On no point of doctrine have the Brethren been more bitterly assailed than on the question suggested by the above heading. They are charged by both clergymen and dissenting ministers, with denying " the righteousness of Christ." In pamphlets and in the columns of journals they have been denounced as in fundamental error on this point, and held up as a people to be avoided in every way. Yet it is difficult for an onlooker to conceive why christian men, who believe in the plenary inspiration of scripture, should contend with such tenacity for the theological term, " the righteousness of Christ," in place of the biblical term, "the righteousness of God." The former-in the theological sense-is never used in scripture, while the latter is used many times. Ever since the days of the Puritans it has been generally received as a sound doctrine until called in question by the Brethren. The passage that is so often quoted, " By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous," does not refer to Christ's connection with the law at all, but is a summing up of the native tendency, on the one side, of Adam's one offense, and on the other, of Christ's work, without going into details.
It is affirmed that the ground of our justification is Christ's keeping the law for us, in order that this should be accepted in place of our failure. This, says modern theology, is the righteousness of Christ which is imputed to the believer for justification-His wedding garment. His transgressions are pardoned by blood-shedding. The former is called the active, the latter the passive, obedience of Christ. When told that the Spirit of God invariably uses the expression, righteousness of God; true, they reply, but Jesus is God.
The Brethren have written so much on this subject, and expounded so many scriptures in unfolding it, that we have great difficulty in making a selection. But we would recommend those who are interested in the question to see the originals.
" I believe," says Mr. Darby, " and bless God for the truth, that Christ is our righteousness, and that by His obedience we are made righteous. It is the settled peace of my soul. The important point here is the contrast between the death and sufferings of Christ, as winning our forgiveness, and His obedience as our justifying righteousness.... What is, then, the righteousness of God, and how is it shown? How do we have part in it? How is righteousness reckoned to us? We are said to he the righteousness of God in Christ. (2 Cor. 5) The apostle speaks of having the righteousness of God. (Phil. 3) But it is not said God's righteousness is imputed to us. Nor is Christ's righteousness a scriptural expression, though no Christian doubts He was perfectly righteous. Still, the Spirit of God is perfect in wisdom, and it would be wonderful if that which is the necessary ground of our acceptance should not be clearly spoken of in scripture. One passage seems to say so. (Born. v. 18.) But the reader may see in the margin of a Bible, which has references, that there it is one righteousness.' There cannot be the least doubt that this is the true rendering. But the expression, the righteousness of God,' is used so very often, that it is not necessary to quote the passages. Now, it is not in vain that the Holy Ghost, in so important a subject, never uses one expression, that is, the righteousness of Christ, and constantly the other, that is, God's righteousness. We learn the current of the mind of the Spirit thus. Theology uses always that which the Holy Spirit never does; and cannot tell what is to be made of that which the Holy Spirit always uses....
" The great evil of the whole scheme is, that it is a righteousness demanded of man as born of Adam, though another may furnish it. The thing furnished is man's righteousness. If Christ has done it for me, still it was what I ought to have done. It is meeting the demand on me.... In the doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans it will be found that the whole ground-work of our justification and every blessing, is laid in the death, not in the life of Christ on earth. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.... to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.' Who is just? God. Here is an all important principle: the righteousness of God means, first of all His own righteousness-that He is just. It is not man's, or even yet some other's positive righteousness, made up of a quantity of legal merit, put upon him. The righteousness spoken of is God's being righteous (' just' is the same word), and yet so declared, that He can justify the most dreadful sinner.
" But it will be said that there must be a ground for this, which makes it righteous to forgive and justify. Righteousness has a double meaning. I am righteous, say, in rewarding or forgiving; but this supposes an adequate claim which makes it righteous that I should do so-merit of some kind. If I have promised anything, or anything be morally due to righteousness, I am righteous in giving it. Thus, that God should be righteous in forgiving and justifying, there must be an adequate moral motive for His doing so. In the sinner, clearly, there was not. In the blood of Christ there was. And, God having set Him forth as a mercy-seat, faith in His blood became the way of justifying. This sheaved God's righteousness in forgiving. Thus accepted, I stand before God on the footing of His righteousness."
It has often been said of Brethren by their traducers, that they make nothing of the life of Christ; that they pass it over as if it were of no value to man or glory to God. It is quite true that they do not make the life of Jesus before His death the groundwork of our justification; for He says Himself, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." But it is untrue to say that Brethren pass over the life of Christ as being nothing to us.
" Here, again," says Mr. Kelly, " let us understand each other. Do we deny for a moment the subjection of the Lord Jesus to the law of God? God forbid! He did fulfill the law, of course; He glorified God in every possible way in the fulfillment of it. This is no matter of controversy with christian men. He is no believer who supposes that Christ in any act of His life failed, that He did not entirely and blessedly accomplish the law of God, or that the result could be of small moment to God or man....
" Do I deny that the ways, the walk, the life of Jesus, the magnifying of God in all His ways, are anything to our account? God forbid! We have Jesus wholly, and not in part; we have Jesus everywhere. I am not contending now at all against the precious truth that, Christ being our acceptance, we have Christ as a whole.
We have His obedience unbroken through His entire life, and its savor unto God is part of the blessing that belongs to every child of God. I believe it, rejoice in it, thank God for it, I trust, continually. But the question is wholly different. God does use for His own glory, and for our souls, all that Jesus did and suffered.
" The true inquiry is, What is the righteousness of God? It must be settled, not by notions, feelings, fancies, traditions-not by what is preached or received, but by what is written; by the word of God. Here is God's answer. Now,' it is said, the righteousness of God without the law.' No language can be more absolute and precise. What the Holy Ghost employs is an expression which puts the law entirely aside, as far as divine righteousness is concerned. He has been speaking about the law, and the law condemning man. He had shown that the law required righteousness, but could not get it. This is another order of righteousness -not man's but God's-and this, too, absolutely exclusive of law in any shape. How suitable a time to say, had it been the good news of God, that Jesus came to obey the law for us, and that God substitutes this as His righteousness for every man to stand in? Why is it not said then? Because it is not the ground, nor character, nor nature of the righteousness of God. That righteousness is wholly apart from law.
" Accordingly, this is what is here said: But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.' Observe the exceeding accuracy of the language. The law and the prophets did not manifest the righteousness of God; yet the law in various forms pointed to another kind of righteousness that was coming; the prophets brought it out, if possible, still more clearly in respect of language. The one furnished types, the other assumed that Jehovah's righteousness was near to come.. But now the gospel tells us it is come-divine righteousness is a revealed fact Redemption is the righteous groundwork. The blood of Christ deserves at God's hands that the believer should be justified, and God Himself is just in justifying him.
" It is not God righteous apart from Jesus; it is the righteousness of God apart from law. He has set forth Christ as a propitiatory. Christ became the true mercy-seat. God gave Him up as a sacrifice for sin, that through His body offered once for tall, every soul that believes on Him might be sanctified-nay, more than that by one offering perfected forever.' It is done in His death. He came to do not merely the law, but the whole will of God, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
" Here then we have the righteousness of God developed in the simplest and clearest way. It means that God is just, and justifies in virtue of Christ. He is just, because sin has been met on the cross: sin has been judged of God; it has been suffered and atoned for by Christ. More than that; the Lord Jesus has so magnified God, and so glorified His character, that there is a positive debt now on the other side. Instead of the obligation being, as it were, altogether on man's side, God has now interposed, and, having been so magnified in the Man Christ Jesus, in His death, He is now positively just when He justifies the soul that believes in Jesus. It is consequently the righteousness of God; for God is thus approving Himself righteous to the claims of Christ."