made sin does not secure our being made righteonsness, he was not our substitute. Righteousness does not here mean inward rectitude, or moral excellence. It is true that the word often has this sense ; and it is true that the work of Christ does secure the holiness of his people, and was designed to produce that effect, as is often asserted in Scripture. But this was neither its only, nor its proximate design. Its imme- diate end was to reconcile us to God ; to propitiate him, by the satisfaction of justice, so that he can be just and yet justi- fy the ungodly. As the apostle is here speaking of the sacri- ficial effect of Christ's death, that is, of the proximate effect of his being made sin for us, the word righteousness must be understood in its forensic sense. It expresses our relation to the law, not our inward moral state. It is that which justifies, or satisfies the demands of the law. Those who have this hcKoxoavvt) are 8t/catot, just in the sight of the law, in the sense that the law or justice is satisfied as concerns them. It is called the righteousness of God^ either because it is from him as its author ; or, because it renders us righteous in his sight. Those who possess this righteousness are StKatot -n-apk tw ^eoj, i. e. righteous before God. The former is the more common representation in Paul's writings. Rom. 1, 17. 3, 22. 10, 3. Phil. 3, 9, wliere "the righteousness of God," is explained by *' the righteousness which is of God." In this view of the meaning of the phrase, the sense of the clause " we become the righteousness of God," is that we become divinely right- eous. We are righteous with the righteousness of God, not with our own which is but as a filthy rag, but with that which he has provided and which consists in the infinitely meritori- ous righteousness of his own dear Son. All this is true ; but the context here favours the other mode of representation. Christ was treated as a sinner, i. e. condemned, that we might be justified, i. e. regarded as just before God. The apostle uses the present tense, ytvw/xe^a, loe become righteous, because this justification is continuous. We are introduced into a jus- tified state. Ill him^ that is, in Christ. It is by virtue of our union with Christ, and only as we are in him by faith, that we are righteous before God.
Tliere is probably no passage in the Scriptures in whicli tlie doctrine of justification is more concisely or clearly stated than in this. Our sins were imputed to Christ, and his right- eousness is imputed to us. He bore our sins ; we are clothed in his righteousness. Imputation conveys neither pollution