OUR justification is the direct result of our believing the
gospel; our knowledge of our own justification comes from believing God’s
promise of justification to every one who believes these glad tidings. For there
is not only the divine testimony, but there is the promise annexed to it,
assuring eternal life to everyone who receives that testimony. There is first,
then, a believed gospel, and then there is a believed promise. The latter is the
appropriation, as it is called, which, after all, is nothing but the acceptance
of the promise which is everywhere coupled with the gospel message. The believed
gospel saves; but it is the believed promise that assures us of this salvation.
Yet, after all, faith is not our righteousness. It is accounted to us in order
to righteousness (Rom 4:5, GREEK), but not as righteousness; for in that case it
would be a work like any other doing of man, and as such would be incompatible
with the righteousness of the Son of God; the righteousness which is by faith.
Faith connects us with the righteousness, and is therefore totally distinct from
it. To confound the one with the other is to subvert the whole gospel of the
grace of God. Our act of faith must ever be a separate thing from that which we
believe.
God reckons the believing man as having done all righteousness, though he has
not done any, and though his faith is not righteousness. In this sense it is
that faith is counted to us for, or in order to, righteousness, — and that we
are “justified by faith.” Faith does not justify as a work, or as a moral act,
or a piece of goodness, nor as a gift of the Spirit, but simply because it is
the bond between us and the Substitute; a very slender bond in one sense, but
strong as iron in another. The work of Christ for us is the object of faith; the
Spirit’s work in us is that which produces this faith: it is out of the former,
not of the latter, that our peace and justification come. Without the touch of
the rod the water would not have gushed forth; yet it was the rock and not the
rod, that contained the water.
The bringer of the sacrifice into the tabernacle was to lay his hand upon the
head of the sheep or the bullock, otherwise the offering would not have been
accepted for him. But the laying on of his hand was not the same as the victim
on which it was laid. The serpent-bitten Israelite was to look at the uplifted
serpent of brass in order to be healed. But his looking was not the brazen
serpent. We may say it was his looking that healed him, just as the Lord said,
thy faith hath saved thee; but this is figurative language. It was not his act
of looking that healed him, but the object to which he locked. So faith is not
our righteousness: it merely knits us to the righteous One, and makes us
partakers of His righteousness. By a natural figure of speech, faith is often
magnified into something great; whereas it is really nothing but our consenting
to be saved by another - its supposed magnitude is derived from the greatness of
the object which it grasps, the excellence of the righteousness which it
accepts. Its preciousness is not its own, but the preciousness of Him to whom it
links us.
Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician. It is not even
our medicine; it only administers the medicine, divinely prepared by Him who
healeth all our diseases. In all our believing, let us remember God’s word to
Israel: I am Jehovah, that healeth thee (Exod. 14:26). Our faith is but our
touching Jesus; and what is even this, in reality, but His touching us?
Faith is not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died
on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that
bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our
sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the
cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act
of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the Living God.
Faith is not perfection. Yet only by perfection can we be saved; either our own
or another’s. That which is imperfect cannot justify, and an imperfect faith
could not in any sense be a righteousness. If it is to justify, it must be
perfect. It must be like the Lamb, without blemish and without spot. An
imperfect faith may connect us with the perfection of another; but it cannot of
itself do aught for us, either in protecting us from wrath or securing the
divine acquittal. All faith here is imperfect; and our security is this, that it
matters not how poor or weak our faith may be: if it touches the perfect One,
all is well. The touch draws out the virtue that is in Him, and we are saved.
The slightest imperfection in our faith, if faith were our righteousness, would
be fatal to every hope. But the imperfection of our faith, however great, if
faith be but the approximation or contact between us and the fulness of the
Substitute, is no hindrance to our participation of His righteousness. God has
asked and provided a perfect righteousness; He nowhere asks nor expects a
perfect faith. An earthenware pitcher can convey water to a traveller’s thirsty
lips as well as one of gold; nay, a broken vessel, even if there be but a sherd
to take water from the pit (Isa 30:14), will suffice. So a feeble, very feeble
faith, will connect us with the righteousness of the Son of God; the faith,
perhaps, that can only cry, Lord, I believe; help mine unbelief.
Faith is not satisfaction to God. In no sense and in no aspect can faith be said
to satisfy God, or to satisfy the law. Yet if it is to be our righteousness, it
must satisfy. Being imperfect, it cannot satisfy; being human, it cannot
satisfy, even though it were perfect. That which satisfies must be capable of
bearing our guilt; and that which bears our guilt must be not only perfect, but
divine. It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a sin-bearer.
Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can pay no penalty;
can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It brings us to the cross,
where there is expiation, and propitiation, and payment, and cleansing, and
righteousness; but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor the
sacrifice; it is not the altar, nor the laver, nor the mercy-seat, nor the
incense. It does not work, but accepts a work done ages ago; it does not wash,
but leads us to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. It does not create;
it merely links us to that new thing which was created when the everlasting
righteousness was brought in (Dan 9:24).
And as faith goes on, so it continues; always the beggar’s outstretched hand,
never the rich man’s gold; always the cable, never the anchor, the knocker, not
the door, or the palace, or the table; the handmaid, not the mistress; the
lattice which lets in the light, not the sun.
Without worthiness in itself, it knits us to the infinite worthiness of Him in
whom the Father delights; and so knitting us, presents us perfect in the
perfection of another. Though it is not the foundation laid in Zion, it brings
us to that foundation, and keeps us there, grounded and settled (Col 1:23), that
we may not be moved away from the hope of the gospel. Though it is not the
gospel, the glad tidings, it receives these good news as God’s eternal verities,
and bids the soul rejoice in them; though it is not the burnt-offering, it
stands still and gazes on the ascending flame, which assures us that the wrath
which should have consumed the sinner has fallen upon the Substitute.
Though faith is not the righteousness, it is the tie between it and us. It
realizes our present standing before God in the excellency of His own Son; and
it tells us that our eternal standing, in the ages to come, is in the same
excellency, and depends on the perpetuity of that righteousness which can never
change. For never shall we put off that Christ whom we put on when we believed
(Rom 12:14; Gal 3:27). This divine raiment is to everlasting. It waxes not old,
it cannot be rent, and its beauty fadeth not away.
Nor does faith lead us away from that cross to which at first it led us. Some in
our day speak as if we soon got beyond the cross, and might leave it behind;
that the cross having done all it could do for us when first we came under its
shadow, we may quit it and go forward; that to remain always at the cross is to
be babes, not men.
But what is the cross? It is not the mere wooden pole, or some imitation of it,
such as Romanists use. These we may safely leave behind us. We need not pitch
our tent upon the literal Golgotha, or in Joseph’s garden. But the great truth
which the cross embodies we can no more part with than we can part with life
eternal. In this sense, to turn our back upon the cross is to turn our back upon
Christ crucified, — to give up our connection with the Lamb that was slain. The
truth is, that all that Christ did and suffered, from the manger to the tomb,
forms one glorious whole, no part of which shall ever become needless or
obsolete; no part of which can ever leave without forsaking the whole. I am
always at the manger, and yet I know that mere incarnation cannot save; always
at Gethsemane, and yet I believe that its agony was not the finished work;
always at the cross, with my face toward it, and my eye on the crucified One,
and yet I am persuaded that the sacrifice there was completed once for all;
always looking into the grave, though I rejoice that it is empty, and that He is
not here, but is risen; always resting (with the angel) on the stone that was
rolled away, and handling the grave-clothes, and realizing a risen Christ, nay,
an ascended and interceding Lord, yet on no pretext whatever leaving any part of
my Lord’s life or death behind me, but unceasingly keeping up my connection with
Him, as born, living, dying, buried, and rising again, and drawing out from each
part some new blessing every day and hour.
Man, in his natural spirit of self-justifying legalism, has tried to get away
from the cross of Christ and its perfection, or to erect another cross instead,
or to setup a screen of ornaments between himself and it, or to alter its true
meaning into something more congenial to his tastes, or to transfer the virtue
of it to some act or performance or feeling of its own. Thus the simplicity of
the cross is nullified, and its saving power is denied. For the cross saves
completely, or not at all. Our faith does not divide the work of salvation
between itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone
saves, and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its
healing virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the
work done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see the
glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion without a
misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the It is finished! of the
Sin-bearer, and says, Amen. Where faith begins, there labour ends, — labour, I
mean, for life and pardon. Faith is rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the
former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to
love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God
is not waiting for any such inducements, but loves and pardons of His own
goodwill, and is showing that goodwill to any sinner who will come to Him on
such a footing, casting away his own performances or goodnesses, and relying
implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His
only-begotten Son.
Faith is the acknowledgment of the entire absence of all goodness in us, and the
recognition of the cross as the substitute for all the want on our part. Faith
saves, because it owns the complete salvation of another, and not because it
contributes anything to that salvation. There is no dividing or sharing the work
between our own belief and Him in whom we believe. The whole work is His, not
ours, from the first to last. Faith does not believe in itself, but in the Son
of God. Like the beggar, it receives everything, but gives nothing. It consents
to be a debtor forever to the free love of God. Its resting-place is the
foundation laid in Zion. It rejoices in another, not in itself. Its song is, Not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy He saved us.
Christ crucified is to be the burden of our preaching, and the substance of our
belief, from first to last. At no time in the saint’s life does he cease to need
the cross; though at times he may feel that his special need, in spiritual
perplexity or the exigency of conflict with evil, may be the incarnation, or the
agony in the garden, or the resurrection, or the hope of the promised advent, to
be glorified in His saints, and admired in all them that believe.
But the question is not, What truths are we to believe? but, What truths are we
to believe FOR JUSTIFICATION?
That Christ is to come again in glory and in majesty, as Judge and King, is an
article of the Christian faith, the disbelief of which would almost lead us to
doubt the Christianity of him who disbelieves it. Yet we are not in any sense
justified by the second advent of our Lord, but solely by His first. We believe
in His ascension, yet our justification is not connected with it. So we believe
His resurrection, yet we are not justified by faith in it, but by faith in His
death, — that death which made Him at once our propitiation and our
righteousness.
He was raised again on account of our having been justified (Rom 4:25) is the
clear statement of the word. The resurrection was the visible pledge of a
justification already accomplished.
The power of His resurrection (Phil 3:10) does not refer to atonement, or
pardon, or reconciliation; but to our being renewed in the spirit of our minds,
to our being begotten again unto a living hope, by the resurrection from the
dead (1 Pet 1:3). That which is internal, such as our quickening, our
strengthening, our renewing, may be connected with resurrection and resurrection
power, but that which is external, such as God’s pardoning, and justifying, and
accepting, must be connected with the cross alone.
The doctrine of our being justified by an infused resurrection-righteousness or,
as it is called, justification in arisen Christ, is a clear subversion of the
Surety’s work when He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, or when He
washed us from our sins in His own blood, or when He gave us the robes washed
white in the blood of the Lamb.
It is the blood that justifies (Rom 5:9). It is the blood that pacifies the
conscience, purging it from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:14). It is
the blood that emboldens us to enter through the veil into the holiest, and go
up to the sprinkled mercy-seat. It is the blood that we are to drink for the
quenching of our thirst (John 6:55). It is the blood by which we have peace with
God (Col 1:20). It is the blood through which we have redemption (Eph 1:7), and
by which we are brought nigh (Eph 2:13), by which we are sanctified (Heb 13:12).
It is the blood which is the seal of the everlasting covenant (Heb 13:20). It is
the blood which cleanses (1 John 1:7), which gives us victory (Rev 12:11), and
with which we have communion in the Supper of the Lord (1 Cor 10:16). It is the
blood which is the purchase-money or ransom of the church of God (Acts 20:28).
The blood and the resurrection are very different things; for the blood is
death, and the resurrection is life.
It is remarkable that in the book of Leviticus there is no reference to
resurrection in any of the sacrifices. It is death throughout. All that is
needed for a sinner’s pardon, and justification, and cleansing, and peace, is
there fully set forth in symbol, — and that symbol is death upon the altar.
Justification by any kind of infused or inherent righteousness is wholly
inconsistent with the services of the tabernacle, most of all justification by
an infused, resurrection-righteousness.
The sacrifices are God’s symbolical exposition of the way of a sinner’s approach
and acceptance; and in none of these does resurrection hold any place. If
justification be in a risen Christ, then assuredly that way was not revealed to
Israel; and the manifold offerings so minutely detailed, did not answer the
question: How may man be just with God? nor give to the worshippers of old one
hint as to the way by which God was to justify the ungodly.
Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27), is a well-known and blessed truth;
but Christ IN US, our justification, is a ruinous error, leading man away from a
crucified Christ — a Christ crucified FOR US. Christ for us is one truth; Christ
in us is quite another. The mingling of these two together, or the transposition
of them, is the nullifying of the one finished work of the Substitute. Let it be
granted that Christ in us is the source of holiness and fruitfulness (John
15:4); but let it never be overlooked that first of all there be Christ FOR US,
as our propitiation, our justification, our righteousness. The risen Christ in
us, our justification, is a modern theory which subverts the cross. Washing,
pardoning, reconciling, justifying, all come from the one work of the cross, not
from resurrection. The dying Christ completed the work for us from which all the
above benefits flow. The risen Christ but sealed and applied what, three days
before, He had done once for all.
It is somewhat remarkable that in the Lord’s Supper (as in the passover) there
is no reference to resurrection. The broken body and the shed blood are the
Alpha and Omega of that ordinance. In it we have communion (not with Christ as
risen and glorified, but) with the body of Christ and the blood of Christ (1 Cor
10:16), that is, Christ upon the cross. This do in remembrance of me. As oft as
ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.
If, after we have been at the cross, we are to pass on and leave it behind us,
as no longer needed, seeing we are justified by the risen Christ in us, let
those who bold that deadly error say why all reference to resurrection should be
excluded from the great feast; and why the death of the Lord should be the one
object presented to us at the table.
Life in a risen Christ is another way of expressing the same error. If by this
were only meant that resurrection has been made the channel or instrument
through which the life and justification are secured for us on and by the cross,
— as when the apostle speaks of our being begotten again unto a lively hope by
the resurrection of Christ from the dead, or when we are said to be risen with
Christ, — one would not object to the phraseology. But when we find it used as
expressive of dissociation of these benefits from the cross, and derivation of
them from resurrection soley, then do we condemn it as untrue and
anti-scriptural. For concerning this life let us hear the words of the Lord: The
bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world
(John 6:51), Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye
have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and
my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth in me, and I in him (John 6:53-56). This assuredly is not the doctrine
of life in a risen Christ, or a risen Christ in us, our justification and life.
I do not enter on the exposition of these verses. I simply cite them.. They bear
witness to the cross. They point to the broken body and shed blood as our daily
and hourly food, our life-long feast, from which there comes into us the life
which the Son of man, by His death, has obtained for us. That flesh is
life-imparting, that blood is life-imparting; and this not once, but for
evermore.
It is not incarnation on the one hand, nor is it resurrection on the other, on
which we are thus to feed, and out of which this life comes forth; it is that
which lies between these two, — death, — the sacrificial death of the Son of
God. It is not the personality nor the life-history of the Christ of God which
is the special quickener and nourishment of our souls, but the blood-shedding.
Not that we are to separate the former from the latter, but still it is on the
latter that we are specially to feed, and this all the days of our lives.
Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed for us. Hence we rest, protected by
the paschal blood, and feeding on the paschal lamb, with its unleavened bread
and bitter herbs, from day to day. Let us keep the feast (1 Cor 5:8). Wherever
we are, let us keep it. For we carry our passover with us, always ready, always
fresh. With girded loins and staff in hand, as wayfarers, we move along, through
the rough or the smooth of the wilderness, our face toward the land of promise.
That paschal lamb is CHRIST CRUCIFIED. As such He is our protection, our pardon,
our righteousness, our food, our strength, our peace. Fellowship with Him upon
the cross is the secret of a blessed and holy life.
We feed on that which has passed through the fire; on that which has come from
the altar. No other food can quicken or sustain the spiritual life of a
believing man. The unbroken body will not suffice; nor will the risen or
glorified body avail. The broken body and shed blood of the Son of God form the
viands on which we feast; and it is under the shadow of the cross that we sit
down to partake of these, and find refreshment for our daily journey, strength
for our hourly warfare. His flesh is meat indeed; His blood is drink indeed.