found in Acts, the General Epistles, and Hel)rews. The relation of these to one another, and of them all to the Sjnoptic teaching of Jesus Himself, has to be adverted to.
(1) St. Paul. — Justification is by God's grace (Ro 32-' 4«, Eph 2», Tit 3'), by man's" faith (Ac 13=^8, Ro 5M, by Christ's Death (Ro 5-'), by His Resurrec- tion (Ro 4-"). It is a justification of the ungodly (Ro 45, 2 Co 5'*, etc.) ; it is not of works of the Law (Ro 3-°, Gal 3'^ etc.), not of the law written in the heart, the uncircumcision (Ro 2'^). It is not incon- sistent with judgment by works (1 Co 9-', Ph 3«-'-^). It is for remission of sins (Ro 3-^), peace with God, access into gra('e and hope of glory (Ro 5'--), righteousness (Ro 4"- -■* 5'^ 3--, 2 Co 5"-', Ph 3«), for life (Ro 5^^ : 'a justification taking effect in life '), which is through the body of Christ (Ro 7'*) and by His Spirit (Eph 2'8, Ro 5'^ 8- *-6- 1"- ", etc.). To the foregoing add the corroborative statement in Ro 4 as to Abraham's justification. There are five points. Justification is by f.aith, not works (4^'^), therefore by grace (4^^). Being by grace through faith, it came not through law but through promise (4''* ; cf. Gal 3^*). It is not by circumcision or outward privilege (4''- "*•'') ; it leaves no room for boasting or self-righteous conlidence (3-'' 4-). According to the Apostle, justification is not an act of man but an act of God. It issues from His holy Fatherly love and righteousness, which can have no possible relation to unrighteousness but that of wrath. It is fundamentally related to be- lieving self-surrender and trust (faith) on man's part. It is manifested in the historical Avork of Jesus. Its force resides in God, the object of faith, as He in His righteousness and clemency appears in the Death and Life after Death of His Son, by whose life we are saved (Ro 5^'^). This justifica- tion is not cogently interpreted as ' a reckoning righteous,'* nor as 'a making righteous'; it is more than the first, and other than the second. It includes the juridical features within the larger personal and spiritual, for there enter into it («) grace and (6) faith, (c) Christ's Spirit and (rf) the believer in Christ, all in a plane of spirit and life. Here God cannot just be understood as a Judge acquitting a criminal ; t the culprit has his position completeljr reversed, and is advanced to the honours and privileges to which he would have been entitled by a perfect obedience.J He not only goes free from merited penalty ; he is transferred into a new freedom for righteous service, gains unrestricted admittance to the operations of grace, the right of sonship, with all the glorious future involved. All that future is here in its initial stage in germ, so that the whole is regarded as already in the IJotential possession of the believer, and God gives as God and Father, not after the manner of an earthly tribunal. The stress of the Pauline state- ment rests on the fact that he conceives the energies of the Spirit to be liberated for the believer by the justifying Death of Christ, and mediated to tlie be- liever by the present life of ' the Lord, the Spirit' (2 Co 3'''), to whom the believer is joined to form ' one spirit ' (1 Co 6^"). It is a statement of siiirit, not logic ; experience and life, not legal forms. §
The Apostle i)roceeds next to plead for its effi- cacy by contrasting it with two earlier attempts in the history of the race to restore man's righteous- ness— attempts which had miserably failed. There was first the working of the natural conscience in
* Tlie meaning of the term, a judicial word.
t To Him as Judge tlie situation is a legal impasse out of which there is no legal way ; recourse is had to the Divine clemency.
J Cf. W. P. Paterson, Pauliiie Theology, London, 1903, p. 71.
S St. Paul uses metaphors, some drawn from juristic termin- ology, others from the ceremonial on the Great Day of Atone- ment. These metaphors are to be interpreted not in separation but in their combined cumulative effect, if the coniprehensiva character of his idea is to be maintained.
JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION
669
the Gentile world. There is a light of nature whicli oti'ers knowledge sufficient to impress on men the fact that their just due to God is full obedience to His will. By their wilful disobedience that light that was in them had been turned to darkness, with the result not of heightening the possibilities of human nature, but rather of increas- ing its unrighteousness, in fellowship with tlie god of this world, tlie Devil ; and now the world was lying in wickedness under God's wrath (Ko l-^' -* 3"- 1", Gal 3--, Eph 2-), and, in the individual heart, earnestly endeavouring to keep from its contamina- tion, the conflict proved the prepotency of sin (Ro 7). Then there was the moral conscience trained under the Law of Moses. It was designed to remedy the moral disaster of the natural con- science. Was it successful ? — It had been most ineffectual. Law could ' not make alive' (Gal 3'-^) either in its precepts or in their sanctions. It might furnish an ideal of right and deepen the conscious- ness of sin, and it might educate to a higher type of virtue. It could also, on the contrary, incite to larger disobedience and to fresh vices. Its rigours working on sensitive souls tended to paralyze the will. But the only solution must lie in re-inforce- ment of the will. In Clirist alone was that end won. He is 'the Wisdom and Power' of God, to them who believe, ideal and motive force in one Spirit. Notiiing short of the religious conscience renewed by Him could suffice. The religious con- science begins in one subjective act on man's part, the act of faith. It is preceded or accompanied by repentance, but it is itself the simple, childlike, submissive, enthusiastic, unconditional self-sur- render of the man's whole being, intellect, affec- tions, purpose, to the will of God in Christ.*