October 9

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. - Romans 3:24.

THIS is the condition in which all Christians are. “Being justified.” Let us first contemplate the nature of this blessing. Justification is a legal and not a moral term; it refers not to disposition, but to a condition; it does not make a man righteous, but declares him to be so. Sanctification and justification, while they always go together, are distinct blessings; they are combined in the purpose of God in the purchase of the cross, and in the experience of every Christian. But these blessings are at the same time as distinguishable as they are inseparable; the one is without, the other is within; the one is relative, the other personal; the one a change of state, the other is a change of nature; the one gives a title to heaven, the other a meetness for it; the one is gradual, the other is complete at once. The justification which all believers have in Christ has two properties: it is full, extending to all transgressions, they are “justified from all things;” and it is perpetual and irreversible: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

Observe, secondly, The source of this blessing: “Being justified freely by his grace.” This seems to be a tautology, for if it be “free,” it must be of “grace,” and if of “grace,” it must be “free.” Paul was a man who loved to speak with energy and emphasis; he also understood human nature, and he knew there were many cases in which there must be “line upon line and precept upon precept,” and he knew this was one of these cases, and a very peculiar one; he knew that men are naturally as proud as they are poor, and that though they are daily compelled to beg their bread of God, yet, when they come to deal with him concerning Spiritual things, they come rather as merchants than as suppliants, and that nothing will satisfy these poor but proud creatures unless they merit the very things they need. Hence the language of the Scripture so frequently and fully upon this subject. Therefore the Apostle says we are “justified freely by his grace.”

It is obvious that God was not compelled to do it. There is no power beyond or above God to constrain him. It is equally certain that he was under no obligation to do it. We had no claim upon him; as sinners we were entirely at his mercy, and that it was for him to determine whether we should be punished or pardoned. It was impossible that this justification could have been accomplished by our good works, for these are all performed by the grace of God, and they are all defective, and therefore if they deserve anything it is condemnation; and even if our good works were perfect they could not atone for our former guilt. “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.” Where is despair then, if we are justified by faith and grace? It is excluded. By what law? the law of Works? Nay: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

Observe, thirdly, The medium of this blessing: “Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The price of our redemption was his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross. The death of Christ is to be considered, first, as the effect of God’s love, “Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son a propitiation for our sins;” and, secondly, as the medium through which his goodness extends to the guilty children of men. A way strictly harmonising with all the perfections of his Divine nature; for if “Jacob is to be redeemed,” God is to be “glorified in his redemption;” if the transgressor escapes, the law must be “magnified and made honourable;” if sin be pardoned, it must also be condemned in the flesh. “For it became him from whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of our salvation perfect through sufferings; and being thus made perfect through suffering he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him; “thus he “once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God,” and that now in Christ Jesus “we who sometime were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”