Section I. Importance of the doctrine. Explanation of the Scriptural terms relating to it. Justification is not by works.
THE state of mind described in the preceding chapter, cannot be long endured. Some way of satisfying the demands of conscience must be adopted. When the mind is enlightened by divine truth and duly impressed with a sense of guilt, it cannot fail anxiously to enquire, How can a man be just with God? The answer given to this question decides the character of our religion, and if practically adopted, our future destiny. To give a wrong answer, is to mistake the way to heaven. It is to err where error is fatal, because it cannot be corrected. If God require one thing and we present another, how can we be saved? If he has revealed a method in which he can be just and yet justify the sinner, and if we reject that method and insist upon pursuing a different way, how can we hope to be accepted? The answer, therefore, which is given to the above question should be seriously pondered by all who assume the office of religious teachers, and by all who rely upon their instructions. As we are not to be judged by proxy, but every man must answer for himself, so every man should be satisfied for himself what the Bible teaches on this subject. All that religious teachers can do, is to endeavour to aid the investigations of those who are anxious to learn the way of life. And in doing this, the safest method is to adhere strictly to the instructions of the Scriptures, and exhibit the subject as it is there presented. The substance and the form of this all-important doctrine are so intimately connected, that those who attempt to separate them, can hardly fail to err. What one discards as belonging merely to the form, another considers as belonging to its substance. All certainty and security are lost, as soon as this method is adopted, and it becomes a matter to be decided exclusively by our own views of right and wrong, what is to be retained and what rejected from the Scriptural representations. Our only security, therefore, is to take the language of the Bible in its obvious meaning, and put upon it the construction which the persons to whom it was addressed must have given and which, consequently, the sacred writers intended it should bear.
As the doctrine of justification is not only frequently stated in the sacred Scriptures, but formally taught and vindicated, all that will be attempted in this chapter, is to give, as faithfully as possible, a representation of what the inspired writers inculcate on this subject; that is, to state what positions they assume, by what arguments they sustain those positions, how they answer the objections to their doctrine and what application they make of it to the hearts and consciences of their readers.
It is one of the primary doctrines of the Bible, everywhere either asserted or assumed, that we are under the law of God. This is true of all classes of men, whether they enjoy a divine revelation or not. Every thing which God has revealed as a rule of duty enters into the constitution of the law which binds those to whom that revelation is given, and by which they are to be ultimately judged. Those who have not received any external revelation of the divine will, are a law unto themselves. The knowledge of right and wrong, written upon their hearts, is of the nature of a divine law, having its authority and sanction, and by it the heathen are to be judged in the last day.
God has seen fit to annex the promise of life to obedience to his law. The man that doeth these things shall live by them,1 is the language of Scripture on this subject. To the lawyer who admitted that the law required love to God and man, our Saviour said, Thou hast answered right. This do, and thou shalt live.2 And to one who asked him, What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? he said, If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the commandments.3 On the other hand, the law denounces death as the penalty of transgression. The wages of sin is death. Such is the uniform declaration of Scripture on this subject.
The obedience which the law demands, is called righteousness; and those who render that obedience are called righteous. To ascribe righteousness to any one, or to pronounce him righteous, is the scriptural meaning of the word to justify. The word never means to make good in a moral sense, but always to pronounce just or righteous. Thus God says, I will not justify the wicked.4 Judges are commanded to justify the righteous and to condemn the wicked.5 Wo is pronounced on those who justify the wicked for a reward.6 In the New Testament it is said, By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.7 It is God who justifieth, who is he that condemneth?8 There is scarcely a word in the Bible the meaning of which is less open to doubt. There is no passage in the New Testament in which it is used out of its ordinary and obvious sense.9 When God justifies a man, he declares him to be righteous. To justify never means to render one holy. It is said to be sinful to justify the wicked; but it could never be sinful to render the wicked holy. And as the law demands righteousness, to impute or ascribe righteousness to any one, is in scriptural language to justify. To make (or constitute) righteous, is another equivalent form of expression. Hence to be righteous before God, and to be justified, mean the same thing; as in the following passage, Not the hearers of the law are righteous before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.10 The attentive, and especially the anxious reader of the Bible cannot fail to observe that these various expressions, to be righteous in the sight of God, to impute righteousness, to constitute righteous, to justify, and others of similar import, are so interchanged as to explain each other, and to make it clear that to justify a man is to ascribe or impute to him righteousness. The great question then is, How is this righteousness to be obtained? We have reason to be thankful that the answer which the Bible gives to this question is so perfectly plain.