* It is the permanent worth Of Luther's doctrine to have set forth these two points with passiODate cogency (The Liberty of the Christian Man).
t Not the same as assurance of the love of God.
to its actual attainment and possession. Faith in Christ as our righteousness can justify us because it is based on the one condition in ourselves of becoming righteous — a loyal disposition — and the one power without ourselves to make us righteous — the rigliteousness of God. The grace of God in Christ makes the sinner rigliteous, by enabling him to make himself righteous. It starts the process by regarding and treating as righteous the penitent believer:* 'justifying freely through grace by faith.'
(/3) The new obedience. — • He learned obedience by the things which he sufiered ' ; 'the obedience of faith' (He 5«, Ro 5'» 16-8, He Si-* 4" lO^- 10-23.24 12). A. B. Bruce t has made the invaluable sug- gestion that by the author of Hebrews the blood of Christ has been translated from body to spirit, and as such enters into heaven, and is available for our benefit. The blood of Christ, says St. John, is ever actively cleansing us from all sin (1 Jn V). That blood-spirit becomes to us the law of all life because it is the law of the Spirit of life itself (Ro 8^). Obedience to that law clothes us with its power. How so ? — Manifestly not simply as a general consequence of that which Christ has done for us, as if we found ourselves thi-ough the Atone- ment on the Cross under such changed relation to God as enables tis to approach Him at will. That view is little distinguishable from the main position of Rationalism (Socinianism), whose central convic- tion is the assumption of a general order of Divine forgiveness independent of Christ, in accordance with which pardon is bestowed on the condition of the active obedience of faith. Ritschl J has demon- strated the hollowness of this assumption. Both ' faith ' and ' obedience ' lose tjieir peculiar quality : for faith becomes merely assent to past teaching or trust in past acts ; and obedience, instead of being motived by faith in the sense of surrender to Christ's spirit, is merely conformity to certain legal requirements. Nor is it enough to go a step further, and to conceive that Christ bj' His Death established a fund of merit of which Ave can on certain conditions make ourselves participants (Romanism). Scriptural figures of speech there are that seem to give some warrant to such a vieAv of a spiritual reservoir of grace which waits only for our willingness to dive into it.
Faith's view of the High Priest's intercession in heaven will correct such notions. Nay, the narrow notion of faith may become a snare to us. It is, we admit, the first condition in our conscious looking for the new spirit of life. But we must not confound the possession of the condition Avith the bestowal of the gift, or make our qualification to receive supersede the act of the Giver. Some- thing far more etiectual happens. As Ave invoke His intercession, Ave do not merely aAvake an ancient memory ; Ave hear a living voice and see a living form, our Advocate and Comforter, against every accuser (Ro 8^^"**), and discern them repro- duced in our hearts by His Spirit ' who maketh intercession for us with groanings Avhich cannot be uttered' (Ro S^^-^'). It is God that justifieth. It is the Son risen for our justification.
(7) The iieio jtresence. — ' It is expedient that I go aAvay ; for I Avill send the Spirit ' ( Jn 16^, Ac 1^) ; ' Ye liaA' e an unction from the Holy One and knoAv all things' (1 Jn 2-"- 2'') ; ' If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God ' (3-i) ; ' I saw in the midst of the Church the Son of man all glorious' (Rev P^-^^). St. John vicAvs the justi- fied life as a new life in the deepest sense — not a doctrine merely for the mind to embrace ; not an
* For a full discussion see DuBose, The Gospel according te St. Paul, chs. vi. and vil. t HDB, art. ' Hebrews,' vol. ii. p. 333. j Rechljertigung und Versohnung, oh. viii.
672
JUSTIFICATIOX
JUSTIFICATION
event simply to be remembered with faith ; not the constitution only of a neAV order of spiritual relations for fallen man ; but a new power into the very centre of human nature, the power of a new Divine principle. Because of this new principle it is a new creation, a new creation which indeed does not annihilate the old but transmutes it, and fulfils it — a process possible because the principle of the new is, if not continuous with the organic principle of the old, still consistent with that principle, the Logos being the cosmic counterpart of the Spirit. That new power, new principle, in the very centre of humanity is Spirit, presence. How so? By organic, living, universal develop- ment. Christ's force was not intended to stop in the person of one man to be transferred soon after to heaven. Nor was it intended to be a fund or quantum to be applied subsequently in the way of outward imputation. It goes forth to heal and justify the world, not as something standing be- yond itself and by a power external. He gathers humanity rather into His own Person, stretches over it tlie law of His own life, so that it holds in Him as its root. Into this new order of existence we are not transferred wholly at once. We are apprehended by Him, in the fiVst jjlace, only, as it were, at a single point. But this point is central. The new life lodges itself, as an efflux from Christ, in the inmost core of our personality — the inmost self (above, § 2, ' Problem of justification'). Here it becomes the principle or seed of our sanctification, conceived always not as a substance but as personal, a presence ; Christ is in the soul as a magnetic centre (Jn 12^-), j^roducing in its life continually an inward nisus in the direction antagonistic to sinful impulse, a process which, if continued, will at last carry all in the soul its own way, as the soul's forces increasingly yield themselves in their totality to the totality of His Presence. The soul thus grows into His very nature. It is with reason that Schleiermacher speaks of the com- munication which Christ makes of Himself to believers as moulding the person (see Ber christ- liche Glaube^, 1830-31, § 140). The Presence of Christ is the ground of all jiroper Christian personality, ' the new man ' in Christ Jesus (Eph 2^5 424^ Col 310). The end of the process is the higher justification (2 Co 5^'^), the fruition of that first justification which was but the begin- ning. It is a process which from beginning to end is only and wholly of Divine life.