Here side by side are the most solemn, the most terrible, and the most glorious certitudes of our religion. There is a God. With that God we are not naturally at peace. Enmity toward God means sin; and the wages of sin is death. But how to make peace with him? Blessed be his Name, Christ has died that we might live. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Emnity and death - the results of sin, to which all are condemned; for all have sinned. Reconciliation and life - the results of the obedience and death of Christ. These verses put before us how this wondrous transformation may be effected; how, being dead, we may be made alive; how, being enemies of God, we may be reconciled and have peace with him.

I. THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION. The words in the original mean, "being reckoned [or, 'held'] as just." We do not make ourselves just. Neither by this act are we made just, made perfect in holiness. That is the object of sanctification, and is not completed until we have put off this mortal. If we should say that when we are justified we are made perfectly righteous, that would be the same thing as saying that no Christian commits sin - a doctrine contrary to the Word of God and to the experience of individuals. Paul complained that the evil he would not, that he did. No; justification neither implies that we make ourselves just, nor, on the other hand, that we are made just. It implies that we are reckoned just in God's sight so far as regards the penalty of the Law. He declares that the Law is satisfied in regard to us. Manifestly, this is the grace of God. How could we satisfy the Law? "By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified." "In thy sight," exclaims David, "shall no man living be justified." It is by grace alone. We can now point to the cross and say, "He died for me!" Christ's own words are, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." This is the exact parallel of justification by faith. Just as the simple act of turning the faint and weary eyelids toward that brazen serpent restored the dying Hebrews in the wilderness, so it is still possible for all of us, even for such as are most dead in trespasses and sins, to look with the eye of faith toward Calvary and say, "Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died." And by that death he paid our debt. "He was delivered for our offences." This is justification. Instead of being debtors to do the whole Law, we plead its fulfilment by our Substitute, accepted by God, while we become at the same time the servants of righteousness. The Law has been fulfilled by a perfect righteousness, and the penalty of a broken Law can no longer be inflicted upon those who appropriate that righteousness as theirs. Thus justification is the free grace of God shown in a complete pardon of all our sin. We are reconciled to God by the death of his Son; we have received the Spirit of adoption, and are made heirs of eternal life. All this justification secures for us in its very nature. II. THE MEANS OR INSTRUMENT OF JUSTIFICATION. In plain and unequivocal language we are here told that by faith we must be justified in order to have peace with God. This is the grand central truth of the New Testament. If it be removed, what message does the gospel bring? "If righteousness come by the Law," says St. Paul, "then Christ is dead in vain" (Galatians 2:21). Christ's whole life of doing and suffering, and his awful death, would be a cruel superfluity - the more cruel because superfluous, if by any other means fallen man could procure acceptance in God's sight. Paul cautions the Romans against any other way of justification. "A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law" (Romans 3:28). And when the Galatians showed a tendency to depart from this doctrine, under the influence of Judaizing teachers, in the strongest terms the apostle censures them: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel" (Galatians 1:6). He addresses them as foolish; accuses them of returning to the beggarly elements; and says he is afraid lest he has bestowed upon them labour in vain. The theory of justification by works, therefore, is not one on which nothing has been said, or which has been left doubtful. It is distinctly condemned by the apostle as inconsistent with and prejudicial to the spirit of Christianity. When Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, a self- righteous Pharisee, came to Jesus by night, how did the great Master feed this hungry soul? Did he tell him to go and do some work of merit? No. The way, and the only way, to eternal life which Jesus pointed out to him was faith. If good works were of any avail, here was a man whose training had abundantly fitted him for doing good works. But from the Saviour himself he was to learn that he, a master in Israel, knew not the way into the kingdom of God. Yet are there not many professing Christians who rest their hope of an entrance into that kingdom upon their own righteousness? Are there not many the language of whose heart is, "I have kept all the commandments from my youth up; I have lived a pure life; I have been regular in attendance on the ordinances of God; I have no fear"? Such was the language of the rich young man; and Jesus said to him, "One thing thou lackest." We must guard, too, against the notion that, if we believe, our faith is the ground on which we are justified. It is hard, indeed, to see how such a notion could arise, in the face of all that the Scriptures teach against justification by works. For to make faith the ground of our justification - the propter quod, to use a legal phrase - is to put faith in the position of a meritorious work. And that such has no efficacy for justification has been abundantly shown. Faith is merely the means or instrument by which we lay hold on the justifying righteousness of Christ. Suppose a man owed you a sum of money, and that, in the days when imprisonment for debt was legal, he had been imprisoned till the debt should be paid. Another man comes and pays the debt. You give him a receipt, and he takes that to the prisoner, who is by it set free. How absurd it would be for any one to say that it was this debtor's act of taking the receipt that cancelled his obligation! Precisely similar is it to say that the act by which we take hold of the great atonement is that which gives us acceptance with God. We are justified by means of our faith, and not because of it. But without that act of believing, the atonement is not ours, peace with God is not ours. By faith we lay hold of justification; by faith we take hold of the promises - promises for the life that now is, and the promise of a better and unending life in the many mansions of the Father's house. "We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (ver. 2).

III. THE EFFECT OF JUSTIFICATION. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." This peace with God has a twofold aspect. It concerns God's relation to us and our relation to God.

1. Peace with God as it affects God's relation to us. At first God was at peace with man, until man sinned and thus became at enmity with God. And while God hates sin and must reward it, he willeth not the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wicked way and live. All through the ages, God, like a loving Father, has been seeking to bring back the wanderers, to reconcile his erring children to himself. At last he sent his own Son. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins." If that Propitiation has any meaning at all, it is that God's attitude toward those who accept it is one of peace. "For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God" (John 16:27). Thus faith is the means by which we take hold of Christ - our Substitute, our Reconciliation. And therefore, being clothed upon with his righteousness, we are received into the adoption of children. Being justified, we are restored to that blissful state of sonship toward God which made Eden the untroubled garden in which the Father came and walked at eventide. Once more God walks with us. He will be to us a Father, and we are to him as his children. What a gift this is that, weak and sinful though we are, yet we can think of God with calm assurance, being reconciled to him by the death of his Son!

2. Peace with God as it concerns our relation to God.

(1) Peace with God means peace in our own conscience. What a troubler of our peace conscience is! In the silent watches of the night its voice is loud. The darkness dims not its light; nor is its voice hushed by the din of business or the jovial clamour of revelry. But he who is justified by faith has peace of conscience within. The great ocean will not wash away the guilt of sin. But "the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin."

(2) Peace with God means peace amid care and sorrow. Many trials of body and of mind may afflict us. But if we are justified by faith, then we have peace with God, and we know that, though no chastisement seemeth to be joyous, yet these our "light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

"Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm." To those who rest their faith in Christ when in trouble, he will appear as he did to his disciples on the sea, and they will hear through the gloom a voice calling to them, "It is I: be not afraid!"

(3) Peace with God means peace and security from the assaults of temptation and sin. "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7). It is a bulwark of defence round about those who are justified by faith. To them it is given to be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. They have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. Such is the effect of being justified by faith. "Although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure" (2 Samuel 23:5). Here and now peace and fellowship with God; access into grace and strength; no fear of evil in the dark valley; and afterward an abundant entrance into the presence of the King. - C.H.I.

Justification by faith being assumed as now established, the Christian's consequent attitude towards God and hope in him are next set forth. Salvation is but begun; and the process? the goal? May there not be failure by the way, and catastrophe at last? The apostle, in the first half of this chapter, sets forth the grounds of Christian assurance. In these two verses he exhorts to peace and joyful hope.

I. PEACE. Even the justified Christian may be diffident, and may sometimes regard God with dread. Many causes may contribute to this - constitutional diffidence; ill health; partial and imperfect views of religious truth; intense self-consciousness; failure to realize the ideal. Paul knew it, allowed for it, prescribed for it. "Let us have peace."

1. The nature of peace toward God.

(1) A quiet mind in view of God's new relation to us in Christ.

(2) A calm assurance of God's help in all our growth and fight with sin.

(3) A confidence that all our relations to the world shall be rightly ordered by him.

2. The grounds of peace toward God. "Through our Lord Jesus Christ."

(1) We have found favour through him (ver. 2).

(2) We live through him.

(3) We and our interests are controlled and governed by him. So, then, peace in all things toward God, by reason of the great mediation between God and men.

II. GLORYING. It is much to have peace; a quiet heart; freedom from all fear of evil. But it is better to have joy; an eager heart; the exultant anticipation of all good. This joy is ours - a hope of the glory of God.

1. The hope of glory. Called God's glory. Because he, the Perfect One, is perfectly blessed. And as we approximate towards his holiness, we shall approximate towards his happiness. He is enswathed in light; he is leading us into light. "The glory of God." More than imagination can conceive or heart desire, he is preparing for them that love him.

2. The joy of the hope. The brightness already irradiates us; the new life bounds in our veins. What vigour and hopefulness this lends to the doing of duties now! We are the heirs of a boundless future. What power to ignore the imperfectness and despair of life! Despair? with such a hope? "Let us rejoice!" Are we justified? Then it is our privilege to have peace and joy. What God has done, is doing for us. It is our duty also; for then what may we do for God! - T.F.L.

We saw in last chapter how Abraham was justified by faith alone, and how his case really covers ours. The promise of blessing through a seed, which Abraham believed so implicitly, has been fulfilled in Christ. We accordingly behove in the faithful Promiser who raised up Jesus from the dead, and we regard his death and resurrection as being a deliverance to death for our offences, and a deliverance from death for our justification. Faith enables us to draw the assurance of our justification from the resurrection of our Saviour. But now we pass under the guidance of the apostle to the consideration of the delightful state into which the justified come. And here we notice -

I. THE ASSURANCE THAT WE ARE THE OBJECTS OF THE DIVINE LOVE. (Vers. 1-5.) By nature and by reason of our sin we are the objects of God's righteous wrath; but when we are enabled to believe in a Saviour who died for us and rose again, we find ourselves passing out of the condemned condition into an assurance of God's love. And the apostle here gives us the stages in the blessed process.

1. We pass into a state of peace with God. We prefer the indicative (ἔχομεν) adopted in the Authorized Version to the subjunctive (ἔχωμεν) adopted by the Revised Version after Westcott and Hort. For the state of peace is not some uncertainty into which we may come, but it is a state which results from justification if it has really taken place. We cease from war, we are no longer enemies, we have entered into a state of peace. The believer, as he calmly meditates on the atoning work of Jesus Christ, sees that he has been led thereby out of the storm into the calm, out of war into peace. Enmity is over and peace is proclaimed.

2. We realize that Christ conducts us into a standing in grace. By his gracious mediation we pass into a new relation to God; we realize that we are justified, as believers, from all things from which we could not be justified by the Law of Moses. We can now stand before God, and realize our pardon and acceptance in the Beloved.

3. We are enabled to rejoice in hope of God's heavenly glory. For the justified condition into which we have come through Christ is intended to reach through the present life and issue in the glory of the life to come. It is no mere temporary frame of mind, but a permanent state, into which our Saviour has brought us.

4. We are enabled to profit by life's tribulations. So much is this the case that we are enabled to congratulate ourselves upon (καυχώμεθα) our tribulations; for through these we reach the power of patient endurance (ὐπομονὴ), and through the power of patient endurance we reach experience (δοκιμὴ, which means the result of the probation, as well as the "probation" itself, and the former gives here, notwithstanding the Revisers, the better sense); and through experience we reach hope - the hope of heavenly glory, since as its earnest there is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost a consciousness that we are the objects of the Divine love. The hope can never be disappointed. We have a "present heaven" in our happy assurance of God's love. We have passed out of the gloom into the gladness, and beyond us and awaiting us there lies the glory. Thus our tribulations conduct us to assurances of Divine love such as we could not otherwise enjoy.

II. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DIVINE LOVE. (Vers. 6-10.) The apostle, to confirm believers in the assurance of God's love, proceeds to exhibit its history.

1. And he shows its sovereign character. That is to say, it was when we were without strength, when we were helpless and hopeless in our guilt, that God gave love's greatest proof in Christ dying for the ungodly. It was, therefore, no reason in us, but solely the exercise of God's sovereign love, which led to the death of Jesus for the ungodly.

2. The death of Jesus is the great demonstration of God's love. Men have occasionally sacrificed their lives for good men, never for a merely just one; but God in Christ sacrificed his life for those who are yet sinners. No mightier demonstration of Divine love can he imagined than this dying of God's Son for sinners. And it is well here to notice that as a "trinitarian transaction," as Shedd has happily put it, God in Christ's death exhibits "his own love" (Revised Version). Through the unity of Father and Son in the Divine essence, the death of Jesus is really the self-sacrifice of God. It is, therefore, the most marvellous of all exhibitions of love.

3. The resurrection-life of Jesus is the great guarantee of our salvation from Divine wrath. Jesus died to secure our justification. We are justified by his blood. In this God has reconciled us to himself. The resurrection of Jesus is accordingly the proof that God is satisfied with his own self-sacrifice in Jesus Christ, and so his wrath is turned away from us through the spectacle of a risen Saviour. "The highest form of love," says Shedd, "that, namely, of self-sacrifice, prompts the triune God to satisfy his own justice, in the room and place of the sinner who has incurred the penalty of justice. In the work of vicarious atonement, God himself is both the offended and the propitiating party. This is taught in 2 Corinthians 5:18, 'God hath reconciled us to himself;' Colossians 1:20, 'To reconcile all things to himself.' God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, is Judge, Priest, and Sacrifice, all in one Being. The common objections to the doctrine of the propitiation of the Divine anger rest upon the unitarian idea of the Deity. According to this view, which denies personal distinctions in the essence, God, if propitiated, must be propitiated by another being than God. Christ is merely a creature. The influence of the atonement upon God is, therefore, a foreign influence from the sphere of the finite. But, according to the trinitarian idea of the Supreme Being, it is God who propitiates God. Both the origin and the influence of the atonement are personal, and not foreign, to the Deity. The transaction is wholly in the Divine Essence. The satisfaction of justice, or the propitiation of anger (whichever terms be employed, and both are employed in Scripture) is required by God, and made by God." It is a risen Saviour, living and reigning, who saves us from fear of Divine wrath and assures us of acceptance.

III. JOY THROUGH RECEIVING THE RECONCILIATION. (Ver. 11.) Now, when we appreciate God's wondrous love in providing a reconciliation, then we receive it by faith, and find ourselves constrained to rejoice in God who could so provide for us. Moreover, it is clear from the term "received" (ἐλάβομεν) that the "reconciliation" (καταλλαγὴ) is not something paid by the sinner, but something divinely provided which has to be accepted. It is an additional obligation imposed, not a price paid. God is so regal as to "reconcile himself," and then ask us to receive the benefit thereof. We ought to rejoice in such a God. Verily his thoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways. The justified have every reason to be joyful in their King. - R.M.E.

It seems as if the apostle was delighted to turn from demonstrations of the credibility of the gospel plan to consider the happiness of those who had embraced it and were realizing its privileges. His pen glows as he exhorts himself and his readers to taste the full comforts of the condition of reconciliation towards God. When our right to the estate is challenged, we may spend time in examining the title-deeds and verifying our claims; but in general it is healthier and more satisfactory to settle down calmly on the property and reap the benefit of its treasures. Let us confidently enter the dwelling which Divine love has secured us, and not always stay justifying the scheme of its foundation and architecture.

I. THE PALACE INTO WHICH WE ARE ADMITTED. It is a house of grace where the favour of God is enjoyed, and which is furnished from the stores of Divine goodness. He saw the needs of his creatures, pitied their forlorn wretchedness, would shelter them from the storm, and lavish on them proofs of kindness. Peace reigns there, a sense of blissful security. Every article of furniture, every picture on the walls, every robe worn, every meal provided, speaks of Divine mercy, of a changed attitude towards those received within the sacred precincts. It is a permanent home, which we enter to go out no more for ever. Grace alters not, is not fickle; therefore "we stand" (abide) therein without fear of one day losing our situation from the arbitrariness of the Master.

II. THE GATE OF ENTRANCE. "Through our Lord Jesus Christ." He is "the Door of the sheep," a living Way to the holiest of all. He is our introduction ("access") to the court of the King. His work of mercy and righteousness has availed to procure free entry into the inheritance. The cherubim and flaming sword no longer bar the way to the Paradise of God. Man's own moral power availed naught to force a way into the temple. He could make no breach in the walls of governmental justice.

III. THE ONLY PASSPORT REQUIRED. "By faith" we enter into this state of grace. The inquiry at the gate is, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" To trust in Christ is to feel the longing for a renewed heart, for Divine forgiveness, and to recognize in him "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Scepticism may keep men at a distance, unbelief may turn the back upon the mansion, timid doubt may remain gazing wistfully at the portico, but the believer is impelled to march humbly yet fearlessly through the appointed entrance into the halls of light and song.

IV. THE JOY OF THE INMATES. They are filled with exultation because of their present condition; they are already encompassed with so many marks of Divine favour. They are constantly finding new beauties in the construction of the rooms, and new evidences of Divine skill, forethought, and love. But they know that this is but the foretaste of further bliss; they triumph in the expectation of coming glory. They have the promise and many a sign of a fuller revealing of the character and purpose of God. He comes nearer to his guests, till at last the veil of sense shall be removed, and every occupant of the palace be enwrapped in the radiance of his throne. All the dust of the journey to the home, every vestige of defilement, vanishes from the pilgrims crowned with the brightness of God's heavenly presence. - S.R.A.

The letters of St. Paul abound in strange and striking paradoxes. In another place he speaks of himself "as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." Here he speaks of the Christian as "glorying in tribulation." He has been speaking of the effects of justification by faith, and ends by saying, "We rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (ver. 2). Our joy, however, is not confined to the future. True, there are cares and sorrows in this present life. But it does not therefore follow that we are to postpone all joy until we reach the spirit-land. "No!" says the apostle, boldly; "we glory even in our tribulations." The sorrows are there, 'tis true, but the light of the cross of Jesus transforms them with a glory all its own, even as the sunshine makes a rainbow of the shower. "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby." Tribulation is a bitter tree, but look at the fruits which it is capable of yielding. "We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope."

I. THE BITTER TREE. It is hardly necessary to speak of the bitterness of tribulation. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness." We all know something of what sorrow means, and how bitter it is.

1. There is the bitterness of bereavement. What agony of spirit when one who has been the light of your eyes, the joy and comfort of your home, is taken from you! What bitterness of sorrow is to be compared with the grief of parents for their children? How heart-rending is grief like David's, when he went up to the chamber over the gate, and as he went his sorrow overcame him, and he cried aloud, "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" And so, when the Bible wants to picture grief of the intensest kind, it speaks of mourning as one mourneth for his only son, and being in bitterness as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn (Zechariah 12:10). Parents who want to avoid the greatest of all grief, mourning over a child of whom they have no hope for eternity, should lose no opportunity of leading their children to the Saviour.

2. There is the bitterness of bodily suffering. Sleepless nights and weary days of tossing on a bed of sickness - how they tend to take the sunshine out of life! And then there are those trifling ailments, bodily infirmities, for which, perhaps, you get little sympathy, but which keep your body constantly feeble and your mind constantly depressed. It needs a Divine power to bear a life of constant pain. No human strength could stand it unaided without giving way to irritation or despondency. Even the Saviour of the world tasted how bitter is the cup of bodily suffering.

3. There is the bitterness of disappointment. Some cherished possession is taken away from you, some valuable property is lost, your earthly means of support take to themselves wings and flee away, some object on which you had set your heart is snatched away out of your reach, or some friend whom you had implicitly trusted suddenly proves treacherous and unfaithful. The feeling of disappointment which such circumstances produce was in Esau's mind when he came in to receive his father's blessing, and found that Jacob his brother had heartlessly supplanted him. "When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry." Life's disappointments - how much we all know about this kind of bitterness! Yes; tribulation is indeed a bitter tree.

II. ITS BLESSED FRUIT. Paul knew what he was talking about when he came to the subject of tribulation. He knew what persecution was. He knew what bodily suffering was. Five times he received thirty-nine stripes. Three times he was beaten with rods. Once he was stoned. Three times he suffered shipwreck. He had been "in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness." He knew what danger was. He had been "in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren." He knew what disappointment was. Like his Master, he too was forsaken in his hour of need by those who made profession of being his friends. He tells us that at his first appearance before Caesar no man stood with him. But whatever his trials had been when he wrote this, or whatever trials may yet be in store for him, he looks upon them all with a calm and peaceful, nay, with an exultant mind. "We glory in tribulations also." He knew what blessed fruit could be plucked off that bitter tree.

1. First of all, there was patience. "Tribulation worketh patience." Patience means really the capacity for enduring. If we speak of a patient man, we may mean one who can endure delay, and we say that he can wait patiently; or we may mean one who can endure suffering, and we speak of him as suffering patiently. The connection, then, between suffering and patience it is easy to see. It is by suffering that one learns how to suffer, that is, to be patient. And if we go into practical experience, we are pretty certain to find that the most patient Christian is the one who has suffered most. He was not always thus. Perhaps at first he was like the rough unpolished block of marble which I have seen in the Connemara marble works at Galway. He was disposed to resist the hand that was dealing with him in chastening. But the suffering came. It was repeated over and over again, like the incessant process of rubbing to which that rough-looking block is subjected. But by-and-by he came out of the suffering with the edges rubbed off his temper and the rebelliousness taken out of his spirit, even as the marble comes smooth and shining from the hard process through which it has to pass. Such is the use of suffering, to purify, to brighten the character, and produce patience in the soul. Indeed, the word "tribulation" conveys this same idea. It is derived from the Latin word tribulum, the threshing-instrument whereby the Roman husbandman separated the corn from the husks. That process was described as tribulatio. So it is in the spiritual world. Suffering and sorrow cleanse away the chaff - the pride, the selfishness, the disobedience - which is to be found more or less in all our natures. Let us think more of the result of the suffering than of the suffering itself, more of the patience it will develop than of the chaff which it will take away, and then we too shall learn, with St. Paul, to "glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience.

2. The second blessed fruit off this bitter tree is experience. Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience." The word here translated "experience" really means in the original "proof," or "trial," or "testing." In the Revised Version it is translated "probation." This does not, perhaps, quite express the full meaning either; but the point is that the apostle had something more in his mind than what we ordinarily mean by the word "experience." His idea probably was that tribulation and our patience under it give proof or confirmation of two things. They afford. us proof of the character of God - his faithfulness in fulfilling his promises, his love in sustaining us, and his power in giving us the victory over trial and suffering. And they afford us proof of our own character also - proof that we are the sons of God, proof that we have been justified by faith. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." And then there is the precious promise, "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation [or, 'trial']: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." In such ways does God confirm us by suffering, and by our own patience under it. So he confirms our faith in him, and confirms our own Christian character. This is another blessed fruit off the bitter tree of tribulation.

3. The third blessed fruit off this bitter tree is hope. "And experience, hope." The proof which we have received of God's goodness under past trials leads us to hope for still greater revelations of his goodness yet to come. The proof we have had of his wise and gracious purpose in purifying us by trial and suffering leads us to hope that "he who hath began a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." So the Christian is ever looking forward. When he bears the cross, he is looking forward to the crown. When he is suffering for his Master's sake, he is looking forward to the time when he shall reign with him in glory. This subject of tribulation and its fruit might fittingly he. closed with some lines written by a young lady in Nova Scotia, who was an invalid for many years-

"My life is a wearisome journey;
I am sick of the dust and the heat
The rays of the sun beat upon me;
The briars are wounding my feet;
But the city to which I am going
Will more than my trials repay;
All the toils of the road will seem nothing
When I get to the end of the way.

"There are so many hills to climb upward,
I often am longing for rest;
But he who appoints me my pathway
Knows just what is needful and best.
I know in his Word he has promised
That my strength shall be as my day;
And the toils of the road will seem nothing
When I get to the end of the way.

"He loves me too well to forsake me,
Or give me one trial too much:
All his people have dearly been purchased,
And Satan can never claim such.
By-and-by I shall see him and praise him
In the city of unending day;
And the toils of the road will seem nothing
When I get to the end of the way.

"Though now I am footsore and weary,
I shall rest when I'm safely at home;
I know I'll receive a glad welcome,
For the Saviour himself has said, 'Come:
So when I am weary in body,
And sinking in spirit, I say,
All the toils of the road will seem nothing
When I get to the end of the way.

"Cooling fountains are there for the thirsty;
There are cordials for those who are faint;
There are robes that are whiter and purer
Than any that fancy can paint.
Then I'll try to press hopefully onward,
Thinking often through each weary day,
The toils of the read will seem nothing
When I get to the end of the way." We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope. - C.H.I.

Paul has taught us that peace, nay glorying, may be ours, though this be a world of trial. He now teaches that we may glory in the very trials themselves. And this teaching he enforces by a chain of arguments. In other words, he taught in the previous verses that we are conquerors; now he teaches that we are "more than conquerors."

I. TRIBULATION WORKETH PATIENCE. NO character can be truly formed without the opportunity of endurance; we must learn to resist. Tribulation affords this opportunity; it calls us to resist.

II. PATIENCE. WORKETH PROBATION. Or, as the word means literally, "triedness." We must be as the genuine metal, which rings true. This can only be, in the case of character, as we have become true.

III. PROBATION WORKETH HOPE. Triedness works hope in a double sense: the tested strength we have warrants confidence; and past triumphs are pledges of future. So a veteran soldier, by reason of victories that he has won, and because he is a veteran, looks forward to future victory.

IV. HOPE PUTTETH NOT TO SHAME. The hope of victories to come is merged in the great hope of the crowning victory, the standing approved in God's presence at last. But shall this be? Are we not most unfit for such a presence? And may we not, therefore, when we confront him at last, confront his wrath? So would our hopes belie themselves, and by them we should be put to shame! Nay, but this cannot be. For is not all the spiritual education, upon which partly we build our hope, an education of God? Does not he mercifully suffer tribulation to befall us, that we may endure? and that, enduring, we may be approved? and that, being approved, we may have hope? This hope is of him. But, beyond all this, does not he himself now assure us of his love? Is it not shown to us by the Spirit, which searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God? Nay, is it not transfused through all our nature, "shed abroad" by the Spirit given to us? Yes, truly, all our consciousness pulsates with the assurance of the tender mercy of our God; all the voices of our experience say to us, "God loves you." And can such a hope be put to shame? Never, while God's Word lasts! God is educating us; but in and through all, and above all, God loves us! Let us hold fast to this blessed fact. While yielding to the discipline, let us at the same time hold his hand, and be strong in his mighty love. - T.F.L.

Trouble is usually considered antagonistic to joy. A ready objection might occur, therefore, to the apostle's declaration of Christian rejoicing. How was this possible, seeing the many hardships to which the profession of Christianity exposed its votaries? The text refutes such an objection.

I. THE CHRISTIAN FACTORY. Tribulation is God's method of disciplining his people. Sin having entered the world, bringing sorrow in its train, the very afflictions of life are forced by Divine grace to contribute to the improvement of those who undergo it religiously. This was evident in Old Testament times, but is still more visible under the dispensation of the Spirit, where chief stress is laid upon graces of character. The faith of the Christian is the material on which the machinery of trouble operates, spinning out of it the thread of patience. In the school of trouble are the meaning and the mercy of pain learnt; only those who have experienced opposition have been taught true resignation to God's will, content not to hurry events or to quarrel with them, but confidently to await his time and issue. With the threads of patience is woven the cloth of probation. He who continues steadfast in the will of God proves for himself the truth of the promises, the accuracy of the Divine forecasts, and the success of the Divine methods. The long succession of days and nights produces its glad harvest, when the fruits of patience attest that not in vain did the sower sow. And the mill of God's training ceases not its work, till out of probation is constructed the beautiful garment of hope, in which the Christian is gloriously arrayed. What can he do who has tested the faithfulness of God, but entertain unshaken confidence respecting all that yet awaits him? The evolution of grace is seen to produce ever better results as time passes, and the sure expectation is begotten of a grandeur of glory casting all past experience into the shade. Thus the apostle has returned to and demonstrated his previous statement.

1. Observe that tribulation is not in itself the object of rejoicing. The machinery seems often hard and cruel apart from its aim. Only when we look through the things seen to the unseen and eternal can we welcome trouble as working out a weight of glory, and it loses its fearsome aspect.

2. Then tribulation must have the Christian spirit to work upon, or its results may be disastrous. Not every substance will pass unharmed through the wheels and rollers, the spindles and shuttles. It may be torn in the process, or reduced to pulp. Trouble does not necessarily improve the worldly minded. Instead of softening, it may harden the heart; the man may become peevish and morose, soured by disappointment.

3. And the Christian may dread the allurement of prosperity more than the endurance of hardship. The chilling blast causes the traveller to wrap his cloak the closer around him; it is the heat which leads to throwing off his garment. Troubles drive us to the appointed Refuge; in our joys we are like Hannibal's soldiers at Cannae, relaxing the bonds of vigilance and soberness. Times of persecution have often proved an invigorating, bracing season to the Church. Perhaps the hope of future glory appears more lustrous and enviable when in contrast with present danger.

II. THE VALUE OF THE PRODUCT. Hope is cheerful, like the light wherewith God decks himself and adorns the landscape. Hope is the eye of the soul; its clearness and brightness tell of good health. But the point on which the apostle here insists is the reliable character of Christian hope. It is a robe of which the wearer will never have cause to be ashamed. It suits the wearer. There has been an inward preparation for the outward adornment. God's love has been diffused through his breast. Assured that he is a beloved child, the anticipation of bliss and perfection is an appropriate Vesture for his peaceful, happy spirit. The man excluded from the wedding-feast because of an unsuitable dress showed thereby that his heart was not right; pride or obstinacy had rejected the garment freely offered. The workmanship of the robe displays the same gracious design that has filled the heart already with assurances of reconciling, redeeming love. The Spirit showing to the believer the things of Christ reveals the character and purpose of God, and the hope of glory is recognized as corresponding in every particular to this experience of the wondrous love of God. It is a durable garment, not flimsy in texture, looking well for a season, then suddenly giving way. The hope of many is like a palace of ice, glittering, but yielding to the rays of increasing light, or like a torch extinguished by the wind of death. But this hope, amid every change of circumstance, shall subsist in undecaying, yea, growing, splendour. - S.R.A.

It is a most remarkable phrase, this description which is given in the eighth verse, of God commending his own love. We have, indeed, in other portions of Scripture, the Divine Being represented as a heavenly Merchantman, setting forth the blessings of the gospel as a merchantman might set forth his wares. "He, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." And again in the Book of Revelation, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed; ... and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." But here God is represented as commending, not merely the blessings of the gospel, but his own love, to human observation and admiration. Yes; but this is for no selfish end. God's object in commending his love to us is for our sakes. He sets it before us in all its matchless tenderness and grandeur, that by means of it he may melt our hearts. He sets it before us in all its attractive power, that he may draw our hearts to holiness and our souls to heaven. He sets it before us in order that we may yield ourselves to its influence, and that thus, by what Dr. Chalmers calls "the expulsive power of a new affection," sin and the love of it, with all its withering blight and fatal grasp, may be driven out of our natures.

I. THE LOVE OF GOD IS COMMENDED BY ITS OBJECTS. We have set before us in these verses a description of those who are the objects of the love of God, as shown in the death of Jesus Christ his Son. Was it the angels that were the objects of God's redeeming love? Was it for the angels that Jesus died? No. They did not need his death. Was it for the good men and women of the world that Jesus died? If it was only for the good, then the love of God would be very limited in its range, and the great mass of humanity would be still helpless and hopeless. But one perfectly good person it would be impossible to find. "All have sinned." Who, then, are the objects of the love of God? Just those very men and women of whom it is said that "there is none righteous, no, not one."

1. The apostle describes us as being in a state of helplessness. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" (ver. 6). Surely here is a commendation of God's love. Very often in this world the weak are left to shift for themselves. But if any of us were left to our own unaided efforts, what would become of us? Are we not all glad, no matter how strong we are, of the assistance of others? if any of us were left to our own unaided efforts to get to heaven, which of us could hope to get there? The gospel is a gospel for the weak - that is to say, for the very strongest of us, physically, morally, and spiritually. In regard to God and eternity, how weak we are in all these aspects! We cannot stay the hand of disease or death; we cannot in our own strength maintain a life of an unswerving moral standard; we cannot work out a salvation for ourselves. But listen to this message: "When we were yet without strength,... Christ died for us."

2. But God loves more than the weak. He loves the ungodly. "Christ died for the ungodly" (ver. 6). The word here used expresses the indifference of the human heart to spiritual things. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit." If God only loved those who turned to him of their own accord, who then could be saved? If any of us have an interest now in spiritual things, was it not because God, in his mercy, laid his hand upon us, and awakened our minds to serious thought about him and our own souls? If there are those who are godless, ungodly, any who have no interest in spiritual things, to whom God's service is a weariness, let us say to them, "God loves even you." "Christ died for the ungodly."

3. But God goes a step lower than even the ungodly and indifferent. He goes down into the depths of sin. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (ver. 8). And not merely sinners, but enemies. "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son" (ver. 10). Here is the greatest of all commendations of the Divine lore. It was a love, not for the deserving, but for the undeserving; not for the obedient, but for the disobedient; not for the just, but for the unjust; not for his friends, but for his enemies. If you have ever tried to love your enemies, those who have done you an injury, you know how hard it is. But God loved his enemies - those who had broken his Law and rejected his invitations - God loved them so much that he gave his own Son to die for their salvation, in order that he might bring those who were his enemies to dwell for ever with himself. What a description it is of the objects of God's love! "Without strength;" "ungodly;" "sinners;" "enemies." Surely this ought to be enough to commend the love of God to us. Surely, then, there is hope for the guiltiest. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."

"In peace let me resign my breath,
And thy salvation see;
My sins deserve eternal death,
But Jesus died for me."

II. THE LOVE OF GOD IS COMMENDED BY ITS OPERATION.

1. On God's side it involved sacrifice. God's love did not exhaust itself in profession. It showed itself in action. It showed itself in the greatest sacrifice which the world has ever seen. That was a genuine love. How it must have grieved the Father to think of his own holy, innocent Son, being buffeted and scourged and crucified by the hands of wicked men, in the frenzy of their passion and hatred! What a sacrifice to make for our sakes, when God gave up his own Son to the death for us all! Herein is the proof of the reality of God's love. Herein is its commendation to us.

"Love so amazing, so Divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."

2. And then look at the operation of this love on our side. Look at the results it produces in human hearts. "Hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" (ver. 5). "And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement" (ver. 11). What confidence it produces, what holy calm, what peace, what hope, what joy for time and for eternity, when we know that God loves us! Oh! there is no power like it to sustain the human heart. Temptations lose their power to drag us down, when that love is bound around us like a life-buoy. Hatred and malice cannot harm us, hidden in the secret of his presence. Sorrow and suffering can bring no despair, when the Father's face is bending over us with his everlasting smile, and his arms are underneath us with their everlasting strength. His love is like a path of golden sunlight across the dark valley. "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Thus God commends to us his love. He commends it to us by showing us our own condition - what we are without it. He shows us the character of the objects of his love - "without strength;" "ungodly;" "sinners;" "enemies." He shows us the operation of his love. He points us to the cross, and bids us measure there the height and depth of his marvellous love. He shows us the operation of his love in human hearts - what peace, what confidence, what hope, what joy unspeakable and full of glory, it produces. For all these reasons it is a love worth yielding to. For all these reasons it is a love worth having. Christians should commend the love of God. A consistent Christian life is the best testimony to the power of the love of God. By loving even our enemies, by showing a spirit of unselfishness and self-sacrifice, let us commend to those around us the love of God.

"When one that holds communion with the skies
Has filled his urn where those pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings;
Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide
That tells us whence his treasures are supplied? C.H.I.

The realization of the love of God in the Christian consciousness is the crowning Christian evidence; and it is the work of God himself by his Spirit. But an historical fact is used by the Spirit of God as the instrumentality of his work of love; and it is because we believe in the fact that we realize the love which gives us such a blessed life. Yes, "God commendeth his love toward us;" and the great fact of commendation is this, "Christ died for us."

I. THE LOVE. We may never forget that it was because God loved us we were saved. The originating impulse to salvation was in him. Wrath and love were mingled, but the love strove so to act that the wrath should be put away. The claims of righteousness on account of sins that were past were strong; but what if, by a supreme self-sacrifice, he himself should meet those claims? Even so it was; thus God's love worketh all in all.

II. THE SELF-SACRIFICE. Some object to the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, that to punish the innocent for the guilty is not just. But here we behold God himself stooping to death for man! And may not love make such a sacrifice? Nay, this is the only sacrifice which true love can make - to sacrifice itself. "God commendeth his own love toward us, in that Christ died for us." The son of a father, dearer than self: Abraham; William Tell. But such illustrations utterly fail; for God's Son is indissolubly One with him - the Communication of himself.

III. THE SACRIFICE FOR SINNERS. Such love the great prototype of all self-sacrificing human love. There may be the sacrifice of husband for wife, of mother for child. But this, in a sense, is self for self; God's was God for man. There may be more disinterested sacrifice: subject for monarch, friend for friend. Yes, there may be self-sacrifice even unto death "for a righteous man," "for the good man" - there may be: "peradventure" "scarcely." But God's love - for the weak, for the ungodly, for sinners! For such as were averse from himself, transgressing the laws of holiness, impotent to attempt or desire the good - for such he died! A love which not merely pitied the victims of weakness, but gave itself for those who were most repulsive in their love of sin, most unblushing in their hate of God: herein is love indeed! And such was his love to us, in Christ. Our faith in him, then, must be a faith which shall never let go its hold, which shall trust unto the uttermost. Also, our love must be a reflex of his. Even for those who are most distasteful in their sin, a redeeming love must be felt and shown. - T.F.L.

But what an argument of assurance is such a love! If the love itself works hope, how does this assured love work an assured hope! It is an a fortiori of the strongest kind.

I. THE RECONCILIATION.

1. We were enemies. God was opposed to us; we were opposed to God. Something terribly real in this twofold opposition. We know its reality on our side; conscience, nature, revelation testify to its reality on God's side. The wrath of God.

2. Christ died for us. Justifying us by his blood, reconciling us to God through his death. The great demonstration of righteousness; the Divine concession to its claims. Also a great demonstration of love; the Divine provision for its claims. Yes; God sacrificing himself for man.

3. We are reconciled. God's love has free course now through Christ; our love is won for God in Christ. So then peace, amity, mutual love; identification in Christ! "Behold, what manner of love," etc. (1 John 3:1).

II. THE REJOICING. A reversion to argument with which chapter opened, and which is more or less maintained through all these verses. We look forward and fear. Nay, says the apostle, look to the past; think how great things God hath done for you; think of the conditions under which all that deliverance was wrought. And now contrast: see conditions of present salvation, and be glad as you look to the future, assured that your salvation shall be unto the uttermost. Follow the a fortiori.

1. Not enemies, but friends. What we were! But he loved us then, laid down his life for us then. What we are! how much more shall he save us now! "Thou art mine!"

2. Not his death, but his life. Two sides of Christ's saving work. Think of the suffering and death: that did so much! Think of the exaltation and life: how much shall not that do!

3. Not only reconciled, but rejoicing. The new-found love; the living Friend. Let us take this Divine "much more" into all our life. The dark background of rebellion and death; the present love and life: much more! The overcoming of the great evil once for all; the overcoming of our temptations now: much more! The gift of the Son; and now the gift of all grace through him: much more! And so, "saved from wrath through him." - T.F.L.

The doctrine of justification by faith may be said to be hinted at in the first chapter, implied in the second, distinctly proclaimed in the third, proved scriptural in the fourth, and openly exulted in in this present chapter. Its consequences are now being emphasized by the apostle.

I. THE APPEAL TO A FACT. The "if" of the tenth verse does not signify doubt, but introduces the major premiss of the proposition, and one which is matter of instant acknowledgment. Translate it "since," or "seeing that."

1. The previous state, one of enmity against God. The human race as such had revolted against its Sovereign. The apostle considers Christ's work as effected for all generations, the ancient mints profiting by anticipatory faith, and subsequent believers being attracted by the plain preaching of the cross. Modern experience attests the reality of this unnatural condition, the hostility being evident both in thought and word and deed. What a blight must have fallen upon the creation, for the creatures to set themselves against their Creator, the children against their Parent! The remembrance of a God in heaven, instead of inspiring delight, is excluded as far and as long as possible. Witness the exclamation of the woman by the dying-bed of Falstaff, "Now I, to comfort him, bid him `a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet."

2. The change effected. Reconciliation means the bringing together in happy agreement of parties formerly at variance. It matters not whether we can definitely state the time and manner of our individual conversion, provided we are conscious that there is now no estrangement, that we are not "alienated in our mind" from the almighty Author of our being. Does peace reign? Do we love and not dread God, desiring to serve him as our chief glory?

3. The instrument. The death of Christ is declared by the apostle to have removed every barrier to man's return to fellowship with God. We are "justified by his blood," which allays the fears of conscience and inspires us with new motives and desires. The law of condemnation was nailed to the cross. Sinners recognize in the Father's surrender of his beloved Son his intention and willingness to forgive the penitent.

II. THE ARGUMENT BASED THEREON.

1. If a dying Christ reconciled us, surely a living Redeemer will avert from us Divine wrath. The contrast was great between the lifeless form taken down by the disciples from the cross, and the risen Saviour declaring, "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth." And in proportion did the disciples rise from chilling despair into a condition of fearless triumph. The resurrection was the seal of the pleasure of God in the obedience of his Son, and an ascension to honour could mean nothing less than continued aid and blessing for those on whose behalf the Son had suffered.

2. If Christ endured the cross for the sake of his enemies, surely he will now save his friends. By his death he transmuted foes into friends, and friendship involves help in every time of need. The exalted Saviour places his priestly resources at the disposal of his weak and tempted followers. His perpetual intercession is a guarantee of their full, complete salvation. "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loves them unto the end."

3. If Christ overcame the initial difficulty in salvation, no other obstacle can arrest his redemptive career. It might well seem the crux of the problem to bring man into the way of salvation; but once his feet are guided into the way of peace, to sustain him therein is the joyful function of him who "ever lives to save." The bridging of the chasm between sin and righteousness, love and holy indignation, having been accomplished, none can doubt the ability of the Divine Architect to lead the wayfarer across in safety. Our Shepherd trains and feeds his flock. The angel with the golden censer perfumes and offers our prayers before the throne. The living Saviour is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" of his people. - S.R.A.

Here the apostle contrasts the reign of sin with the reign of grace, and shows that, while there is a point of similarity between them, there are many points in which they differ, and in which grace is triumphant over sin. All this is for the encouragement of the sinner, that he may be led from the captivity of sin to hope and live under the influence of God's mercy.

I. GRACE AND SIN BOTH CAME BY ONE PERSON. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin" (ver. 12); "Through the offence of one many died" (ver. 15); "Death reigned by one" (ver. 17); "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (ver. 19). So also with the reign of grace. "The grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ" (ver. 15); "They who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by One, Jesus Christ" (ver. 17); "So by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous" (ver. 19). Observe here the power of the individual for good or evil. Our acts are widespread in their influences, perhaps eternal in their consequences. "None of us liveth to himself." Shall our life be a curse to those around us, or a blessing? Shall we be among those whose aim and errand in the world seem to be to do all the mischief or all the harm they can? Or shall we be amongst those who try to follow in the footsteps of him who "went about every day doing good"?

II. THE INFLUENCE OF GRACE IS TRIUMPHANT OVER THE INFLUENCE OF SIN.

1. Sin brought condemnation; grace triumphant brings pardon. "The judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification" (ver. 16); "As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men to justification of life" (ver. 18). Grace and mercy triumph over the guilt of sin.

2. Sin brought sinfulness; grace brings righteousness. "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" (ver. 19). One man's sin imposed upon the race an hereditary taint of sin. The depravity of human nature, as already shown, is universal. "All have sinned." But here, too, grace can triumph. Grace can change the corrupt and unregenerate heart. Grace reigns through righteousness God's purpose in justification is not merely that his people may be saved from sin's guilt, but also that they may be delivered from its rower. As St. Paul elsewhere says, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" (Ephesians 1:4). The experience of many a true child of God has shown how grace can triumph over the hereditary sinfulness of human nature, and over the special temptations to which some natures are exposed.

3. Sin brought death; grace brings life. "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord" (ver. 21). It is sin which has cast the gloom over the dark valley. "The sting of death is sin." But Jesus has come to give us light. "Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:57). Truly, if sin has abounded to the corruption and despair and death of human nature, grace has much more abounded to its regeneration and hope and everlasting life. - C.H.I.

The summing up of this first division of the Epistle: Christ has undone what sin has done, as regards our objective relation to God. In these three verses - Sin through one works death to all.

I. SIN WORRYING DEATH. "Death" a word with many meanings in Scripture. Dissolution of complex nature; corruption of spiritual nature; and final abandonment by God. Here the first. An objective punishment of an objective transgression; a manifest sentence of condemnation. Hence symbolic of condemnation itself, showing forth God's wrath. May well lead thoughts to death that must reign in the inner man, through the withdrawal of God's favour - a spiritual paralysis. Also might well be premonitory of the total casting-off. Such, then, the triple death - condemnation, helplessness, and the culmination of both in the hereafter. And this the death which "entered into the world" through sin.

II. DEATH REIGNING OVER ALL. But this sin the sin of one. How, then, the universal death? Look around - death, death, death! Yes, might answer, because sin, sin, sin! True; but carry thought back to time anterior to Law. Death still! And no sin then such as Adam's was, such as yours is - so conscious, so deliberate. There was the presence and working of sin, indeed, but the working was the spontaneous working of a corrupt nature. No law, and therefore, strictly, no transgression. Argument might be reinforced by similar consideration of heathen now, and infants: death reigns! So, then, the death even of those who have the Law is not on account of their individual transgressions of the Law, but must be traced to the same cause as operates in the case of those who have "not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression."

III. THE SIN OF ONE THE SIN OF ALL. Therefore, if death be an objective punishment for an objective offence, it can be for none other's than his offence who first transgressed God's manifested will. And therefore, if the condemnation be imputed to all, the sin was imputed to all. Or, in other words, in him "all sinned" (ver. 12). The marvellous solidarity of all things - species, genus, world, system, universe. So in respect of mankind, and the spiritual history of mankind: the act of one, the act of all. So, then, all rest under a shadow - the shadow cast by Adam's sin! All bear a brand - the brand of his punishment! Where is the path from darkness into light? Justification through Christ! Can this be coextensive in its range with the results of sin? Is there a solidarity here also? Yes.'; for Adam was "a figure of him that was to come." We have another Head, a second Adam! - T.F.L.

In last section we saw the blessed state into which the justified believer comes - a state of peace, of gracious acceptance, of glorious hope, of joy in God. The apostle in the present section expounds the relation in which mankind stands to the two great representatives, Adam and Christ. We cannot do better than consider these two representatives in the order named, and how they are related to the race.

I. THE FIRST ADAM AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RACE. Now, the apostle distinctly declares in this passage that death entered into our world through one man's sin. The one man in his sin must, therefore, have been acting for the race; and it is for us to get a clear view of his representative position. Now, the usual mistake made in this subject is in supposing that representatives must be voluntarily selected by those they represent. This is not always the case. A representative may occupy his position of necessity. This was the case with our first parent. The human race is not made up of a number of independent units, but of a series of dependent generations. Consequently, as first parent, Adam was in the very nature of the case representative of the race. "The unreasoning flippancy," says an able writer, "with which some object to their responsibility for the act of Adam, because they had no part in choosing him as their representative, shows singular want of thought and of discriminating observation of the settled order of God's providence. It is evident that when God himself directly institutes a social organization, he always appoints, either by special act or by an invariable natural order, the ruling and representative head... The unity of the human race is his own immediate institution, and he appointed Adam its ancestor to be its representative and federal head. And in this case also he rendered an elective appointment by man impossible, by the constitution which brought man into being in successive generations. Not having from the beginning contemporaneous existence, consentaneous action was impossible. Their unity, therefore, was made to depend upon a common head and upon his representative action .... The constitution of nature and the course of providence render it a matter of social justice that one generation shall bind the succeeding, however remote, for good or evil. All legislation and all government proceeds upon this principle, and cannot avoid it. The evil entailed upon the race has come upon us by the selfsame principle, and its repudiation is impossible without the violation of the moral order upon which the stability of society depends. Our responsible relation to the first sin of Adam in no way depends upon our consent to his appointment as our covenant head, any more than our responsible relation to the national debt of Great Britain is affected by the fact that it was contracted without our personal consent, and before we were born." It will be found also that Adam's parental authority carries with it the idea of kingship; he was in a regal as well as representative position; he had dominion not only over the creatures, but also over his own posterity. His acts were consequently of a regal and representative character. Carrying these necessary principles with us, we can see how his sin in eating the forbidden fruit was a representative act. In this the race was represented, by it the race was bound; he was acting in his representative capacity, and there is no good gained by repudiating it. But, further, we can understand in some measure how a sin like Adam's affected his constitution, so that he became with his wife tainted, and so transmitted the sin to succeeding generations. The death of infants is the positive proof that the race has been treated as an organic unity, and that the taint of sin has been transmitted by ordinary generation. The whole subject of "heredity," as now scientifically treated, bears upon this relation of Adam to his posterity. It is evident that the generations have been linked each to each. Representative responsibility has been in operation from the first. Instead of quarrelling with the arrangement, our duty is to recognize it, and to see how out of the same principle we may receive blessing as a glorious set-off to the curse which has been transmitted to us.

II. THE SECOND ADAM AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE JUSTIFIED. We have seen how the first Adam was constituted the representative of the race, and by his sin involved the whole race in trespass and condemnation. Death passed unto all men, for that all in him have sinned. But now the apostle shows us the glorious set-off to this inheritance of guilt and death. God has given a new Representative to the race, even Jesus Christ his Son. By his obedience the representative principle is transmuted into an organ of grace instead of an organ of condemnation. But let us carefully note the nature of the relation set up between us and Christ. And here let us observe:

1. While we are united to the first Adam by ordinary generation, we get united to the second Adam by regeneration. The first union is involuntary; we cannot determine who our parents shall be. But union to Christ partakes of a voluntary character. When the Spirit is received and regenerates us, he makes us willing in the day of his power. Freedom of the will has its place in the relation into which we enter towards the second Adam. We may reject the union or close with it. Hence the whole race is not necessarily embraced in Christ's vicarious work, simply because the whole race will not be. All will not come to Jesus that they may have life (John 5:40).

2. Jesus proposes to quench the fire, not only of original sin, but also of actual sin, in those who receive his grace. This is the apostolic idea in this passage. The arrangement might have been to checkmate merely the original sin; that is, to put the race upon as good a platform as our first parent occupied before the Fall. Christ's obedience might thus have been the mere equivalent for Adam's disobedience. But the free gift of justification through Christ embraces our actual sins as well as our original sin. Grace is thus seen to abound. All sin in which we have been involved gets cancelled and put away through the obedience of our Representative. And:

3. Jesus proposes not only to counteract the sin, but also to secure a reign of grace unto eternal life. The abounding grace of the second Adam raises its recipients into an eternal life in the favour and society of God. Thus is it that the representative principle provides the most magnificent compensation for all that it entails through our first parent's fall. If we by faith are united to the second Adam, then we get the benefit of his obedience; his endurance of the penalty we deserved is accepted as ours; his perfect obedience to the requirements of the Divine Law is imputed to us; and his gracious Spirit comes to abide within us. The result is that the grace so abounds as to overmaster the sin and to raise us into that fellowship with God which is life eternal. The second Adam thus more than redeems us from our relation to the first Adam.

III. THE ADMINISTRATION OF GRACE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST MAKES AMPLE COMPENSATION FOR ALL APPARENT ANOMALIES IN THE PREVIOUS COVENANT. Now, one of the facts referred to by the apostle in this passage is, on the admission of almost all the commentators, the death of infants in consequence of their relation to Adam. It may, of course, be said that these infants were in the loins of Adam when he sinned, as Levi was in the loins of Abraham when he paid tithes to Melchizedek. Still, the fate of infants would seem an anomaly in the government of God if they are to receive no compensation through relation to the second Adam. But if it is scriptural to believe that all infants who die because of their relation to the first Adam inherit everlasting life because of their relation to the second Adam, then all harshness disappears and the anomaly is overborne. Now, this is, as we believe, the proper doctrine. All who die in infancy are, through the all-abounding grace of the second Adam, saved. We need have no fears for them, wherever they have passed away. Their suffering unto death is a cheap price to pay for exemption from the temptations of the present world; and each of them in the glory will accept the painful passage to it as, after all, a merciful arrangement, seeing that glory lay beyond it. - R.M.E.

It is evident that all are condemned, because death reigns; and it is proved that the condemnation of all is through the sin of one, because even where no express law is, there is death. But we have hope in Christ. Is our hope valid? Does the justification through Christ reach over as wide a range as the condemnation through Adam? And is the consequent life to prevail coextensively with the death? The argument here is to prove the certainty of each coextension.

I. AN ABOUNDING GRACE.

1. The originating cause of the condemnation was the

(1) severity of God;

(2) working because of trespass - a trespass which was (literally) a fall through weakness;

(3) and working, for one trespass, death to all.

2. The originating cause of the justification is the

(1) grace of God;

(2) working by a gift of grace - viz. Christ; and by the grace of this Christ - a love unto death;

(3) and working because many trespasses call forth compassion. Surely, "not as the trespass, so also is the free gift."

II. AN INDIVIDUAL APPROPRIATION OF THE ABOUNDING GRACE,

1. The participation in the sentence of condemnation was passive on the part of the many, for the sin of one - the unchoosing heirs of a sad inheritance.

2. The participation in the decree of life is active on the part of many, for the sacrifice of the One - they "receive" the grace of righteousness, laying hold of it by the voluntary activity of faith. Infinite love is the fount of our life; and Jesus Christ, a Man, is he in whom all fulness dwells. The certainty is irrefragable. Do we make it ours? "As many as received him" (John 1:12). - T.F.L.

The equal solidarity with Christ as with Adam reaffirmed, from the implication of vers. 12-14, in the strength of the arguments of vers. 15-17. Affirmed in two antitheses, the one pointing in either case more to historical events, the other to moral causes.

I. THE HISTORICAL ANTITHESIS.

1. One trespass unto condemnation - the condemnation that is marked by death.

2. One act of righteousness (i.e. one decree of righteousness) unto justification - the justification that brings life.

II. THE MORAL ANTITHESIS.

1. One man's disobedience making the many sinners: it being imputed to them for sin. The sinfulness of perverted will also bound up in the same sad heritage.

2. One Man's obedience - obedience "unto death" (Philippians 2:8) - making the many righteous: it being imputed to them for righteousness. The power of a holy will also involved in the restored heritage. We see here the immense importance of moral acts; the immense influence also of moral factors. Never to be repeated on such a scale: but not on a lesser scale? "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it" - T.F.L.

By itself the first clause expresses a fact of deepest gloom. It calls attention to the prevalence of sin and death. The history of the world is traced in darkest colours. We see the race from Adam till now marching to the grave, with the taint of corruption upon all. We are confronted by that profound mystery, the existence of moral evil, with its widespread, deep-seated effects. The possibility of man made upright and free yielding to temptation does not exhaust the explanation of the actual Fall. And when the Scriptures point to the influence of an external agent, the serpent, employed to bring about the downfall of the first pair, the pall of mystery is not removed; its corner is lifted a little that we may see how our difficulties relate to questionings concerning the origin and continuance of evil in beings superior to man. This appears to be God's mode of dealing with us. Enough is said to allow faith a foothold, not enough to place the whole territory at our disposal. Instead of unlocking the house of previous being and inviting us to its darkened halls, to explore for ourselves the tragedy with which our own world-tragedy is connected, the Scriptures point to a Sun that has risen to shine upon our moral firmament, and bid us note its blissful tendencies, kindling fresh life and beauty, arresting decay, reviving hope, attesting the interest of the Almighty in his creatures, and showing that the permission of evil is not to be ascribed to any lack of Divine love. The subject of sin cannot be beneficially studied unless combined with the antidote which the wisdom and affection of the Most High have provided. Faith may waver as it contemplates the inroads made by sin upon the intelligence and happiness of the human family, and faith must be strengthened by meditation on the remedial work of Christ. Do you wonder at the transmission of contagion from generation to generation, at the long-drawn-out penalty of the race? and does the law seem inequitable that lays many of the acts of the guilty as a burden on the shoulders of the innocent? Then notice the operation of the same law in redemption, where the Son of God sheds his blood to save sinners, and observe how from him is perpetuated the blessing of peace and godliness. Separate the two hemispheres, and the mind becomes a prey to chilling doubts and oppressive fears; unite them, and hope asserts its beneficent vivifying power. Whilst we declare in amazement, "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" we can add, "To whom be glory for ever;" "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."

I. THE CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SIN OF ADAM AND THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. To disobey the particular prohibition was to listen to the tempter, and to substitute human will for the Divine. Therein was contained the germ of the worst vices. To Jesus was assigned the more difficult task of remaining holy amid a world of evil, and the slightest deviation from rectitude had marred his perfect offering. Our sin is disobedience, and we are righteous in proportion as we obey the dictates of God from the heart. Disobedience, as Adam found, does not enlarge, but restricts our liberty. Not knowledge, but obedience, saves the soul.

II. THE CONTRAST FURTHER SHOWN IN THE EFFECTS WROUGHT BY EACH. The apostle assumes the truth of the story in Genesis. He proves the universality of sin by a reference to the fact that all have died, showing that even the ancients prior to Moses must have transgressed some law, and so incurred the penalty for disobedience. The principle of heredity confirms the truth of the doctrine that our progenitors have transmitted a vitiated nature to their descendants. Jesus, the second Adam, is the Head of a new race, to whom he imparts a new birth, with its issue sanctification. By the model of his flawless obedience, and by the grace which flows into us from that spring of obedience, the curse is removed from believers, and righteousness is imputed and imparted.

III. THE COMPARISON OF THE NUMBERS INFLUENCED. This passage should enlarge our estimate of the kingdom of the saved. In each case it is "the many" who are affected. The obedience of Christ is sufficient as a meritorious cause to justify the whole world, though only those who "receive the Word" are consciously gladdened and sanctified thereby. No man is condemned on account of Adam's transgression; it is his own disobedience to the written or innate law which determines his sentence. The millions who have died in infancy are redeemed by Christ; multitudes in the Jewish and heathen world were saved by virtue of his atonement, though not explicitly revealed to them, and the Apostle John saw in heaven a number beyond the arithmetic of earth to calculate. - S.R.A.

A return to the mention of the Mosaic Law, and its part in the great economy of the world's history. Its immediate, remoter, and ultimate effects.

I. IMMEDIATE EFFECT.

1. A side-economy: among one people, for disciplinary purposes.

2. "That the trespass might abound," i.e. that men might be compelled to the consciousness of that which wrought in them unconsciously. Working thus two-foldly - as revelation, and as repression. In the latter way, obviously to the intensifying of the consciousness of sin, as when a torrent is dammed. The former has an analogue in the growing knowledge of the Christian life, and the increased arduousness of Christian effort which is consequent upon it. So the moral law, the ceremonial, the prophets, and John Baptist. The climax of its effect towards sin in the crucifixion of Christ, in which man's wickedness, driven to desperation by the holy law of the life of Christ, showed its utmost evil. Truly, "the Law came in, that the trespass might abound."

II. REMOTER EFFECT. "Grace did abound more exceedingly."

1. The very economy of law was an economy of mercy, in all its parts: so the "This do, and live," which in some sense was verified even to their imperfect doings; and so the double significance of their sacrifices, revealing indeed their guilt, but prophetic of expiation.

2. The climax of sin, wrought through the Law, was a climax of grace: the death of him who must die to take away sin. "More exceedingly?" Ah, yes!

III. ULTIMATE EFFECT. Extension of effects, to all the world: and they? A contrast once again.

1. "Sin reigned in death" - the dread sign of its sovereignty. Seen everywhere - the dark sign-manual stamped on all the world.

2. "That even so might grace reign," etc.

(1) Grace. God's favour shown in spite of sin.

(2) Through righteousness. The favour being shown through Christ, and through the justification which is by him. God's favour at once the originating cause, and the realized effect, of the "righteousness."

(3) Unto eternal life. The everlasting sign of the sovereignty of love, as contrasted with that death which was the sign of the sovereignty of sin. This, then, the paean which shall resound through all the ages - "Death is swallowed up in victory!" Shall we have part in that immortal song? - T.F.L.