Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. I. THE GOSPEL IS A REVELATION OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS. 1. Righteousness is a regard to what is right. 2. God is essentially a righteous Being. He knows what is due from each to the rest, and from all to Himself, and also sees and acknowledges what is due from Him to them. The foundation and standard of all righteousness are to be found in His nature and character. He has no desire, and can have no temptation to do that which is unjust. The Judge of all the earth must do right. 3. He loves righteousness in others, and hates iniquity. Whether we rob God or our neighbours, it is alike abhorrent to Him. He shows His love of righteousness — (1) By rewarding it; this He has done among the angels in heaven. (2) By punishing unrighteousness; this He has done among the lost spirits in hell. (3) By seeking the recovery of those who have fallen from righteousness; and this He is doing upon earth through the gospel of His Son. 4. The gospel is not merely a display of mercy, but of righteousness. He could not bestow forgiveness on sinners in violation of righteousness. (1) He must therefore devise some way of satisfying the demands of justice before He can deliver the ungodly from the doom which they deserve. This He has done in the surrender of His Son as a sin offering for the world. (2) He must provide — which He has done through the Holy Ghost — for the restoration of pardoned rebels to personal purity and holiness; and so will His righteousness be displayed and His law magnified in the salvation of a ruined race. Shall we say that His righteousness is the handmaid of His love, or that His love is subservient to His righteousness? Let us not attempt to settle the law of precedence; it is enough for us to know that in the salvation of sinful men both God's righteousness and God's love are resplendently revealed — the righteousness through His love, and the love through His righteousness. II. THE OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL IS TO RAISE MAN TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. 1. Man was at first made upright. In the enjoyment of this righteousness he possessed life. But by transgression he fell. Instantly his understanding was darkened, his conscience perverted, his heart disordered, and his happiness destroyed. He lost his life. 2. God's purpose in the gospel is to make us again righteous; to deliver us from condemnation and renew our souls in virtue and truth. This is the same thing as to recover us from death to life. By being righteous we live, by being unrighteous we die. III. FAITH, AS THE INSTRUMENT OF MAN'S RECOVERY TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. 1. Faith is mentioned in opposition to legal works. We might be righteous if we could keep the whole law unfalteringly and unceasingly. But we have not, and cannot do so. Hence we are shut out from works, and shut up to faith. We cannot acquire a righteousness of our own, but must be content to let God give us one. 2. Faith is not to be confounded with feelings. It may lead to certain emotions of the soul, but it does not consist of them. The object of faith is not to be found within ourselves; it lies without. 3. What, then, is faith? (1) It is belief, and nothing more, when it is directed to a doctrinal statement or alleged fact of the past, and then we may call it intellectual or historical faith. (2) But suppose its object to have some immediate and powerful bearing upon our duty and interests; then will our faith necessarily lead to action. Such faith may be called practical or ethical. (3) But the object of faith may be something more than either statements or precepts: it may be a living person. We then have faith in him, or on him, as well as belief about him; our faith takes the form of confidence, reliance, trust. It is through faith in all its forms, but especially through the last one, that we lay hold on the righteousness of God in the gospel, and appropriate it as our own. 4. Faith is a noble and worthy instrument of our salvation. It is not to be disdained as inferior to reason. Rather it is reason's highest and most enlightened exercise. Faith gives reason wings, wherewith she mounts to regions of truth otherwise beyond her reach. 5. Faith is necessary as the means of salvation. It is not an arbitrary condition of salvation, but indispensable in the very nature of things; and, being such, it is all that is demanded, for "whosoever believeth," whatever else he lacks or hath, "shall not perish, but have everlasting life." (T. G. Horton.) Parallel Verses KJV: For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. |
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