eousness of Christ is accepted for us, and admitted instead of that perfect inherent righteousness that ought to be in ourselves : Christ's perfect obedience shall be reckoned to our account, so that we shall have the benefit of it, as though we had performed it ourselves : and so we suppose that a title to eternal life is
given us as the reward of this righteousness The opposers
of this doctrine suppose that there is an absurdity in it : they say that to suppose that God imputes Christ's obedience to us, is to suppose that God is mistaken, and thinks that we performed that obedience that Christ performed. But why cannot that righteous- ness be reckoned to our account, and be accepted for us, without any such absurdity ? Why is there any more absurdity in it, than in a merchant's transferring debt or credit from one man's account to another, when one man pays a price for another, so that it shall be accepted, as if that other had paid it ? Why is there any more absurdity in supposing that Christ's obedience is imputed to us, than that his satisfaction is imputed ? If Christ has suffered the penalty of the law for us, and in our stead, then it will follow, that his suffering that penalty is imputed to us, i. e., that it is accepted for us, and in our stead, and is reckoned to our account, as though we had suffered it. But why may not his obeying the law of God be as rationally reckoned to our ac- count, as his suffering the penalty of the law ? " l
Points included in the above Statement of the Doctrine.
According to the above statements, justification is, —
1. An act, and not, as sanctification, a continued and pro- gressive work.
2. It is an act of grace to the sinner. In himself he deserves condemnation when God justifies him.
3. As to the nature of the act, it is, in the first place, not an efficient act, or an act of power. It does not produce any sub- jective change in the person justified. It does not effect a change of character, making those good who were bad, those holy who were unholy. That is done in regeneration and sanctification. In the second place, it is not a mere executive act, as when a sovereign pardons a criminal, and thereby restores him to his civil rights, or to his former status in the commonwealth. In the third place, it is a forensic, or judicial act, the act of a judge, not of a sovereign. That is, in the case of the sinner, or, in for o Dei, it is an act of God not in his character of sovereign, but in his
1 Works of President Edwards, New York, 1868, vol. iv. pp. 66, 91, 92.
118 PART IH. Ch. XVII. — JUSTIFICATION.
character of judge. It is a declarative act in which God pro- nounces the sinner just or righteous, that is, declares that the claims of justice, so far as he is concerned, are satisfied, so that he cannot be justly condemned, but is in justice entitled to the reward promised or due to perfect righteousness.
4. The meritorious ground of justification is not faith ; we are not justified on account of our faith, considered as a virtuous or holy act or state of mind. Nor are our works of any kind the ground of justification. Nothing done by us or wrought in us satisfies the demands of justice, or can be the ground or reason of the declaration that justice as far as it concerns us is satisfied. The ground of justification is the righteousness of Christ, active and passive, i. e., including his perfect obedience to the law as a covenant, and his enduring the penalty of the law in our stead and on our behalf.
5. The righteousness of Christ is in justification imputed to the believer. That is, is set to his account, so that he is entitled to plead it at the bar of God, as though it were personally and in- herently his own.
6. Faith is the condition of justification. That is, so far as adults are concerned, God does not impute the righteousness of Christ to the sinner, until and unless, he (through grace), receives and rests on Christ alone for his salvation.
That such is the doctrine of the Reformed and Lutheran churches on this important doctrine, cannot be disputed. The statements of the standards of those churches are so numerous, explicit, and discriminating as to preclude all reasonable doubt on this subject. That such is the doctrine of the Word of God ap- pears from the following considerations.
It will not be necessary to discuss all the points above specified separately, as some of them are necessarily included in others. The following propositions include all the essential points of the doctrine.
§ 2. Justification is a Forensic Act.
By this the Reformers intended, in the first place, to deny the Romish doctrine of subjective justification. That is, that justifi- cation consists in an act or agency of God making the sinner sub- jectively holy. Romanists confound or unite justification and sanctification. They define justification as " the remission of sin and infusion of new habits of grace." By remission of sin they mean not simply pardon, but the removal of. everything of the na- ture of sin from the soul. Justification, therefore, with them, is