We pause to note the exposition implied here of the phrase, "_to reckon righteousness_." It is to treat the man as one whose account is clear. "Happy the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin." In the phrase itself, "_to reckon_ righteousness," (as in its Latin equivalent, "_to impute_ righteousness,") the question, _what clears the account_, is not answered. Suppose the impossible case of a record kept absolutely clear by the man's own sinless goodness; then the "reckoned," the "imputed, righteousness" would mean the Law's contentment with him on his own merits. But the context of human sin fixes the actual reference to an "imputation" which means that the awfully defective record is treated, for a divinely valid reason, as if it were, what it is not, good. The man is at peace with his Judge, though he has sinned, because the Judge has joined him to Himself, and taken up his liability, and answered for it to His own Law. The man is dealt with as righteous, being a sinner, for his glorious Redeemer's sake. It is pardon, but more than pardon. It is no mere indulgent dismissal; it is a welcome as of the worthy to the embrace of the Holy One.
Such is the Justification of God. We shall need to remember it through the whole course of the Epistle. To make Justification a mere synonym for Pardon is always inadequate. Justification is the contemplation and treatment of the penitent sinner, found in Christ, as righteous, as satisfactory to the Law, not merely as one whom the Law lets go. Is this a fiction? Not at all. It is vitally linked to two great spiritual facts. One is, that the sinner's Friend has Himself dealt, in the sinner's interests, with the Law, honouring its holy claim to the uttermost under the human conditions which He freely undertook. The other is that he has mysteriously, but really, joined the sinner to Himself, in faith, by the Spirit; joined him to Himself as limb, as branch, as bride. Christ and His disciples are _really_ One in the order of spiritual life. And so the community between Him and them is real, the community of their debt on the one side, of His merit on the other.
Now again comes up the question, never far distant in St Paul's thought, and in his life, what these facts of Justification have to do with Gentile sinners. Here is David blessing God for his unmerited acceptance, an acceptance by the way wholly unconnected with the ritual of the altar. Here above all is Abraham, "justified in consequence of faith." But David was a child of the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham was the father of that covenant. Do not their justifications speak only to those who stand, with them, inside that charmed circle? Was not Abraham justified by faith _plus circumcision_? Did not the faith act only because he was already one of the privileged? [Sidenote: Ver. 9.] =This felicitation therefore,= this cry of "Happy are the freely justified," =is it upon the circumcision, or upon the uncircumcision? For we say that to Abraham,= with an emphasis[50] on "_Abraham_," =his faith was reckoned as righteousness.= The question, he means, is legitimate, "_for_" Abraham is not at first sight a case in point for the justification of the outside world, the non-privileged races of man. [Sidenote: Ver. 10.] But consider: =How then was it reckoned? To Abraham in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision;= fourteen years at least had to pass before the covenant rite came in. [Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =And he received the sign of circumcision,= (with a stress upon "_sign_," as if to say that the "_thing_," the reality signed, was his already,) =as a seal on the righteousness of the faith that was in his circumcision,= a seal on the acceptance which he received, antecedent to all formal privilege, in that bare hand of faith. And all this was so, and was recorded so, with a purpose of far-reaching significance: =that he might be father,= exemplar, representative, =of all who believe notwithstanding uncircumcision,[51] that to them righteousness should be reckoned;= [Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =and father of circumcision,= exemplar and representative within its circle also, =for those who do not merely belong to circumcision, but for those[52] who also step in the track of the uncircumcision-faith of our father Abraham.=