---- CHAPTER XV: That God, considered as justifying the ungodly, is the object of faith.
himself, and frame his exhortations up of such things as would be most effective of faith in us, and best able to remove the contrary obstruction of unbelief. Now, we plainly see that in these passages he spreads the plaster thickest and deepest with that medicinal salve, viz., of the display of the mercies of God's nature, and but thinly with that other of suspensive intimations of his good will to the persons in the promises annexed. And therefore that which is the most hardened core of unbelief in us, must be understood to consist chiefly in the doubting of the plenteousness and fulness of mercies that are in him to pardon us. This is the great and deep 'sore of men's hearts,' if men would but know it in themselves, as Solomon speaks, 1
Kings 8; and the virtue and influence of this sovereign plaster mentioned is it which doth dissolve that core and work of the devil; and in our believing of these things of our God it is that the main stress of faith doth lie (though men discover it not), and in that point their faith needs most to be strengthened and relieved, rather than in the other. And this one thing apprehended once, though but with slender half promises of that mercy to us, which are but intimations rather than promises, will yet be abundantly effective to persuade the heart, and beget in it a good hope through grace of mercy for itself, and thereupon to come in and turn unto God, who thereupon will reveal himself in other promises more fully to his soul.
CHAPTER XV
That God, considered as justifying the ungodly, is the object of faith.
How we may be said to be justified from eternity.—In what sense it is to be understood that we were justified upon the resurrection of Christ.—How we are said to be justified when we believe.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.—ROM. 8:33.
In seeking justification, our faith must have recourse to God, as justifying also. Thus in the words of the text it is expressed, 'It is God that justifies.' And upon this the apostle builds his confidence, as well as upon that, that Christ died. Therefore we find, that as Christ dying, so God as justifying is made the object of faith; Rom. 4:5,
'That believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly' i.e., who believeth on God the Father, imputing Christ's righteousness to persons ungodly. And therefore you shall find that the righteousness we are justified by is called as often 'the righteousness of God,' as of Christ: thus Rom. 1:17, 'The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith;' for as faith looks at this righteousness as purchased by Christ, so appointed by God, and bestowed by him, and imputed by him: 2
Cor. 5:21, 'For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' We see
Christ there to be the meritorious cause of that righteousness, for his soul paid for it. But his Father was the original cause of all, for he made him sin for us, and he makes his righteousness ours. It is called
'the righteousness of Christ,' as he is the worker of it; but 'the righteousness of God,' as he is the appointer and imputer of it. So Rom. 3:25, 26, it is called 'the righteousness of God' for a double reason; because God sent forth and appointed Christ, ver. 25, and because he is the justifier by it, ver. 26. It is called 'the righteousness of faith,' as the apprehender of it, Rom. 4:13. It is called 'man's righteousness' (Job 33:26, 'He will render to man his righteousness'), because it was extended to him, and paid for him. Yea, let me add this farther, that God justifying is the main and ultimate object of your faith. Christ, though he is the first and next to you, yet God is the ultimate, in whom faith rests. Therefore believers, 1 Pet. 1:21, are said 'by him to believe in God, that their faith and hope might be in God.' Thus, as the promise brings you to Christ, so Christ brings you to God.
The reason of this is, because God hath as great a hand in justifying you as Christ; yea, he is the principal in it: 2 Cor. 5:18, 'And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.' Therefore in the
matter of justification, Isaiah 53:11, God calls him his servant; 'My servant shall justify many.' It was God against whom principally our sins are committed, and unto whom the satisfaction of Christ was paid, and by whom it was ordained, and by virtue of whose decree it hath power to justify. As the value of it to justify us depends on the worth that is in Christ, so the acceptation of it for us depends upon God's will; 'By which will ye are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus,' Heb. 10:10. It is the will of God, spoken of before, which Christ came to accomplish. It was God that appointed the persons for whom Christ died, and Christ, as Mediator, put not in a man, but whom his Father gave him; and then the great blessing of pardon comes to be bestowed. God guides, and directs, and orders the bestowing of it, and sets his hand to the act of grace, ere pardon comes down. Christ's merits have their efficacy to justify us ex compacto, from agreement between the Father and the Son; for though the merits are in themselves superabundant, ὑπερεπλεόνασε,
1 Tim. 1:14, the apostle therefore shewing how the righteousness of Christ is more to us than Adam's sin, tells us also that free grace must put in before it can be accepted for us, Rom. 5:17.
There are two things in justification.
1. The righteousness imputed; and that is Christ's, and to him we go for it.
2. The act of imputation, the accounting it mine or thine; and that is the act of God primarily.
Justification is attributed as much to free grace as to Christ's righteousness, for both are joined: Rom. 3:24, 25, 'Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.' Therefore faith looks as much to free grace ordaining and imputing, as to Christ performing. In a word, God's free grace is the original, Christ's righteousness is
instrumental to the manifestation of free grace, and faith is the instrument of apprehending all; and yet God still is in all, 2 Cor. 5:18; and Christ is 'all in all,' Col. 3:11. And faith, as it is our act, is nothing at all in our justification, but only as it apprehends all.
Now, for a direction concerning God justifying as the object of your faith, you are to consider all the acts and ways of God justifying, and to direct you to a right conceiving of God as justifying, you must know that there are tria momenta, or three stages of motion in this way. I do not say that there are three parts of justification itself, which, as it is applied to us, is actus individuus, an individual act; but three several steps, three paces and progresses of God, as I may call them; though, in respect of the materials which justification consisteth of, it is actus totalis, an entire act, a complete discharge from all sin, and a perfect investiture with the whole righteousness of Christ. God pardons not the debt by halves, nor bestows Christ's righteousness by parcels, but entitles us to the whole in every of those moments of justification: yet, in regard of our investiture into this, there are several pauses, or several iterations of this act; as in passing over an estate in land, when the deeds are drawn, written, and sealed, there is a title or interest given into the whole estate; and then again, when possession is further given, it is not an interest into any new parcel, but both convey the whole estate; yet they may be called several acts of conveyance, and of title and admission into it: and such several acts of investiture of us into this whole grace of justification were performed towards us by God, which go to the accomplishment of it. This also answers to the distinct works of the three persons, who, as they have a distinct hand in the whole work of redemption, so also in this main point of our justification.
1. The first progress or step was at the first covenant-making and striking of the bargain from all eternity. We may say of all spiritual blessings in Christ what is said of Christ, that their 'goings forth are from everlasting.' Justified then we were when first elected, though not in our own persons, yet in our Head, as he had our persons then given him, and we came to have a being and interest in him. 'You are
in Christ,' saith the apostle, and so we had the promise made of all spiritual blessings in him, and he took all the deeds of all in our name; so that in Christ we were 'blessed with all spiritual blessings,'
Eph. 1:3; as we are blessed with all other, so with this also, that we were justified then in Christ. To this purpose is that place, Rom.
8:30, where he speaks of all those blessings which are applied to us after redemption, as calling, justification, glorification, as of things already past and done, even then when he did predestinate us:
'Whom he hath predestinated, them he hath called, them he hath justified, them he hath glorified.' He speaks it as in the time past.
Neither speaks he thus of these blessings as past simply in regard of that presence, in which all things stand before him from eternity, all things both past, present, and to come, being to him as present. Nor doth he speak it only in regard of a resolution or purpose taken up to call and justify, he 'calling things that are not as if they were,' Rom.
4:17. For thus it may be said of all his other works towards the creatures in common, that he hath created and preserved them from everlasting. But in a more special relation are these blessings decreed said to have been bestowed, because, though they existed not in themselves, yet they existed really in a Head that represented them and us, who was by to answer for them, and to undertake for them, which other creatures could not do; and there was an actual donation and receiving of all these for us (as truly as a feoffee in trust may take lands for one unborn), by virtue of a covenant made with Christ, whereby Christ had all our sins imputed unto him, and so taken off from us, Christ having then covenanted to take all our sins upon him when he took our persons to be his; and God having covenanted not to impute sin unto us, but to look at him for the payment of all, and at us as discharged. Of this seems that place, 2 Cor. 5:19, evidently to speak, as importing that everlasting transaction, as I have shewn,*
'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them'; i.e., not imputing them then, when he was reconciling us unto himself in Christ. So as then God told Christ, as it were, (for it was a real covenant), that he would look for his debt and satisfaction of him, and that he did let the sinners go free; and so they are in this respect justified from all eternity. And indeed, if the
promise of life was then given us (as the apostle Paul speaks, Titus 1:2), then also justification of life, without which we could not come to life. Yet this is but the inchoation, though it be an estating us into the whole tenure of life.
2. There is a farther act of justifying us, which passeth from God towards us in Christ, upon the payment and performance by Christ at his resurrection: for Jesus Christ (who as he was one with us by stipulation before, so then by representation), at the time, the fulness of the time of payment appointed (which the apostle therefore calls the 'due time,' Rom. 5:6), came into the world as our surety, and as representing our persons, as Adam once did; and at several payments, for three and thirty years and upwards, at last finished all at his death, and laid down the last payment when he laid down his life and his body in the grave, sin and the curse all the while holding him in bands as a debtor: but at that instant when he arose, God then performed a farther act of justification towards him, and us in him, admitting him as our advocate, into the actual possession of justification of life, acquitting him from all those sins which he had charged upon him. Therefore we read, that as Christ was made sin in his life and death, so that he was justified also, 1 Tim. 3:16. After he had said, that he was 'manifested in the flesh,' i.e., the likeness of sinful flesh, he says, he was 'justified in the Spirit,' when by the power of that eternal Spirit he was quickened, and so declared to be that righteous one with power; at which time, as he vindicated himself before men, of all those imputations laid on him by men, as being an impostor (which, when he was under the curse, he lay under, but now was justified to all the world), so also before and by his Father he was discharged, and justified also from all those debts he had before charged him with, as now having fully paid the utmost farthing, and so received him up into glory, as it follows in that text. I say then, in the same sense that God made him sin, in the same sense he is said to have justified him; and therefore, Heb. 9:28, it is said, he shall at the latter day 'appear without sin;' implying, that when he appeared here, he appeared with sin: therefore there was a time when these sins were taken off, and the first moment of it was when
he rose from under that state of humiliation (whereof the last part was his lying in the grave), and when he began to enter upon a glorified state, which was at his resurrection. And that he should be thus justified, is not spoken of him abstractly considered in himself, but as he hath us conjoined in him, and as he connotates us; this new title to life, and of being righteous, he entered not upon for himself alone, but he was an attorney, took possession, and was admitted for us, and we by him as our advocate; which I take to be the meaning of that place, Rom. 4:25, 'He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification.' When he died, then he paid our debts, and God received from him the price, and therefore the matter of justification is indeed the merit of his obedience and death; but at his rising, then the formal act and deed of discharge was delivered to him by God, and that for our justification: 'He rose for our justification.' And our justification is attributed to his resurrection, not only because he rose again to apply it, but principally in this respect, because at his rising he received it for us, for he being justified then, we were justified in him: and therefore, as justification in respect of the matter imputed is attributed to his death and blood (we were justified by his blood) so the formal imputation of it to us; may be ascribed to his resurrection, when the discharge of all was reckoned to Christ. And in this respect, when the apostle would shew them the benefit and necessity of Christ's resurrection in respect of themselves, he says, 1 Cor. 15:17, 'If Christ be not risen, your faith is in vain, ye are yet in your sins,' i.e., that although Christ died for your sins, and you had faith in that his death to be justified from your sins, yet this faith would be in vain, and neither it nor Christ's death would justify you; and your title to justification were nothing worth, if Christ be not risen: for though you did believe, and could say the money was paid for you, if Christ had not risen to take delivery and seisin of the estate in your names, your plea would have been made void, the formality of justification being wanting. Now all this argues that our justification hath a farther dependence upon his resurrection than merely as to working faith, and that he rose not only to give us faith, but that supposing we could have faith in his death, yet without his resurrection it had been in vain. For indeed
this present state of our justification by faith depends upon that forepassed justification of his in our stead then; and as when he ascended we ascended with him (and therefore we are said now to 'sit together with him in heavenly places,' Eph. 2:6), so when he was justified we were justified also in him; and as it may be said, Adam condemned us all, and corrupted us all, when he fell, so did then
Christ perfect us all, and God justified us all, when he died and rose again.
3. But these two acts of justification are wholly out of us, immanent acts in God; and though they concern us, and are towards us, yet are not acts of God upon us, they being performed towards us, not as actually existing in ourselves, but only as existing in our Head, who covenanted for us, and represented us: so as though by these acts we are estated into a right title to justification, yet the benefit and the possession of that estate we have not without a farther act to be passed upon us, whereby we have not as existing in our head only, as a feoffee in trust for us, as children under age, this excellent grace given us, but are to be in our own persons, though still through Christ, possessed of it, and to have all the deeds and evidences committed to the custody and apprehension of our faith. We are in our own persons made true owners and enjoyers of it, which is then done at that instant when we first believe; which act is the completion and accomplishment of the former, and is that great and famous justification by faith which the Scripture so much inculcates, and almost only mentioneth; yea, and so speaks of it, as if we were not justified at all till then: so 1 Cor. 6:11, 'Such were some of you; but now ye are sanctified, now ye are justified:' which before they were not; and therefore the apostle speaks of a now of justification, being
'now justified,' Rom. 5:9, that is, 'now we believe,' ver. 1; and so ver.
11, 'By whom we have now received the atonement,' because though it was given in Christ afore for us, yet then only we receive it; and therefore before faith the Scripture pronounceth the very elect, even those whom Christ died for, 'children of wrath as well as others,' till they believe, Eph. 2:3. So as when we are said to be justified by faith, it is not only because then faith apprehends that justification that
was in God's breast before, and that then we are justified merely foro conscientiæ, though before we were so in foro Dei, as much as ever
(as some express it); but further it must be said, that even in foro Dei, in God's court, and according to the judgment of that open court which God hath set up in his word, and according to the proceedings of his word (which is the rule he professeth to judge men by, and therein he keeps to the rules of his word, as Christ says, 'I judge no man, but the word I speak shall judge you,' John 12:47, 48), God doth judge, and pronounceth his elect ungodly and unjustified, till they believe; yea, and by the Spirit of bondage he testifies to their consciences, that before faith they are ungodly, unjustified, and children of wrath. If it were not a real truth, the Spirit of truth would not evidence this to them: so, therefore, when we are said to be justified by faith, it implies more than a justification in our consciences, and causing us to apprehend our justification; for upon believing there is an act passeth from God which makes a real change in our estates, from a state of ungodliness to an estate of justification; which is a real moral change, as truly and as really as sanctification is a physical change, and that not only in our apprehension and judging of ourselves, but in the course of God's proceedings of judgment upon us; that whereas before, he, by the rules of his word, which he keeps to, would and must have proceeded with us as persons ungodly, out of Christ, now according to those rules he doth pronounce us just, and we come actually to have a real claim, title, and interest, according to course of law, as we say, in justification, which till now we were debarred of.
But the question may be put, How could they be said to be justified afore, both from eternity and in Christ, if they may be truly said even in God's judgment to be justified but now, and that they were till now unjustified?
The answer is, That these seeming contradictions, in divers respects, are both true.
1. That before God, according to the rules of his word, which are the rules of his proceedings before men, being God's revealed will, they are as yet unjustified; but according to those secret passages of his secret will transacted with Christ, and to which he is privy, they are justified persons before him.
2. Though the person abstractly considered is always justified before God, yet the person concretely taken, as invested with, and remaining in an estate of unbelief, is in relation to that estate, according to the rules of his word, unjustified; so sis the change is first and primarily in regard of the state of the person from unbelief to faith, and then it looks towards the person himself.
3. Their justification before faith, coram Deo, in the sight of God, is of them not as actually existing in themselves, but only as they were represented in their head; for their persons, as considered as represented in Christ, did in him, as their head, receive justification, and all blessings else, but not in themselves do they receive them actually as existing until faith; as we are said then to be condemned and corrupted in the first Adam, when he sinned, as representing us, but we are in our own persons not actually corrupted till we exist and are born from him. So as to conclude this, they are said before faith to be justified in Christ by representation only, and not as in themselves. They are said to be in themselves actually justified through Christ after faith, but they cannot be said to be justified of themselves without Christ, neither before nor after faith. At the closure of these three advancements and passings forth of our justification, take these two observations concerning them all.
Obs. 1. That each of these being in and through Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness, and so they all depend upon him, therefore these three progresses of God going on to justify us, depend upon three several acts of Jesus Christ, which as he puts forth, so doth God also answerably put forth a new step in this work.