It is the righteousness of God to justify me, a believer, though I have been a vile sinner, and for this reason, although my sins in the one scale must have sunk me alone down to hell, yet there was, in the other scale, Christ and His blood far outweighing all and raising me up to heaven. What is the consequence? My sins are clean vanished before that precious blood, and the scale of Christ proves itself to be the only one that keeps its weight before God. Upon this now hangs the very righteousness of God.
It is no longer a question of legal righteousness, but now He has Christ, and this is what God owes to Christ's obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, by virtue of which God righteously clears the guilty, which, as dealing according to the law, He could by no means do. "By Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses."
What was known of God in creation contained no provision for sin, and what was known of Him under the law would have only blasted the smallest hope of the sinner, whereas now the more I see what God is in Christ's cross, the more confidence and peace I have. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." [12]