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righteousness to the believer in the Lord Jesus is freely covered and
provided for in the one great gift of all, His own Son. Let none think that
his righteousness is not resting upon a firm enough foundation -- it is. It
rests upon the uninfluenced grace of God. Its bedrock is the love of God
that changes not, and the fact of the gift of Christ itself is sufficient
pledge that, having given Him, God will freely give, not grudgingly give, or
have to be persuaded to give, but freely and without a cause, give all things
else that are necessary to life and glory. This does not refer only to the
act of justification, but covers all our pilgrim needs, and our eternal
blessedness.
'Justification has altogether a legal signification, and has respect,
not to what the man is in actual character, but to what the man is held
to be in juridical estimation. It is not that change in himself, by
which he is made a just person; but it is that change in his relation
to the law and the Lawgiver, by which he is reckoned and treated as a
just person. It describes not the man's moral rightness, but his legal
right: and however inseparably the two may be conjoined in fact, they
ought not on that account to be confounded in idea' (Chalmers).
It has been said that the doctrine of justification by faith is held by
both Protestant and Roman schools of thought, everything depending, of
course, upon exactly what is meant by 'faith'. It is good, therefore, to be
able to express what we mean concerning the freeness of this gift, and the
fact that faith has no merit in it, by quoting, insistently, the language of
Titus 3:7: 'Being justified by His grace'. Justification by grace is what we
believe and what we intend when using the more common expression
'justification by faith' -- 'it is the gift of God'.
'Now if you doubt that I am Christ's
If one suspicion lurks
I'll show by deeds that I am His
I'm justified by works.
'I praise the Lord 'tis all of Him
The grace (Rom. 3:24), the faith (Rom. 5:1), the blood (Rom. 5:9).
The resurrection power (Rom. 4:25), the works (Jas. 2:18 -24),
I'm justified by God'.
(With acknowledgments to the unknown author).
See for further exposition the studies entitled Righteousness7; and
Works v. Faith7.
Kinsman -Redeemer.
See article Redemption7.