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I. THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION.

1. On this subject great misconception prevails. There are two extremes into which men are betrayed.

(1) That justification originates with the creature, instead of the Creator.

(2) The exclusion of man from all active concern in the reception of the boon. In the former, sinners, like ancient Israel, attempt to establish a righteousness of their own; in the latter, justification is regarded as an act of the Divine government, irrespective of the production of moral character in the predestinated objects of it. Against both delusions we ought to be on our guard. The one is fraught with legal confidence, the other with antinomian licence.

2. That we may attach distinct ideas to the justification, it is necessary for us to consider it in reference to the attributes and revealed will of the Divine Lawgiver. "It is God that justifieth"; and the principles accordingly by which His decisions are conducted are those of unerring wisdom and unchangeable excellence. Now, the revealed ground of justification, when man was in a state of innocency, was a perfect conformity to the will of his heavenly Father. And will the unchangeable God now be satisfied with a less pure devotion to His will? Impossible! But, in Adam's case, the righteousness was his own; now it is that of our Surety. Still, the principle of justification is one and the same, at once satisfying the claims of justice and vindicating the equity of the law. The patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations were at one with the Christian in the revealed ground of acceptance. The victim presented at the altar was a confession that the life of the offerer had been forfeited by sin, and that the law of righteousness was obligatory. True believers worshipped the holy Lord God as also merciful and gracious. To them, as to us, justification was granted as an act of forgiving love.

3. Justification includes pardon of sin and acceptance with God. Both are due to the voluntary substitution of the Son of God in our nature, who by active obedience fulfilled the law to the uttermost, and by penal suffering redeemed us from its curse.

4. From this scheme human works are completely excluded. The origin, the progress, the revelation, the execution of it are all alike Divine. It was devised in the counsels of unsearchable Wisdom, flows from the unmerited riches of sovereign compassion, and glorifies the Divine government in the estimation of all orders of intelligent beings.

II. THE NATURE OF THAT FAITH BY WHICH WE ARE JUSTIFIED.

1. Note the relation which faith bears to the justifying act of God as an instrumental but not efficient cause. A mariner falls from the vessel's side and is in imminent danger of sinking; a rope is thrown out to him; he believes that this presents a way for his escape, and his faith may be said to save him from a watery grave. Unless he had confided in the rope, death would have been inevitable. Now, it is in a sense analogous to this that we are "justified by faith." It is not our faith that imparts a right to the blessings of redemption. Faith simply connects the needy but unworthy recipient with the munificent Giver. It is the opening of the mouth for the bread of life; the stretching forth of the withered hand towards the Divine Physician; the putting on the protecting robe against the inclemency of the storm.

2. Note its properties.

(1) Its Divine origin. Like every other good gift, it cometh from above. "No man," says our Lord, "can come to Me, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him." "By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." Hence we perceive an important distinction between a merely speculative or historical assent to the truth of God and that holy exercise of man's heart with which he believeth unto righteousness.

(2) Its appropriating character. We may admit the existence and value of many things in which we feel little personal interest. Without calling in question a single fact or doctrine of Holy Scripture we may be unmoved by its most solemn and touching representations. It is otherwise when the slumbers of spiritual death are broken. Instead of boasting as heretofore of good deeds and virtuous aspirations, the language is, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" But whither shall he take himself for remission? Will he be satisfied with mere generalities, as that Christ Jesus "came into the world to save sinners," and that he need not therefore despair of mercy? Assuredly not. He is not satisfied till he can say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me."(3) It is inseparably connected with all other Christian graces. Faith "works by love"; "purifies the heart"; is "the substance of things hoped for."

(J. Sawer, M. A.)

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KJV: Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

WEB: We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.