12. Chapter Six
Chapter Six H ow our faith can find reason for triumph in our justification.
An explanation of how we are justified by faith, even though we were justified in Christ at his resurrection. This triumph of faith, rooted in Christ's resurrection, is expressed in the question, "Who shall condemn? It is Christ that is risen." The implication is that Christ was justified at his resurrection (being justified and quickened in the Spirit are one and the same), and "we in him." This is emphasized even more than his death. For this act was a formal release from all sin and condemnation; it was a legal pardon given to Christ for all our sins, and thus to us as well, considered as in him. His death was merely the satisfaction and payment; but this is the first act of absolution. Indeed, this is the original act, which is on record between God and Christ. And our justification and atonement (when we are justified by faith in Christ) is but a copy drawn from this record, and the court sentence then pronounced.
Such a method to validate and make acts legal, even to have them done by another representing one's person, is common among humans, as the examples I previously gave demonstrate. A lawyer receives a debt, or a discharge for a debt, paid or given for another person, and it is as legal as if the person himself or the creditor had done it, and the debtor had received the discharge himself. Indeed, acts of the greatest and highest importance are often transacted in this way, as the marriages of princes are solemnized by proxy, their ambassadors representing their persons, and contracting and marrying their wives in their stead; which acts are thereby made as irrevocable, and unalterable, as if they themselves had done them in person.
And so, if we were justified when Christ rose and was justified, our justification then cannot be reversed, but stands as legal and valid as any act that God or man ever ratified or confirmed. And who shall condemn?
However, for further clarification, lest there be a misunderstanding, let me add this: it is necessary that we be justified in our own persons by faith,
(despite this former act thus legally passed) whereby we grasp what God did thus before for us in Christ, so that God upon our believing may, according to his own rules, justify his justifying of us to all the world; which until we do believe, he could not do. For according to the revealed rules of his word, which he professes to proceed by at the end of time, there is a curse and a sentence of condemnation pronounced against us, under which we stand until he shall remove it by giving us faith; to which he has, in the same word, made the promise of justifying us in our own persons, as before he had done in Christ. Yet still, even though, when we first believe, then only is justification actually and personally applied to us. Yet at Christ's resurrection and in his being then justified, this act and sentence was virtually pronounced upon us; and so does necessarily require and
demand at God's hands, the bestowing faith upon us; so that by virtue of this former act passed, we come to be actually justified in our own consciences, and before all the world.
And so our justification, which was but secretly enacted and passed upon us in Christ, is never made void but stands unalterable; and so ratified, that our personal justification by faith always infallibly follows and succeeds it.
And (to illustrate it a little) our condemnation in Adam and this our justification in Christ, do in this hold parallel together, that as in Adam we were all virtually condemned, "in Adam all die." And that legal enough too, for thereupon came out that statute-law, "It is appointed" that all should die, and yet we are not actually in our own persons condemned until we are born of him, nor do we personally die until we lay down our flesh. Even so it is in the matter of our justification that it was done virtually in Christ, and afterwards when we believe, is actually passed in and upon ourselves. Now
I call this former but a virtual justification, even as by the sentence of condemnation passed upon a criminal, he is called a dead man; that is, he is so virtually and in law (as we say), though naturally he died not many days after, but in that respect may be still alive. So by Christ's being justified, we are all virtually and in law justified, through a secret yet unalterable covenant between God and Christ, who only did then "know who were his."
And for a confirmation even of this also, that God considers all the elect justified in his justifying of Christ, we need not go any further than the words of this text, if we do but diligently compare their standing here with that of theirs in that place out of which they are taken, and where we find them first recorded and spoken, namely in Isaiah 50:7-8, "He is near that justifies me; who is he that shall condemn?" Now there (as interpreters agree, and as the context shows), those words are spoken by Christ himself,
for in Isaiah 50:5 he speaks of God's "boring his ear" to do his will (the same expression that is used of Christ in Psalm 40:6), and further says, "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that pulled off the hair, and I hid not my face from shame and spitting" (all of which you may read in Christ's sufferings in Matthew 26:67 and Matthew 27:26. And he spoke before in Isaiah 50:4, of God's having "given him the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to him that is weary," which you may read done by Christ in Matthew 11:28.
Now those words were spoken by Christ, to comfort himself against the Jews condemning him, as considering that God would justify him, as at his resurrection you have heard he did. Now mark it, those very words which Isaiah brings in Christ speaking as of himself alone, those very words Paul here boldly applies in the same triumph, to all the elect of Christ, "Who shall condemn? It is God that justifies." And this because Christ is dead, and risen, and acquitted by God. Christ spoke those words as a public person in the name of all his elect, whom he in his death and in his justification represented; and for that very reason Paul speaks the same words again, of all elect believers, as being as truly and really intended of them, when spoken by Christ, as of himself, and of his own person. "He is near that justifies me; (says Christ) who shall condemn?" namely, me or my elect, whose persons I represent. And "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" says Paul. "It is God that justifies; who shall condemn?" for Christ has died and been condemned for them, and Christ was justified from that condemnation, and they in him. And because the justification of himself, which Christ spoke of, as looked for from God, was to be made at his resurrection as has been said, therefore Paul here puts a greater emphasis on his resurrection.
And further to establish this, as you heard before out of Romans 6:11, that in respect of sanctification we were dead with Christ, even then when he died; so in Colossians 2:13, we are said to be "risen with him," in respect of our justification, which is the matter at hand. The words are, "And you being dead in your sins," namely the guilt of your sins, "and the circumcision of your flesh," that is in respect of the power of corrupt nature,
"has he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses." See here, the forgiveness of our sins or our justification, is called a "quickening" or a "raising up of us" (as Colossians 2:12 has it),
"together with him," in a conformity and relation to that justification from our sins, which at his resurrection he received in our names. His meaning is that he was justified then, and in our names; and so we are now justified through the virtue of that our communion with him therein. For if you mark the connection of the words with what follows, you will find this "forgiving of their trespasses (Colossians 2:13) through their being quickened together with him," not only to have been done when they believed, and so when they had that justification personally first applied to them, of which it is true, the words in Colossians 2:12 are to be understood, but also then to have been done; "when he having (as it follows in Colossians 2:14) blotted out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us, nailing it to his cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers," and got the victory, namely in his rising again, "had made a show of them openly" (in his ascending to heaven), "triumphing over them in himself" (as the margin has it); of which words I shall further speak in the next section. So as then when
Christ did this in himself, then were our sins forgiven, then were we acquitted with him and triumphed with him, he doing all this in our stead, representing us.