A Compendium of Christian Theology
By William Burt Pope, D.D.,
Volume Two
Chapter 19
Christian Righteousness
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CHRISTIAN RIGHTEOUSNESS:
This word is the centre of a number of terms which refer to the Spirit's administration of the atoning work as affecting the believer's relation to immutable right. It may be viewed objectively; and in this sense is used to describe God's method of restoring man to a state of conformity with His law: the righteousness of God, as the originating and regulative and essential principle of that method; exhibited in the work of Christ, the meritorious ground of the sinner's acceptance, or in Christ our Righteousness, and, as such, proclaimed in the Gospel, to which it gives a name. Viewed subjectively, it is the righteousness of the believer under two aspects: first, it is Justification by faith, or the declaratory imputation of righteousness without works; and then it is Justification by faith as working through love and fulfilling the law; these however constituting one and the same Righteousness of Faith as the free gift of grace in Christ The Gospel is a revelation of God's righteous method of constituting sinners righteous through the atonement of Christ by faith: hence it is termed the Righteousness of God Viewed in relation to the propitiatory sacrifice, it is a manifestation of God's essential righteousness in the remission of sins; viewed in relation to the Evangelical institute, it is the Divine method of justifying the ungodly. Generally, it defines the full application of the Gospel in the mediatorial court of law, with all its effects as renewing the human spirit into perfect conformity with the Holy Lawgiver and obedience to His Law The mediatorial propitiation of Christ is a display of the essential righteousness of God; or, in other words, this method of providing for human justification is proved to be in harmony with the Divine perfections. The Evangelical plan of conferring righteousness rests upon the plenary satisfaction of the Divine justice in the death of man's Representative; it is the just honor put upon the merit of the Redeemer and the virtue of His work; and, uniting these, it is the promulgation of a righteous economy of gracious government exercised over mankind for His sake and by Him. The doctrine of the Atonement has exhibited this threefold truth under a more general aspect; it needs now only a brief re-statement with special reference to the judicial acceptance of the believer 1. The only instance in which our justification is immediately connected with the death of Christ is the classical passage in the Romans where St. Paul expressly declares the harmony between righteousness as a Divine attribute and righteousness as proclaimed freely for man in the Gospel. So close is the connection that it is hard to determine to which thought the Apostle gave prominence; to the declaration of God's method of making sinners righteous, or to the vindication of His own character as just. The emphasis of the whole is laid upon the words, to declare His righteousness.1 This phrase has two variations: first, eis éndeixin teés dikaiosúnees autoú, with respect to the Divine forbearance in past ages, which required explanation; secondly, prós teén éndeixin teés dikaiosúnees autoú, with respect to the present time, after the Atonement had been offered. But both rest upon the supreme fact underlying the entire history of God's dealings with a world of transgressors: JESUS, Whom God hath set forth. proetheto, in His own eternal mind and on the scene of history, a propitiation in His blood through faithWith this must be connected St. Paul's word: Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.2 The faith through which alone the objective atoning oblation of Jesus is subjectively appropriated requires the resurrection of its Object: not only as proving that we have a living and faithful Savior, but as demonstrating that His sacrifice, not for Himself but for us, was righteously honored in His being raised to confer its benefit. The substitutionary expiation of Christ as the representative Man at once exhibits the justice of God in His dealing with human sin and His righteousness in imparting forgiveness to the sinner: that He might be Just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. This unique expression—the supreme Evangelical paradox—must be carefully noted. It is not Just and yet the Justifier, though that meaning is not far off; but it signifies that through the manifested sacrifice of Christ God is declared to be Himself just, having required that propitiation, and the Justifier, through the virtue of that propitiation 1 Rom. 3:21-26; 2 Rom. 4:25 2. The perfect obedience of Christ constitutes what in theology is called MERIT, and this is regarded under various aspects in the New Testament. It is rewarded in that Christ is highly exalted;1 on the ground of it the Father has perfect complacency in His Son and all who are His; and in consequence of it God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.2 This is the truth with which we here have to do. God is faithful to the Atonement which has been faithfully offered to Him. He is righteous TO Christ as well as IN Christ. All forms of Christian theology agree with Scripture in assigning to the Redeemer’s work an unlimited desert or merit. And it is this which is expressed by the universal language of dogmatic and practical theology when it pleads FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. The original of the only instance of this expression, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you,3 is en Christoo, in Christ. The additional idea of forgiveness for the sake of Christ is more suitable to St. John: if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father.4
1 Phil. 2:8,9;
2 1
John 1:9; 3
Eph. 4:32;
4 1
John 2:1
But the term
1. The phrase is fully developed in St. Paul's writings. But the
Lord Himself gave the
word when He said above:
2. Though this Method of righteousness is as it were new, it is
also the same which was
from the beginning. Abel
1 Heb. 11:4,7;
2 Rom.
4:3,13; 3
Rom. 3:21;
4 Heb.
3:19; 5
Deu. 6:25;
6
Phil. 3:9;
7 Isa. 51:5,6;
8 Psa.
85:10; 9
Hab. 2:3,4
3. But now is this Gospel revealed. And the term Righteousness
is one of its many
denominations as embracing its whole design, As it is
1 1 Cor. 1:18;
2 Col.
1:5; 3
2 Cor. 5:19;
4 Acts
15:7; 5
Heb. 5:13;
6 Col.
3:16; 7
Acts 20:32;
8 Heb. 7:2;
9 Rom.
14:17; 10
2 Cor. 3:9;
11 Job
9:2
RIGHTEOUSNESS APPLIED TO BELIEVING MAN
The Divine method of conferring righteousness is, when viewed in
relation to man who
receives it, a manifestation of pure mercy, —continuing and
applying the mercy of
Christ's atonement, —which reckons to the believer through all
the stages of his religious
life, in time and in eternity, a righteousness he can never
attain to or claim as his own
Whether it is regarded as accounting righteous or as making
righteous—for both are
certainly included—it is and must be ever a free gift to the
faith that embraces the
propitiation
Justification is the Divine judicial act which applies to the
sinner, believing in Christ, the
benefit of the Atonement, delivering him from the condemnation
of his sin, introducing
him into a state of favor, and treating him as a righteous
person. But this justifying faith
is an operative principle which through the Holy Spirit's energy
attains to an interior and
perfect conformity with the law, or internal righteousness. The
imputative character of
justification, however, rules the New-Testament use of the word.
Inherent righteousness
is connected ordinarily with the perfection of the regenerate
and sanctified life. In the
more limited sense, justification is either the act of God or
the state of man
I. The act of justifying is that of God the Judge. Generally it
is
II. As the state into which man is introduced it is variously
described according to his
various relations to God and to the Mediator and to the law. As
an individual sinner he is
forgiven: his justification is
III. Whether the act or the state is signified the phraseology
of justification is throughout
Scripture faithful to the idea of imputation. The verb justify
is not used of making
righteous save as the notion of declaring or reckoning is bound
up with it
1. The Hebrew word
Even those who suppose that St. James teaches a righteousness of
works must admit that
his use of
Whatever righteousness is spoken of as imparted and infused
requires itself to have
righteousness imputed to it. If the reading
The faith which is the condition and instrument of justification
is the trust of the soul in
Christ as the only propitiation for human sin. It is a personal
act of the penitent sinner
under the influence of the Holy Spirit, Who reveals the
Atonement to the mind, infuses
desire into the heart, and thus persuades the will to embrace
the Savior. This faith, as
receptive, renounces self in every form, obtains forgiveness and
is reckoned for
righteousness: these being one blessing under two aspects. As an
active principle it
appropriates the promise or the virtue of Christ's atonement;
and, working by love,
belongs not to the entrance into justification, but to the
justified state. Its genuineness is
approved by Evangelical works of righteousness, without which
therefore the state of
justification cannot be retained. Hence there is a justification
by faith without the merit of
works, and a justification by faith on the evidence of works;
but in both cases the
justification is declaratory and altogether of grace
I. Faith, without works, is both the instrument and the
condition of justification: as the
condition, it renounces every other dependence than the
Atonement; as the instrument, it
embraces Christ, or appropriates the promise in Him, or rests
upon His atoning work
1. The righteousness which is of God by faith is as a condition
opposed to man's own
righteousness, which is of the law
(1.) Faith acknowledges that the legal, proper, primitive sense
of the term justify, as the
pronouncing him to be righteous who is righteous, is for ever
out of the question. First, as
to the law: it has been broken and its condemnation is
acknowledged; it demands an
obedience that never has been rendered since the Fall. Then as
to man himself, faith
renounces all trust in human ability. It utterly abjures the
thought of a righteousness
springing from self. It acknowledges past sin; and present
impotence; and the
impossibility of any future obedience canceling the past
(2.) Hence the specific Evangelical phrase that
(3.) Imputation or
(4.) This faith as a negative condition is of the operation of
the Holy Ghost He enables
the soul to renounce every other trust. He convinces the mind of
guilt and impotence;
awakens in the heart the feeling of emptiness and longing
desire; and so moves the will to
reject every other confidence than Christ. But, though the
influence of the Spirit produces
it, it is so far only negative: a preparation for good rather
than itself good
2. Faith is the active Instrument as well as the passive
Condition of justification. As such
it apprehends Christ; justifies because of the virtue of its
object as it unites the soul with
Him -is blessed with the privilege of an attendant assurance;
and all once more under the
influence of the Holy Spirit
(1.) Faith is the instrumental cause of justification. The
originating cause is the love of
God; the meritorious, Christ's atoning obedience, active and
passive in one, the former
rendering the latter possible; the efficient cause, the Holy
Ghost, working faith through
word and sacrament as the secondary instruments of justification
or its means. There is
scarcely any room here for another so-called formal cause, which
is, really, notwithstanding
every argument of sophistry, the faith which makes the soul one
with Christ; and that
is the cause instrumental blended with the cause meritorious. To
ask for the formal
cause—formal being logically that which immediately constitutes
a thing what it is— is
simply to ask for a definition of the act and state of
justification It is and must be the
imputative estimate of God
(2.) The object of justifying faith is God in Christ. In this as
in all
(3.) It is never said that we are justified
1 Phil. 3:8-10
(4.) Faith is not assurance: but assurance is its reflex act.
The same Spirit who inspires the
faith—which is alone, and without assurance, the instrument of
salvation—ordinarily and
always, sooner or later, enables the believer to say:
1 Gal. 2:20;
2 Eph.
1:13
(5.) Faith, whether receptive or active, is an exercise of the
human heart under the
influence of the Holy Spirit: not merely under that general
agency by which all
preliminary grace is wrought, but through His actual revelation
of Christ to the soul, the
eyes of which are at the same moment opened: the unveiling of
the Savior to the penitent
seeker, and the unveiling of the sight to look to
Faith, with works, justifies instrumentally the person
believing: inasmuch as its works
give evidence of its genuineness as a permanent living
principle. It retains the soul in a
state of justification, and is the power of a Divine life by
which the righteous-ness of the
law is fulfilled
1. The works of faith declare the life and reality of the faith
that justifies. Those works
did not declare its genuineness at first, when forgiveness was
received:
The faith is the body, the works the spirit: a seeming anomaly
which plainly shows St
James to be contrasting two kinds of faith only
2. The expression Living Faith, just used, suggests the vital
relation of 'this subject to
union with Christ. When St. Paul says
3. The justification of faith itself in and through its works
forms the Scriptural transition
to internal and finished righteousness, which however is
generally viewed as entire
sanctification: improperly, however, if sanctification is
regarded as finishing what
righteousness leaves incomplete. To him who insists upon
bringing in the doctrine of
sanctification to supplement as an inward work what in
justification is only outward St
James replies:
Paul uses another term which again shows his full agreement with
St. James,
The doctrine of the Divine Righteousness for man and in man, as
the Apostle Paul first
systematically taught it, was not clearly and soundly unfolded
in the dogma of the Church
until the Reformation. But the Scriptural doctrine was never
absent. Though the distinction
between the righteousness imputed to the believer and the
righteousness wrought
out in him was too much lost sight of, the great Evangelical
provision for setting man
right with the law through the Atonement has never been without
its witnesses
The early Fathers never make the distinction which more modern
discussions have
rendered necessary
1. Clemens Romanus, the first of them, fairly represents the
general strain in such
language as this: " They all [the Fathers of the Old Covenant]
received honor and glory
not for their own sake, nor through their own works, nor through
their own righteous acts,
but through the will of God. So also we, who are called in Jesus
Christ by His will, are
not justified through ourselves
2. It is remarkable that the East was, on the whole, more
faithful than the West to Pauline
phraseology. Origen, Theodoret, and Chrysostom, among the
Orientals, explain
justi efficimur." " Justificat impium Deus non solum dimittendo
quae mala fecit, sed
etiam donando caritatem, ut declinet a malo et faciat bonum per
Spiritum Sanctum.'' Here
it is plain that the terminology of St. Paul is tampered with.
No passage in his writings
identifies righteousness with the indwelling gift of charity.
There is however a
remarkable homage paid to the Apostle's doctrine in a memorable
sentence of Augustine:
" Sequuritur opera
Augustine himself uses such language as this: " Non sufficit
mores in melius mutare et a
factis malis recedere, nisi etiam de his, quae facta sunt,
4. But, after every deduction for the signs of coming error, it
is indisputable that the
best of the Fathers, whether of East or of West, furnish a
consensus of faithful
testimony to the Scriptural doctrine of the sinner's acceptance
with God on the sole
ground of the Redeemer's finished work. It may be granted that
they do not use modern
language: such terms as Imputed Righteousness and Forensic
Justification are unknown
to them. Also that they apply the term Merit in a sense from
which we now decline:
meaning, not so much legal or moral desert, as the gracious
estimate attached by God to
His own good in man. Also that the term Justification itself was
used in its largest
meaning, as the constituting and making men righteous through
the efficacy of the
Atonement applied to the whole nature and life of the sinner.
The Fathers regarded faith
as the principle which not only apprehends Christ's merit for
forgiveness but unites the
soul with Him for constant interior renewal. And Augustine, who
is generally appealed
to, and not without justice, as sanctioning a moral
justification and even a justification
conditioned by works of satisfaction, is faithful to the
supremacy of Christ's merits relied
on by the penitent believer. This is his catena of grace: "Faith
is the first link of the
gracious chain which leads to salvation. By the law comes the
knowledge of sin, by faith
the attainment of grace against sin, by grace the healing of the
soul from the stain of sin,
by the healing of the soul full freedom of the will, by the
freed will love to righteousness,
and by love to righteousness the fulfilling of the law." But it
is in the deep expressions of
his experience, when he is not controversial, that we discover
the essential soundness of
his doctrine. " Our righteousness is true, on account of the
truly good which is before it,
but in this life it is so slight and impoverished that it rather
consists only in the
forgiveness of sins; potius peccatorum remissione, quam
perfectione virtutum. The prayer
which every member of the pilgrim church utters, Forgive us our
trespasses, bears
witness to this. This prayer is not efficacious for those whose
faith without works is dead;
but for those whose faith worketh by love." " My sole hope rests
on the death of My
Savior. His death is my merit, my refuge, my salvation, my life,
my resurrection: my
merit is the mercy of the Lord-He who doubts of the pardon of
sins denies that God is
merciful" This is the spirit of the testimony of all the
Fathers. The more carefully their
language is considered, the more evident will it appear that
they regarded righteousness
as springing entirely from faith in the Savior; and excluded
good works from any
meritorious share in its attainment. The attacks made upon their
teaching in modern times
may generally be traced to some peculiar error in the assailants
themselves. They do not
find their own view of justification in the early writers; and
do not scruple to assert that
the full exhibition of grace was lost for a long number of ages.
The exhibition of truth
that has been set forth above has nothing to fear from an
examination of the best
Christian writers of antiquity: due allowance being made for
difference of phraseology
and the influence of current errors upon their modes of
statement
The Mediaeval doctors took two directions, the majority tending
towards the later
theology of Rome or preparing its elements. The Church steadily
relapsed into a position
of slavery to ceremony and works. Christendom became a great
legal economy, strictly
and in an unevangelical sense a
I. The doctrine of the subjective application of the Atonement,
like that of the Atonement
objective, was perverted
1. The dogma of Merit, as already seen, had its pernicious
effect, both in regard to the
preparations for justifying grace, and the grace of
justification itself. The
2. Justifying Faith was made—as it has continued in the dogma of
Rome—an actus
intellectus, receiving its meritorious virtue through love. The
Schoolmen distinguished
two kinds of faith:
3. Hence justification was dispossessed of all that was
forensic, and became "actio Dei
physica:" righteousness infused, making a man just instead of
unjust. Therefore it could
never be regarded as a settled and fixed act of God, and never
as matter of certain
assurance to its possessor. Justification in this system,
confirmed at Trent, is the process
of a transmutation from a state of sin to a state of
righteousness, in virtue of which the
justified can accomplish works entitling to eternal life: opera
meritoria proportionata
vitae aeternae. It is remarkable that Thomas Aquinas, the
highest authority among the
Schoolmen before Trent, lays great stress upon the
instantaneousness of this act,
confounding justification not so much with sanctification as
with the infusion of the
regenerate life. The following are some of his sentences: " In
justification requiritur actus
fidei quantum ad hoc, quod homo credat Deum esse justificatorem
per mysterium
Christi." "Homo per virtutes justificatur; per fidem
justificatur." "Charitas facit effectum
infinitum, dum conjungit animam Deo justificando impiam." " Tota
justificatio impii
originaliter consistit in gratiae infusione. Per eam enim et
liberum arbitrium meretur et
culpa remittitur: gratiae autem infusio fit in instanti." This
last sentence will be seen to be
in strange contrast with the later doctrine of Rome, which
asserts that believers through
good works MAGIS
4. The tendency of Mediaeval doctrine was towards the same
errors by which the early
Fathers were ensnared. What we saw in the germ has become more
developed. The
present and eternal acceptance of the sinner for the sake of
Christ alone, never rejected
absolutely, was denied by implication: the absolute supremacy of
the Saviour's merit was
reserved for the original fault of the race; for sin committed
after its first imputed benefit,
human expiation was demanded. Secondly, the peculiarity of the
Apostolical term
justification, as referring to a sinner's relation to law, was
all but entirely abolished
Justification was said to make the sinner a saint and meet for
heaven; and thus the word
did duty for the renewal and entire sanctification of the soul.
It was forgotten that,
because the LAW will for ever have its charge against him—as
apart from Christ, —he
must for ever be
II. But there was also throughout the Mediaeval period a sound
practical confession,
silently protesting against the theories of the schools j and
showing that the whole head
was not sick, the whole heart was not faint. The sickness of the
Church's teaching was not
unto death: the light of the Deformation was already arising in
the midst of the darkness
1. A long and affecting series of testimonies might be gathered
from the Schoolmen of all
shades, in proof that the hearts of the penitent saints always
turned for justification solely
to the merits of Christ. Thus Anselm who did so much to
establish the foundations of the
Atonement as a doctrine, could hardly fail to be sound as to its
application. Among many
evidences of this may be quoted his counsel to a dying sinner:
"Huic morti te totnm
committe, hac morte te totum contege eique te totum involve. Et,
si Dominus te voluerit
judicare, dic: Domine, mortem Domini nostri Jesu Christi objicio
inter me et judicium
tuum; aliter tecum non contendo. Si dixerit, quod merueris
damnationem, dic: mortem
domini nostri Jesu Christi objicio inter me et mala merita mea,
ipsiusque dignissimae
passionis meritum affero pro merito, quod habere debuissem et
heu non habeo. Dicat
iterum: mortem Domini nostri Jesu Christi pono inter me et iram
tuam. Deinde dicat ter:
In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum. Et conventus sui adstantes
respondeant: In
manus tuas, Domine, commendamus spiritum ejus. Et securus
morietur nec videbit
mortem in aeternum." In his Meditations also we hear Anselm thus
speaking to his soul: "
When I look at the offences which I have committed, if Thou
shouldst judge me as I have
deserved, I am certainly lost; but when I look at Thy death,
which Thou didst suffer for
the world's redemption, I cannot despair of Thy compassion." And
the comparative
absence of confidence noticeable here is elsewhere relieved: " O
how should we hope in a
perfect healing; and in this hope joyfully labor for our
purification!" Thus Bernard also
abounds with sayings which breathe the purest aspirations after
a righteousness assured to
faith working by love, without any human merit. It was he who
said: " sufficit ad
meritum scire quod non suffieiant merita." In one of his sermons
there are sentences of
which Luther made great use: " It is necessary first of all to
believe that thou canst not
have the remission of sins save through the indulgence of God;
then that thou canst have
no good works unless He give thee this; and, lastly, that
eternal life cannot be merited by
any good deeds, unless these be themselves freely given. The
merits of men are not such
that for their sake eternal life is by right due to them, or
that God would be unrighteous in
withholding it. For, not to say that all merits are God's gifts,
man being God's debtor and
not God man's debtor, what are all merits in comparison with
such glory?" In his
Discourses on the Canticles also Bernard utters some sentences
that are perfectly free
from the error of the times: " Truly blessed is only the man to
whom God imputeth not
sin. For there is none without sin. Yet who can condemn the
elect of God? Enough is it to
me for the possession of righteousness that I have Him against
Whom alone I have sinned
as a reconciled God. All that He has decreed not to reckon to me
is as if it had never
been. Not to sin is God's righteousness, man's righteousness is
the forgiveness of God." "
I am not poor in merit so long as He is not poor in mercy. If
His compassion is rich I am
rich in merit, and shall eternally praise the Lord of eternal
mercy. Is it my righteousness
that I think of? No, Lord, only of Thine; for even
2. During the latter part of the Middle Ages Mysticism gave its
distinct coloring to this as
well as to all the doctrines which connect the sinner with his
Savior. It is not easy to
define precisely who in this relation may be termed the Mystics.
In a certain sense such
were all the noblest spirits of the Schoolmen, from Anselm and
Bernard down to Gerson
and the immediate precursors of the Reformation. The passages
quoted above, however,
separate these authors as to the present question from the
Mystics proper, though they
generally belonged to the same class. The characteristic
principle of Mysticism was the
absorbing desire after union with God. This was, and ever is,
its ruling idea. Applied to
the doctrine of righteousness through Christ it had these two
effects, or this one effect
under two aspects: first, it gave supreme ascendancy to the love
of the faith that embraces
Christ; and, secondly, it made Christ's internal union with the
soul the secret of its
righteousness. It did not entirely neglect, but it made entirely
subordinate, the virtue of
the Atonement as reckoned to the soul for present and eternal
acceptance. This phase of
doctrine must be considered elsewhere more generally: now we
have to do with its
mediation between the legalized and enslaved mediaeval Church
and the freed teaching
of the Reformation. It is enough to say that in the long series
of the purest and most
saintly mystical writers the love which seemed to displace faith
as the condition of
acceptance was in reality no other than faith itself in its
self-renouncing and Christembracing
character; and, secondly, that the internal Christ Whose
indwelling was
regarded as the formal cause or principle of justification was
such as utterly extinguishing
self. Their language was incorrect, and their idea of
righteousness confused; but their
theology was in its deep foundation opposed to the legal spirit
of the system to which
they belonged
3. As we approach the Reformation witnesses abound with their
testimony that both
scholastic definitions and mystical meditations were steadily
tending in one direction
Among many we may bring forward Staupitz: " No man can be
relieved of his sin but
through faith in Christ alone. Apart from Him there is no
confession, no repentance, no
work of man: we must believe in Christ, or die in our sins.
Therefore it is far more
needful to exercise ourselves in faith than in a book of
penitential discipline. Faith in
Christ never faileth it obtains mercy from God, and renews the
whole man. Come and
buy without money; ye have nothing to pay for it; but shall be
justified only through
grace and the redemption which is in Christ, Whom God hath set
forth as our only Savior,
only through faith in His blood-shedding, for the manifestation
of His righteousness. By
faith we are saved without the works of the law." But in another
chapter the mystical
element comes in: " Faith in Christ lets no man abide in
himself; it fails not till it unites
us wholly with God. And this is the true faith, which is Christ
dwelling within us." These
passages combined indicate the junction between the two
tendencies to which reference
has been made. They express the hidden thoughts that were
working in multitudes of
minds, however confused in their utterance
There can be no doubt that the Sixteen Decrees and Thirty-three
Canons of the Council of
Trent, which denounced in its sixth session, 1547, the errors of
Protestantism, contain the
authoritative decisions of the Church of Rome on the subject of
Justification. But these
must be examined in the light both of a previous history and of
a subsequent
development
I. The Council of Trent was assembled as the protest of Rome
against Protestantism: the
question of Justification was only one, though one of the chief,
which it aimed to settle
During the interval between the Diet of Augsburg, with its
Confession, and the Diet of
Ratisbon, a little more than ten years, many attempts were made
by the old Church to
compromise. The Interim Article, holding fast the essential
Mediaeval idea that
justification is the making righteous, endeavored to graft an
imputation upon that: "
Sinners are justified by a living and effectual faith—per fidem
vivam et efficacem—
which is a motion of the Holy Spirit, whereby, repenting of
their lives past, they are
raised to God, and made real partakers of the mercy which Jesus
Christ hath promised." It
admitted that sinners "cannot be reconciled to God, or redeemed
from the bondage of sin,
but by Jesus Christ, our only Mediator;" that "faith justifies
not, but as it leads us to
mercy and righteousness, which is imputed to us through Jesus
Christ and His merits, and
not by any perfection of righteousness which is inherent in us,
as communicated to us by
Jesus Christ;" and that "we are not just, or accepted by God, on
account of our own works
or righteousness, but we are reputed just on account of the
merits of Jesus Christ."
Whatever ambiguity may remain in the sentence concerning the
faith working by love
that justifies, and that we are made real partakers of mercy,
there can be no doubt that the
substantial truth was once more within the reach of the Church
of Rome and was rejected
II. The specific doctrine of Trent may be viewed as to the
preparations, the bestowment
and the results of justification. On each of which a few remarks
may be made from our
own position in passing, and without direct reference to the
controversy of the times
1. The Preparation for the estate of justification is a very
important element in the
doctrine. It is regarded as the result of prevenient grace, with
which man may co-operate
and which he may reject: Ita ut tangente Deo cor hominis per
Spiritus Sancti
illuminationem, neque homo ipse nihil omnino agat,
in-spirationem illam recipiens,
quippe qui illam et abjicere potest, neque tamen sine gratia Dei
movere se ad justitiam
coram illo libera sua voluntate possit. This is sound; but the
successive steps of
preparation, passing through belief of the truth into acceptance
of baptism, are supposed
to constitute a certain merit of congruity which notes the
beginning of error. This,
however, was obviated, in word at least:
2. On the accomplishment of the preparations justification
follows: quse non est sola
peccatorum remissio, sed et sanctificatio et renovatio
interioris hominis per voluntariam
susceptionem gratiae et donorum unde homo ex injusto fit justus,
ex inimico ami-cus,ut
sit haeres secundum spem vitae etenae. Non modo reputamur, sed
vere justi nominamur
et sumus, justitiam in nobis recipientes justitia Dei, qua nos
justos facit, qua videlicet ab
eo donati reno-vamur spiritu mentis nostrae et non secundum
propriam cujusque
dispositionem et co-operationem. Quanquam nemo possit esse
justus, nisi cui merita
passionis Jesu Christi communicantur, id tamen in hac impii
justificatione fit, quum
ejusdem sanctae passionis merito per Spiritum Sanctum caritas
Dei diffunditur in
cordibus eorum qui justificantur, atque ipsis inhaeret, unde in
ipsa justificatione cum
remissione peccatorum haec omnia simul infusa accipit homo per
Jesum Christum, cui
inseritur, fidem, spem et caritatem. Hence the Tridentine idea
of justification is that of
making righteous; while it is of grace through Christ there is
in it no imputation of
righteousness; though a non imputation of sin is admitted,
justification and regeneration
and renewal are confounded and made one. Some sentences seem to
contain a
condemnation of the doctrine of the acceptance of the sinner
through grace: Si quis
dixerit homines justificari vel sola imputatione justitiae
Christi, vel sola peccatorum
remissione, ex-clusa gratia et charitate, aut etiam gratiam qua
justificamur esse tantum
favorem Dei, anathema sit. This expressly opposes the Scriptural
doctrine of justification
as forgiveness and the imputation of righteousness to faith: but
if the term justification is
enlarged, so as to include the whole process of the renewal of
the soul, the words are
correct. They are wrong inasmuch as they deny that there is a
distinction between the
acceptance for Christ's sake and the acceptance of the inward
work of holiness wrought
by His Spirit. The Scriptures teach, what common sense
con-firms, that the present,
constant, and final acceptance of a sinner must be a sentence of
righteousness pronounced
for Christ's sake independent of the merit of works
3. It is in the results of justification that the confusion of
Roman theology is most
apparent. The New Testament undoubtedly teaches that there must
be in the believer a
process of gradual righteousness; yet carefully distinguishes
that from the one sentence of
justification which is ever and continuously pronouncing the
believer righteous. But the
Council made no such distinction. In its doctrine justification
admits, in all its meaning,
of increase. Sic ergo justificati et amici Dei ac domestici
facti euntes de virtute in
virtutem, renovantur de die in diem, hoc est, mortificando
membra carnis suae et
exhibendo ea arma justitiae in sanctificationem . . . per
observationem mandatorum Dei et
ecclesiae in ipsa justitia per Christi gratiam accepta,
co-operante fide bonis operibus,
crescunt atque magis justificantur. Again, human satisfaction is
superadded as a
requirement for the continual impartation of forgiveness in the
sacrament of penance: Si
quis negaverit, ad integram et perfectam peccatorum remis-sionem
requiri tres actus in
poenitente, quasi materiam sacramenti poenitentiae, videlicet
contritionem, confessionem
et satisfactionem, quae tres poenitentiae partes dicuntur; aut
dixerit, duas tantum esse
poenitentiae partes, terrores scilicet incussos conscientiae
agnito peccato, et fidem
conceptam ex evangelio vel absolutione, qua credit quis sibi per
Christum remissa
peccata: anathema sit This canon omits faith, and places the
satisfaction of human works
in its stead: the same term being applied to the good deeds of
penitent obedience that is
applied to the One Meritorious Oblation of Christ which indeed
is admitted to lie at the
basis of all. Moreover, in the anxiety to defend faith from
being made a merely blind
confidence in the Atonement, on the one hand, and a personal
assurance of salvation on
the other, it is reduced as the instrument of salvation to mere
assent; but that assent itself
is among the preparations of prevenient grace. The faith
quickened and informed with
charity is no other than the life of regeneration, and, in
making this the faith that justifies,
the renewal of the soul is really made the reason of acceptance
for the sake of Christ. Not
faith in the Redeemer, but the work of that faith, becomes the
formal cause of
justification. The danger of Antinomianism is obviated only by a
fatal opposite extreme:
the denial in theory that the
III. The subsequent development of the doctrine of Rome on this
doctrine is deeply
interesting; but chiefly in relation to some of the other topics
that will come under
discussion. From Bellarmine, the first controversial defender of
the Council, down to
Moehler its latest, the history of variation may be profitably
studied
1. Bellarmine himself introduced several important
modifications; and his bolder
statements tend to bring into relief a certain moderate tone
that was adopted in the
Council. As to faith he says: " In three things Catholics differ
from heretics. First, in the
Object of justifying faith, which heretics restrict to the
promise of special mercy, while
we would extend it as widely as the whole Word of God. Secondly,
in the faculty of mind
which is its seat. They place it in the will, defining it to be
trust and confounding it with
hope, as fiducial trust is only confirmed hope. Catholics teach
that it is in the intellect
Finally, in the act of the understanding involved. They define
faith by knowledge, we by
assent. For we assent to God, even when He proposes things to be
believed which we do
not understand." To this faith of so general a nature he
ascribes a sort of merit: " That it is
the cause and has the power of justifying, and in some sense
merits it." He distinguished
more precisely than the Council between the first and the second
justification: " We say
that St. Paul speaks of the first justification, in which the
unrighteous are made righteous;
while St. James speaks of the second, in which the just is made
more just. Thus the
former rightly says that man is justified without works, and the
latter that he is justified
by works." He denies what has been abundantly proved, that both
writers speak only of a
declaratory justification. Bellarmine rejected altogether the
imputation of Christ's
righteousness, which the Council rejected only as being the sole
ground of acceptance
"Our adversaries have never found a passage in which it is
stated that Christ's
righteousness is imputed to us for righteousness, or that we are
righteous through the
imputation of His righteousness." The Arminians said the same
thing in almost the same
words; but both forgot that, as to the essential matter
involved, there is scarcely a shade
of difference between the imputation of Christ's righteousness
and the imputation of its
virtue in pardon. Finally, this controversialist laid the
foundation of a more thorough
exposition of the Works of Supererogation and the Counsels of
Perfection, which the
Council left as they were commonly understood and perverted.
These points we dwell on
elsewhere. Meanwhile, it is instructive to find that the great
champion of the merit of
works, who said that " good works are necessary to salvation,
not only in regard to their
presence, but also in regard to their efficacy"—a profound and
far-reaching error—was,
like many other devotees of Roman doctrine, more faithful to the
Atonement as a penitent
Christian than he was as a polemical writer. He did not end his
description of justification
without a strong recommendation to simple trust in the pure
mercy of God: Propter
incertitudinem propriae justitiae, et periculum inanis gloriae,
tutissimum est fiduciam
totam in sola misericordia Dei et benignitate reponere. Hoc
solum dicimus, tutius esse
meritorum jam partorum qudammodo oblivisci, et in solam
misericordiam Dei respicere;
tum quia nemo absque revelatione certo scire potest se habere
vera merita, aut in eis in
finem usque perseveraturum: tum quia nihil est facilius, in hoc
loco tentationis, quam
superbiam ex consideratione bonorum operum gigm
2. Within the Roman Church there have been many controversies
upon what are called
the Doctrines of Grace. The most important was its contest with
Jansenism, or
Augustinian Predestinarianism, or what we call Calvinism. As
Calvinism had its
Arminian Five Points to oppose, so Jesuit Romanism had its Five
Points of Jansenism to
oppose. The Papal Constitutions or Bulls issued to suppress
these doctrines merely
confirmed, and in a negative way, the Decrees and Canons of
Trent, which are the only
authoritative formulas. The exposition, however, of these
formulas has been various, and
belongs to a more minute History of Doctrine. The student who
would thoroughly
understand the position of modern Romanism must study the
controversy which
Moehler's Symbolism excited in the earlier part of this century.
In the long and
exhaustive discussion of Moehler every point is touched. To many
of his arguments
against the exaggerated doctrine of Imputation we must concede
their force. But the
fundamental question of the relation of faith to justification,
though stated with much
subtlety, is not relieved of its anti-Scriptural character as
above exhibited. A few
sentences will show this. " To the abstract idea of God, as a
Being infinitely just,
corresponds the sentiment of fear. If, on the other hand, God be
conceived of as the allloving,
merciful, and forgiving Father, this is most assuredly possible
only by a kindred
sentiment in our souls, corresponding to the Divine love, that
is to say, by a love
germinating within us. It is awakening
Here is the same doctrine, but with the vital omission of a
conscious
appropriation of the vicarious sacrifice which propitiated the
Divine displeasure and
propitiated the Divine love. The Atonement is robbed of one of
its eternal elements: it is
made only the removal of a barrier to the flow of love; in
forgetfulness that it is also set
forth as a propitiation in the blood of Christ to declare the
Divine righteousness. The clear
conception of this truth will defend the doctrine of
Justification against an error which is,
of all its errors, the least peculiar to Romanism
3. It may be added that the connection between the sacrament of
Baptism and
Justification was clearly laid down at Trent; but that also has
received sundry important
modifications. It was established that the only instrumental
cause was the sacrament; but
the very virtue of the rite as an objective assurance,
corresponding with faith as assurance
subjective, was taken away by the denial of the certitude of
Justification: " As no pious
man ought to doubt of the mercy of God, the merit of Christ, the
virtue and efficacy of
the sacraments, so every one, looking at himself and his own
infirmity and
indisposedness, may fear concerning his own grace,
"Doubtless, says the Apostle (Phil. 3: 8), I have counted all
things loss, and I do judge
them to be dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not
having mine own
righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of
God through faith. Whether they [the Romish divines] speak of
the first or second
justification, they make the essence of it a Divine quality
inherent, —they make it
righteousness which is in us. If it be in us, then it is ours,
as our souls are ours, though we
have them from God, and can hold them no longer than pleaseth
Him. But the
righteousness wherein we must be found, if we will be justified,
is not our own; therefore
we cannot be justified by any inherent quality. Christ hath
merited righteousness for as
many as are found in Him. In Him God findeth us, if we be
faithful; for by faith, we are
incorporated into Him. Then, although in ourselves we be
altogether sinful and
unrighteous, yet even the man which in himself is impious, full
of iniquity, full of sin,
him, being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin in
hatred through repentance,
him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by
not imputing it, taketh
quite away the punishment due thereunto, by pardoning it; and
accepteth him in Jesus
Christ, as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that
is commanded him in the law
Shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had
fulfilled the whole law? I must
take heed what I say; but the Apostle saith, God made Him which
knew no sin to be sin
for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!
Such we are in the sight
of God the Father, as is the very Son of God Himself. Let it be
counted folly, or phrensy,
or fury, or whatsoever. It is our wisdom, and our comfort; we
care for no knowledge in
the world but this, —that man hath sinned, and God hath
suffered; that God hath made
Himself the sin of men, and that men are made the Righteousness
of God."
The teaching of the Reformation on this subject underwent many
changes and passed
through many phases. It is not possible, nor is it necessary, to
trace the process here. It
will be enough to give the result, as shown: first, in the
common protest against ancient
error; secondly, in the difference gradually established between
the Lutherans and the
Reformed; this leading finally to the Remonstrant or Arminian
mediation between them
1. The first Reformers regarded justification by faith as the
central question in their
gigantic assault upon corrupt Christendom: induced proximately
by the abuse of
Indulgences, and ultimately by the fervent study of St. Paul's
doctrine of Righteousness
They made this the starting point of all controversy, and relied
upon its settlement for the
removal of every abuse. Si in unum conferantur omnia scandala,
tamen unus articulus de
remis-sione peccatorum, quod propter Christum gratis consequamur
remissionem
peccatorum per fidem, tantum affert boni ut omnia incommoda
obruat. Hence in the
Smalkald Articles all the individual errors of Romanism are
measured and estimated in
their relation to this; and its restoration is regarded as the
pledge of universal amendment
The great points which were gradually cleared in Luther's mind,
and formulated by
Melanchthon, were these: that the righteousness of Christ is the
sole ground of our
acceptance, and not any past, present, or future works of our
own, emphasis being laid on
the future; that justification is the forgiveness of sins, which
must precede love to God,
being therefore forensic and not physical, an act of God for man
and not an act of God in
man; that faith does not itself justify, having no virtue of its
own, but that it is the
instrument of appropriating the merit of Christ. The following
clauses from the Formula
Concordise (1581) express the common doctrine of the Reformers;
and at the same time
condemn certain errors that had crept in among themselves: such
as that of Osiander, who
taught that Christ in His Divine nature is our Righteousness, He
dwelling in us and His
indwelling Divine righteousness being imputed to us as our own;
and that of Stancarus,
who regarded Christ as mediator only in His human nature, the
righteousness of which is
imputed to us; and that of others who began to dwell too much on
the distinct imputation
of Christ's active obedience. " (1.) Our righteousness is the
whole Christ according to
both natures in His sole obedience, which He as God and man
offered to the Father even
to the most absolute death; and by it merited for us the
remission of sins and eternal life
(2.) This is before God our righteousness that He remits our
sins of mere grace, without
any respect to past, present, or future works. He imputes to us
the righteousness of the
obedience of Christ; on account of that righteousness we are
received by God into favor
and reputed just. (3.) Faith alone is that medium and instrument
by which we apprehend
Christ. (4.) The word Justification in this Article signifies
the same as being absolved
from sins. (5.) Although antecedent contrition and subsequent
new obedience do not
belong to the article of Justification before God, justifying
faith must not be imagined to
be capable of consisting with any evil purpose, such as that of
continuing in sin and
acting in opposition to conscience'
2. By degrees the difference between the Lutheran divines and
the Reformed began to
appear and take definite form
(1.) The Predestinarianism of Calvin and his followers affected
at many points their
doctrine of Justification as only the expression in time of an
eternal decree. The
distinction between Righteousness and Regeneration was
maintained; but both were
made to spring together from the one act of the Holy Spirit in
the bestowment of the gift
of faith. Hence Justification became an eternal and unchangeable
act, the investiture of
the regenerate, in virtue of their union with Christ, with His
righteousness active and
passive: passive, for the removal of the sentence of death;
active, for their reinstatement
in the privileges of righteousness. Justification was at once an
external act (actus forensis)
and the imputation of Another's righteousness (imputatio
justitiae Christi). Calvin's own
teaching may be summed up in two sentences: Sicut non potest
discerpi Christus in
partes, itainseparabiles esse haec duo, quae simul et conjunctim
in Ipso percipimus,
justitiam et sanctifica-tionem. But before this we read:
Justificationem in peccatorum
remissione ac justitiae Christi imputatione positam esse
dicimus
(2.) The Lutheran divines at first tended the same way. Hollaz,
for instance, betrays a
certain indistinctness which long affected the dogmatic divines
who took up Luther's
work: Justification distinquitur in primam et continuatam. Illa
est actus gratiae, quo Deus,
judex justissimus et misericordissimus, homini peccatori, culpae
et poenae reo sed
converso et renato, ex mera misericordia propter satisfactionem
et meritum Christi, vera
fide apprehensum, peccata remittit et justitiam Christi imputat,
ut, in filium Dei
adoptatus, haeres sit vitae aeternae. Here there is the same
priority of regeneration, and
the sinner is supposed to have the new life in Christ before the
mercy of the Atonement is
applied in the forgiveness of sins. By degrees the two
correlative sides of the one
justification were adopted instead: negative, in the
non-imputation of guilt, corresponding
with the passive obedience of Christ as having paid the penalty;
positive, in the
imputation of righteousness, corresponding with His active
obedience as belonging to the
believer in the mutual transfer of relations between the Lord
and man. But these were
distinguished " non secundum rem sed secundum rationem:" not as
distinct in fact, but
distinct only in the order of thought. Others made justification
the remission of sins on
the ground of a previous imputation of Christ's righteousness,
which preserves one
consistency at the expense of another. But, rejecting the
doctrine of election, and holding
a higher theory of sacramental efficacy, Lutheranism gradually
departed further from
Calvinism. It admitted that justification might be lost, and
found again, and finally lost;
that it is a state, as well as an act; and a state out of which
a man may fall. It gave a more
important function to good works. Denying, against the
Romanists, that there can be any
opera supererogationis, or merits acquired by obeying the
counsels of perfection, it also
denied, against the Calvinists, or rather the Antinomians, that
good works have absolutely
nothing to do and are not regarded in the sinner's present and
final acceptance. There is a
way of holding the imputation of Christ's righteousness, active
and passive, which makes
it very hard to give a good account of the relation of good
works to salvation. There was
originally and there has always been much fluctuation and much
embarrassment on this
subject. Antinomianism was an outgrowth of Lutheranism, and the
Form. Council
condemned Agricola's doctrine by establishing a triple use of
the law; paedagogicus, for
conversion; politicus, for society; didacticus, for the
believer. And it laid down that good
works are necessary, not in. the sense of being enforced, but as
testimonies of the
presence of the Spirit
ARMINIAN OR REMONSTRANT DOCTRINE
Arminianism was in its doctrine of the Atonement a mediation
between Socinianism and
the Anselmic teaching as revived at the Reformation; and in that
of righteousness a
mediation between the later Lutherans and the Reformed. Its firm
maintenance of
universal redemption affected its theory of justification at all
points. Generally faithful to
the truth, it held some peculiarities which lead to error. But
it must be remembered that
Arminianism gradually declined from its first integrity; and
that it does not now represent
any fixed standard of confession
I. The Remonstrants held that Christ's obedience is the sole
ground of justification, the
only meritorious cause; that faith is the sole instrumental
cause; that good works can
never have any kind of merit: all this in common with the other
Reformers
1. Arminius himself gives this definition: " Justification is a
just and gracious act of God
by which, from the throne of His grace and mercy, He absolves
from his sins man, who is
a sinner but who is a believer, on account of Christ, and His
obedience and righteousness,
and considers him righteous to the salvation of the justified
person, and to the glory of
Divine righteousness and grace." "The meritorious cause of
justification is Christ through
His obedience and righteousness . . .. He is the material cause
of our justification, so far
as God bestows Christ on us for righteousness, and imputes His
righteousness and
obedience to us. In regard to this twofold cause, the
meritorious and the material, we are
said to be constituted righteous through the obedience of
Christ." But both Arminius and
his followers declined to admit any distinction between the
active and the passive
obedience. In fact, they gradually denied altogether the direct
imputation of Christ's
righteousness. While denying that works, whether legal or
evangelical, merit salvation,
they asserted that the faith which justifies is regarded by God
as a fides obsequiosa or
assensus fidu-cialis, a faith which includes obedience. The
Remonstrant Confession says:
In ipsum Christum ad salutem a Deo nobis ex pura gratia datum
toti recumbimus. Itaque
ad fidem veram et salvificam non sufficit sola notitia, neque
assensus, sed requiritur
omnino firmus et solidus voluntatisque deliberatae imperio
roboratus, denique fiducialis
et obsequiosus assensus. qui et fiducia dicitur. No exception
can be taken to this
statement, which seems to unite the best of the Lutheran and
Calvinistic points. But the
following words of Limboreh reveal the secret of weak-ness in
the later Arminian
doctrine: Sed fides est conditio in nobis et a nobis requisita,
ut justificationem
consequamur. Est itaque talis actus, qui licet in se spectatus
perfectus nequaquam sit, sed
in multis deficiens, tamen a Deo gratiosa et liberrima voluntate
pro pleno et perfecto
acceptatur et propter quem Deus homini gratiose remissionem
peccatorum et vitas
aeternae praemium conferre vult. All this is only partially
true. God requires faith, but it
is also His gift. He does, for Christ's sake, pardon the
imperfection of the good work
wrought by faith, which is faith itself; but he does not repute
it as perfect so far as
concerns our justification. This is the imputation of
righteousness to the believer himself:
not to the work of faith. The faith of the ungodly is reckoned
for righteousness even
before it can produce its first act
2. It would not be difficult to show that there is a strong
resemblance here to the
Romanist error: the faith is informed and clothed with the works
of love which, though
imperfect, are accepted and rewarded under the provisions of a
new and reduced law of
righteousness. That God does accept the righteousness which He
works in us as perfect
for Christ's sake is undoubtedly true, but it is not on account
of this inwrought
righteousness that He accepts the sanctified believer. The faith
that looks at the finished
work of Christ cannot rely on the finished work itself
accomplished within. " An act of
faith
II. The Arminian type of theology has been sometimes termed
III. This leads to some brief consideration of the specific
views of
1. Generally, the Methodist teaching is that of the Anglican
Article on Justification: " We
are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our
Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, by faith; and not for our own works or deserving," as
that is followed by the
Article on Good Works: " Albeit that Good Works, which are the
fruits of faith, and
follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure
the severity of God's
judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ,
and do spring out
necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a
lively Faith may be as
evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit."
2. Although Methodism lays most stress, after the example of the
Apostles, on the
forgiveness of sins, or the remission of their penalty, or their
non-imputation, it does not,
however, forget that Justification is strictly speaking more
than mere forgiveness. One of
its earliest statements was: " To be justified is to be pardoned
and received into God's
favor; into such a state that, if we continue therein, we shall
be finally saved." Its
Catechism thus defines: " Justification is an act of God's free
grace, wherein He
pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His
sight, only for the sake of
Christ." And Mr. Wesley also lays the stress on Pardon: " the
plain, scriptural notion of
justification is pardon, the forgiveness of sins. It is that act
of God the Father whereby,
for the sake of the propitiation made by the blood of His Son,
He showeth forth His
righteousness (or mercy) by the remission of sins that are
past." But later writings of Mr.
Wesley show that he was afterwards disposed to lay more stress
on the positive side of
justification. And some of its latest and best definitions do
full justice to both. Dr.
Bunting is a remarkable evidence of this: " To justify a sinner
is to account and consider
him relatively righteous, and to deal
3. Between this, however, and the Imputation of Christ's
Righteousness, especially His
active righteousness, to the believer as his own, there is a
great interval. Methodism has
always maintained a firm protest against the distinct imputation
of the active obedience
of the Substitute of man; but has been reluctant to give up
altogether the thought of an
imputation of Christ's righteousness generally. The following
words of Mr. Wesley, confirmed
by hymns which the Methodists delight to sing, will carry back
this instinctive
vacillation to an early period: " As the active and passive
righteousness of Christ were
never in fact separated from each other, so we never need
separate them at all. It is with
regard to these conjointly that Jesus is called ' the Lord our
Righteousness/ But when is
this righteousness imputed? When they believe; in that very hour
the righteousness of
Christ is theirs; it is imputed to everyone that believes, as
soon as he believes. But in
what sense is this righteousness imputed to believers? In this;
all believers are forgiven
and accepted, not for the sake of anything in them, or of
anything that ever was, that is, or
ever can be done by them, but wholly for the sake of what Christ
hath done and suffered
for them. But perhaps some will affirm that faith is imputed to
us for righteousness. St.
Paul affirms this, therefore I affirm it too. Faith is imputed
for righteousness to every
believer, namely, faith in the righteousness of Christ; but this
is exactly the same thing
which has been said before; for by that expression I mean
neither more nor less than that
we are justified by faith, not by works; or that every believer
is forgiven and accepted
merely for the sake of what Christ has done and suffered."
4. This is only the echo of the words of Goodwin: " If we take
the phrase of imputing
Christ's righteousness improperly, namely, for the bestowing, as
it were, the
righteousness of Christ, including His obedience as well passive
as active in the return of
it, that is, in the privileges, blessings, and benefits
purchased by it, so a believer may be
said to be justified by the righteousness of Christ imputed. But
then the meaning can be
no more than this: God justifies a believer for the sake of
Christ's righteousness, and not
for any righteousness of his own. Such an imputation of the
righteousness of Christ as
this is no way denied or questioned." Here Mr. Watson remarks: "
With Calvin the notion
seems to be, that the righteousness of Christ, that is, His
entire obedience to the will of
His Father, both in doing and suffering, is, upon our believing,
imputed, or accounted to
us, or accepted for us, 'as though it were our own.' From which
we may conclude that he
admitted some kind of transfer of the righteousness of Christ to
our account; and that
believers are considered so to be in Christ, as that He should
answer for them in law, and
plead His righteousness in default of theirs. All this, we
grant, is capable of being
interpreted in a good and scriptural sense;
"There is scarcely an error concerning the sinner's acceptance
with God that has not its
modern representative; nor is there a modern error the germs of
which have not already
been noted as traceable in antiquity
I. The older Socinianism, rejecting the Divinity and vicarious
atonement of the
Redeemer, regarded the Deity as a Being acting above and
independently of law, and as
remitting the penalties of sin on condition of faith, which is
viewed as obedience. Socinus
made free use of the terminology of the New Testament in his
definitions, one of which
well deserves study. " Faith therefore in Christ by which we are
justified, although it
embraces and signifies the obedience which in hope of eternal
life we pay, and therefore
shows itself in work, yet is opposed to works inasmuch as it
does not in itself contain a
perpetual and most absolute observance of Divine precepts, nor
justifies by its own
virtue, but on account of the clemency of God, who regards those
that perform this work
of faith, as Christ Himself calls it, as righteous, and in His
own incomparable benignity
condescends to impute to those before unjust the righteousness
which He requires."
Modern Unitarianism, which may be called Rationalism, holds the
same general idea of
the Divine toleration of man's infirmity, and of the energy of
an earnest faith in the
possibility of amendment. We may see the issue in the following
words of Wegscheider,
a high authority: " Not by any individual good acts done, nor by
any merit whatever, but
only by true faith, that is, by a mind ordered after the pattern
of Christ and His precepts;
and thus turned to God, piously referring all its thoughts and
deeds to Him and His most
holy will, are men approved to God. And trusting to the Divine
benevolence, which
Christ in His suffering of death has wonderfully confirmed, they
are filled with the hope
of future blessedness to be accorded to them according to their
own moral dignity." Or as
another high authority, Staeudlin, says:
All true amendment and every right act must spring from faith,
when we understand by it
the conviction that anything is right, the assurance of certain
great moral and religious
principles." Some of the noblest testimonies ever given to the
virtue and energy and
potentiality of strong faith in the good are to be found among
Deists who reject that
revelation of God in Christ which is to man the eternal warrant
and energy of belief. But
the faith to which Scripture ascribes such wonders is faith in
God, with all His attributes
of justice and mercy, as they have their highest manifestation
in the work of Jesus
II. Within almost all the more orthodox communities of
Christendom there is observable
a strong partiality towards a view of justification that regards
it as the expression of the
Divine complacency resting on the soul in which the Incarnate
Son is formed. It may
indeed be said that almost every error on the subject is more or
less a variation upon this
1. It is in reality the error of a certain type of teaching in
Romanism and the Greek
Church: so far that is, as concerns the simple doctrine of
Justification itself, apart from its
relations with the Sacrament of Penance. The
2. It is virtually the view of all those diversified
Latitudinaviaris, —within and without
the Anglican Establishment, on both sides of the Atlantic, and
over the Continent of
Europe, save among the consistent Calvinistic or Reformed
Communions, —who reject
the doctrine of God reconciled to man through a propitiation.
The presence of Christ in
humanity is the reconciliation of the race to God according to
this modern Gospel; and
the ministry of reconciliation is only the announcement of a
fact which all men are
already interested in, or of a privilege that all men already
possess. This particular error
will find its more appropriate place when we look at the history
of the doctrine of
regeneration. Meanwhile, it is enough to mention that such a
revolt against the doctrine of
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