“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” The blessed reason precedes: “He was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.” “For if Christ be not risen, your faith in vain, ye are yet in your sins.” But if He is, and if this work of the blessed Lord on the cross has not put away the sins of those that believe in Him, what is to do it? For without shedding of blood there is no remission, and there is no more sacrifice for sin. This forgiveness is in contrast with the legal state under Moses. By Him all that believe are justified from all things. (Acts xiii.) Repentance and remission of sins were to be preached in His name. His precursor John the Baptist came to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins. “To him give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive remission of their sins.”
“ Her sins,” says the Savior, “which are many, are forgiven;” and to her he said: “Thy sins are forgiven, thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” But it will be said, she loved much—no doubt, and repented deeply—and that was all right, for to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. We believe with the apostle Peter that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and that thus “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin.” Does this blessing come on any? We read that “faith is imputed for righteousness.” Was “thy faith hath saved thee” said exceptionally to the poor sinful woman, or written for our learning?
See what is said in Hebrews: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge year consciences from dead works to serve the living God?” The service of the living God is a consequence, note, of a purged conscience. And, as it is reasoned in the same chapter, inasmuch as without shedding of blood there is no remission, if it was not wholly done on the cross, Christ must have often suffered; but now He has been once offered to bear the sins of many, and to them that look for Him He shall appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation. He has obtained an eternal redemption. Not only so; in consequence of this one sacrifice worshippers have no more conscience of sins. He does not say conflict with the flesh, but of sins imputed to us on the conscience; because Christ has borne them. The Jewish priests were ever standing up offering new sacrifices, interesting figures, yet such as could not put away sins; but Christ, having offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down. Why? For by one sacrifice He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. He has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, when He had by Himself purged our sins, and there He sits, as the glorified man, till His enemies be made His footstool.
As God's love and will was the source of this, and a divine work of atonement the ground of it, so a divine testimony assures us of it. The Holy Ghost is a witness, saying, “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Further, it is written in Rom. 8 that we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry “Abba Father,” that is, we have the consciousness of being children, the Holy Ghost bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. So in Gal. 3, “We are all the children (sons) of God by faith in Christ Jesus,” and (chap. iv.) “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” And elsewhere, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” The Lord Himself tells His disciples in John 14 that when the Comforter should be come, in that day we should know that He was in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us. Hence, according to Heb. 10, instead of (as in Heb. 9) there being a veil by which the Holy Ghost signified the way into the holiest was not made manifest, we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which He has consecrated, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and we are to draw near in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
But I shall be told that we have to be humble. There is no safety without it. He resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. But nothing gives lowliness like the presence of God and communion with Himself. If we think of ourselves, we feel our own nothingness happy if this be so complete as to think of nothing but Him. But if the conscience be not purged, His presence Who is light awakens it, bringing the sense of the evil upon our souls; and confession is drawn out by confidence in His love. All this ministers to holiness, and there is no holiness without it. He makes us partakers of His holiness, even if He chastens us.
John wrote to all Christians “I write unto you, children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake.” (1 John 2) What does this mean? Even the little children know the Father. As to being saved, I read: “He hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling.” Again in Eph. 2:5, 95Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) (Ephesians 2:5)
9Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:9): “By grace ye are saved;” and this is not merely a principle, for the word is in the perfect passive, which declares the actual and abiding fact. The principle is there, of course, but a great deal more.
No intelligent Christian says he has no sin (1 John 8), the flesh in which no good thing is being ever there; but for salvation, if the Spirit of God dwell in us, we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, though the flesh be in us. But the words which precede are “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin,” the divine answer to the flesh being there. Perhaps it may be said in reply, “Yes; if we walk in the light.” This, though a very common, is a totally false view. But, if so, it is “in the light” as “He [God] is in the light.” Now if we walked according to the light as God is in it, we should want no cleansing at all.. Yet it is “If we walk in the light, as he is in it,” that is, the true full revelation of God who is light. (Compare chap. 8.) It is the Christian position, a reality. He walks in the true knowledge of God now revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Failure is referred to in chap. ii. 1, 2.
We must not confound the flesh in us, and the imputation of sin, guilt, before God. How can I fear punishment if Christ has borne my sins? The Judge before whom I appear is the Savior that put them away. I speak of those who believe. The Christian is brought to be sure of salvation, because “He came to give the knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins.” Heb. 6:4-64For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. (Hebrews 6:4‑6) speaks not of conversion, nor forgiveness received at all, but the enjoyment of all the privileges of Christianity and open apostacy from it, and it is finally and hopelessly fatal: he meets fiery indignation which devours the adversaries. And this is not only so in this passage, but in every place where falling away is spoken of in the Hebrews, it is final and fatal, it is apostacy. It is impossible to renew them.
When the Galatians would add law to grace for justification, the apostle tells them they cannot be united, but that if they look to the law for justification, they cannot have Christ for it. The law specified and required man's righteousness for God most rightly and justly as a law, a perfect rule for a child of Adam, with a curse if he did not keep it, which none ever did (Christ of course excepted). Thus as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse (for the law must be perfectly kept for righteousness under it); but in the gospel is the revelation of God's righteousness for men, because they had none for God. There was none righteous, no not one. Men are justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Now these two things cannot go together, that is, my accomplishment of law for righteousness, and God justifying me freely through Christ by His own righteousness through faith, because I have not done so. I will speak of holiness.; but you cannot have a man righteous by law-keeping, and righteous by grace through Christ's work, because he has not kept it, at the same time. If I make out righteousness by law, Christ is become of no effect to me, I have given up grace: for works of righteousness are not grace.
1 Cor. 10:1919What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? (1 Corinthians 10:19) is a most salutary warning too against light-minded presumption; but “thinketh he standeth” is nothing of “in Christ and Christ in us;” for such there is no condemnation. Nor will you find in the New Testament any word of a man being in Christ, or quickened, and lost. But this phrase does not necessarily involve final ruin. Any of us may fall if we are not watchful, and are on the way to do so, if we do not watch and pray lest we enter into temptation. God forbid any of us should take up these things lightly.
I will now take up another aspect of Christian truth and privileges—eternal life. This has a double aspect, and is spoken of accordingly, as is salvation, also in two ways. We have it, a life in Christ. It is also spoken of as the full result in glory: “the end, everlasting life.” There it is according to the counsels of God, when we shall be conformed to the image of his Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. This of course, I need not say, we have not got; we are not yet in glory. But eternal life we have. “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life.” And John wrote that they might know that they had eternal life. God sent His only Son into the world that we might live through Him. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” (John 3:3636He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. (John 3:36).) Again, chapters v. 34; vi. 47-54, “Verily, verily, I say unto you: he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation [judgment], but is passed from death unto life” And again, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (John 10:37, 3837If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. (John 10:37‑38).) And the Lord insists on His Father's power, and, His interest in them. I can conceive nothing clearer than these passages.
John takes this side of divine truth—Christ come to be eternal life to us, Paul more of presenting us justified and accepted in Christ before God, though each speaks of both. Thus Paul says, “when Christ, who is our life,” &c. (Col. 3 and other passages.) “Christ liveth in me,” and “that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
But if the word of God be true, the believer is justified and has peace with God, and has everlasting life, and, if sealed with the Holy Ghost, knows he is in Christ, and Christ in him (John 14), has the witness in himself (1 John 4), has boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus (Heb. 10), boldness in the day of judgment, because as Christ is, so is he in this world (1 John 4:1717Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:17)),(not surely in his personal perfection, how far from it! and I add the only Christian perfection is being like Christ in glory, but) in His relative place with God. Christ is gone to His Father, and our Father, to His God and our God. We have received, not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” Nothing can be clearer or more positive than scripture on the subject; we are reconciled to God, we have peace with God—how if our sins are not put away, it would be hard to tell if the fear of God be in our hearts.
Fear of sin has nothing to do with the possession of the forgiveness of sins unless that this cleansing of the conscience produces it; for who would fear to dirty himself, one who was quite clear to pay a visit to a superior, or one that was dirty already? But the whole thing is a mistake. The true fear of sin is the spirit of holiness, not justification, not the dread of punishment because of God's righteous wrath against sin, which in its place is just and useful, but because as having now a holy nature as born of God, I hate it in itself and as displeasing to God. A fear of wrath is not a fear of sin but of its consequences, which, though right in its place, is a very different thing.
Practical righteousness is the just judgment of good and evil, according to God's estimate of them and acting on and owning God's authority, and our responsibility in respect of it; it is made good in the judicial acts of God, of which the measure, as regards us, is our duty to God and our neighbor. In this we have failed, and now in grace through faith are dependent on Christ's work, not on ours; through that we rest on God's righteousness. On this, blessed as the teaching of scripture is on it, I do not now enter.
Holiness is the horror of evil, and delight in good, according to God's estimate of it (though of course our thoughts are imperfect) for its own sake, and as displeasing to God—supposing even there were no punishment at all—we must come by the first as sinners, but we get into the second, in principle, from the very beginning, but less sensibly till the conscience is purged, for we must come first as guilty sinners. But for this a new nature which does take God's estimate of good and evil for its guide and rule is necessary, and that new nature is a holy nature. This is connected with the recognition of God's authority, and, in its application to the conscience, will be connected in each with what he has actually done and been.
But there is no development of it in the affections, or communion, till justification and peace with God is settled. Its first effect of taking God's mind, His revelation of Himself in light, is to make us find out that we are guilty, unclean, and thus to work repentance. But for this I must learn confidence enough in God to be willing to open my heart to Him. And He has revealed Himself in love in Christ who is also this light to us. I see what I am before God, first rather what I have done, but His love leads me to confession of it, as the woman in the city that was a sinner, or Peter in the boat, or the prodigal unfit for God, knowing it, yet going to Him because He has revealed Himself to us. And this is genuine gospel repentance, fruit of God's quickening power, our being born of Him, and, His revealing Himself.
The first impressions may be more characterized on our coming to God by fear, if light predominates, more gently attractive, if the love does. But in all cases, in true repentance, there are both, because God is both; and God has revealed Himself and quickened me to see things, at least in principle, as He sees them, and judge them by a new nature and will: and my responsibility towards Him is felt. Now the first need here is not holiness in the delight of it. So in Deut. 16 the unleavened bread of the passover is the bread of affliction. There is the sense of the want of it, the new nature feels there ought to be holiness for God; it takes the character of not being accepted because of that want. What we crave is justification, forgiveness, and righteousness. But it is not the question of holy affections and exercise, but the want of them pressing as guilt upon the soul. Now Christ's work meets all our guilt. If it does not, we are lost forever. God's holy authority in righteousness must be maintained. But it has been, and glorified on the cross, and His love at the same time fully, divinely, displayed.
A bad conscience cannot be in the exercise of loving affections. But the blood of Christ purges the conscience, making it perfect with God; and the sense of divine love which gave Christ to do it, and in which He gave Himself, possesses the soul by the Holy Ghost, by which the believer is then sealed. He delights in such a God, draws near to Him as his Father, dwells on His love shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost, and knows he is in Christ and Christ is in him.
Christ too is precious to him; His lowly, lovely, perfect path on earth is the manna he feeds on; above all His dying, and perfect love there. And now he sees Him by faith at the right hand of God, in glory unveiled, and is thus changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. He knows that, when He shall appear, he will be like Him, seeing Him as He is; and he that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself even as He is pure.