starts simply from God and His mind of love
toward us. 'Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his
Son.'
Thus we find St. Paul, in the passage we are now to consider, beginning
a fresh appeal to believers in Christ on this basis, which he has
already made so secure. Seeing, he says, that we have now been
accepted simply because we believed, let us enter into that heritage of
peace which our Lord Jesus Christ by His redemption has won for us.
For what is our present condition? Through His redeeming sacrifice we
have received an introduction, at no other cost than that of believing,
into a new standing-ground before God, a new state in which the whole
atmosphere is one of grace or divine favour. We can therefore enjoy a
solid peace in the present based on the sure consideration of the
divine goodwill, and we can make it our boast that we have a
well-grounded hope of future restoration to that highest fruition of
which our nature is capable--fellowship in the divine glory. And while
we enjoy these present privileges of ours, let us show that we really
value them by making {178} the outward hardships which accompany them a
matter of boasting also. For we know that only such hardships, bravely
encountered, can give to our characters the quality of steadfastness;
and steadfastness through the experience of life makes of us men of
approved moral metal; and this process of probation, in which we are
tried and not found wanting, again generates hope in us--the same hope
in God's love which accompanied the beginning of our justification,
only now confirmed in us by our own experience. And this divine hope
has nothing treacherous about it[1]. It is grounded on what God has
already done. He has already given us His Holy Spirit, and by that
gift poured forth His love into our hearts: He would not have done this
in order to cheat us at the last.
We can indeed test and measure the mind of God toward us by human
comparisons. In our experience of men we might perhaps find some one
brave enough even to die for another, if that other was, I do not say
merely an upright man, but a good and loveable one. But what is the
fact in God's dealings with us? It was {179} when we were sinful and
helpless in our sinfulness--nay rather, when we were living in flat
antagonism to God--that He proved His own pure love toward us by taking
advantage of the divine opportunity to give His Son to die for us. And
He, thus dying on our behalf, won for us by the shedding of His blood a
reconciliation with God, which lay altogether outside anything which
our state naturally suggested. Well then, God would not, so to speak,
have gone out of His way to make this beginning, unless He had intended
to carry the work through, so as finally to save us out from under the
divine wrath, or, in other words, into the divine fellowship.
Certainly, accepted as we have been in virtue of Christ's
blood-shedding, and thus reconciled to God when our natural state was
hostility to Him, we can trust Him, now that He has made us His
friends, to accomplish our deliverance, not by any further
blood-shedding, but by admitting us into the life of Christ risen from
death. But, to end where we began, it is not only the hope of a future
deliverance that makes us glad. We also make our boast of our present
relation and friendship with God through His Son.
{180}