hath is imputed. It is an accounted or reckoned righteousness to him; it is not that which he hath
1. "TO them that have obtained like precious faith with us," i.e. with us Jews, who have believed
now, and with all our fathers of the past ages, "through (or more properly in) the righteousness of
Him who is our God and Savior." Thus that which is elsewhere called "the righteousness of God" is
here called "the righteousness of our God and Savior," i.e. of Christ. So that "the righteousness of
Christ" is a scriptural expression.
2. In the high priest's breastplate were twelve precious stones, on which the names of the twelve
tribes were written. The names thus graven shone with all the glory of the gems which contained
them. Thus are our names written on the breastplate of the greater High Priest, not only for
remembrance, but for glory. They are enveloped in His glory, and shine as if all that glory were their
own. The luster of the sardius, and the topaz, and the diamond, chased in gold, took away that which
was dark and earthly about the name, or the person, or the tribe; so the more resplendent luster of the
heavenly gems which glitter in the breastplate of the great Intercessor, not only hides all that is
unlustrous in us, but gives to us a beauty such as belongs only to Him.
3. See the Greek of Isa 53:3,4. "He was despised, and we esteemed Him not"; i.e. refused to reckon
Him to be what He was. "We did not esteem Him stricken, smitten of God"; we reckoned Him to be
under the curse of God. The word in these two sentences is the same as is elsewhere rendered
'imputed.''
4. "Justifying righteousness is the doing and suffering of Christ when He was in the world. This is
clear, because we are said to be justified by His obedience-His obedience to the law (Rom 5:19,10:4).
This righteousness resides in and with the person of Christ; it is of a justifying virtue only by
imputation, i.e. by God's reckoning it to us, even as our sins made the Lord Jesus a sinner, nay sin,
i.e. by God's reckoning it to Him. The righteousness of God, i.e. a righteousness of God's completing,
a righteousness of God's bestowing, a righteousness that God gives unto and puts upon all them that
believe,-a righteousness that stands in the works of Christ, and that is imputed both by the grace and
justice of God. The righteousness by which we stand just before God, from the curse, was performed
long ago by the person of Christ." - BUNYAN'S Sermon on Justification by Imputed Righteousness.
5. Thus old Anthony Burgess, in 1655, wrote regarding imputation:' The righteousness the believer
hath is imputed. It is an accounted or reckoned righteousness to him; it is not that which he hath
inherently in himself, but God through Christ doth esteem of him as if he had it, and so deals with
him as wholly righteous. This is a passive, not an active righteousness, -a righteousness we receive,
not that we do. This doctrine of imputed righteousness is by all erroneous persons to be judged to be
like the abomination of desolation. However heretical persons contradict one another in other things,
yet against this they are unanimously conspiring. It is well enough known what reproaches and
mocks are put upon it by the Popish party, calling it the putative and chimerical righteousness. The
Socinians abominate it. The Castellians flout at it, saying they have an imputed learning, and imputed
modesty, that hold imputed righteousness.
6. "Think not that to live always on Christ for justification is a low and beggarly thing,-a staying at
the foundation. For, let me tell you, depart from a sense of the meritorious means of your justification
before God, and you will quickly grow light, and frothy, and vain; you will be subject to errors and
delusions, for this is not to 'hold the head,' from which nourishment is administered. Why not live
upon Christ always; and especially as He standeth the Mediator between God and the soul, defending
thee with the merit of His blood, and covering thee with His infinite righteousness from the wrath of
God and the curse of the law? Can there be any greater comfort ministered to thee, than to know that
thy person stands just before God; just, and justified from all things that would otherwise swallow
thee up? Is peace with God and assurance of heaven of so little respect with thee, that thou slightest
the very foundation thereof, even faith in the blood and righteousness of Christ."
Chapter Seven
Not Faith, But Christ
ur justification is the direct result of our believing the gospel; our
knowledge of our own justification comes from believing God's
promise of justification to everyone who believes these glad tidings. For
there is not only the divine testimony, but there is the promise annexed to it,
assuring eternal life to everyone who receives that testimony. There is first,
then, a believed Gospel, and then there is a believed promise. The latter is
the "appropriation," as it is called; which, after all, is nothing but the
acceptance of the promise which is everywhere coupled with the gospel
message. The believed gospel saves; but it is the believed promise that
assures us of this salvation.
Yet, after all, faith is not our righteousness. It is accounted to us in order
to (eis) righteousness (Rom 4:5), but not as righteousness; for in that case it
would be a work like any other doing of man, and as such would be
incompatible with the righteousness of the Son of God; the "righteousness
which is by faith." Faith connects us with the righteousness, and is therefore
totally distinct from it. To confound the one with the other is to subvert the
whole gospel of the grace of God. Our act of faith must ever be a separate
thing from that which we believe.
God reckons the believing man as having done all righteousness, though
he has not done any, and though his faith is not righteousness. In this sense
it is that faith is counted to us for, or in order to, righteousness,-and that we
are "justified by faith." Faith does not justify as a work, or as a moral act, or
a piece of goodness, nor as a gift of the Spirit, but simply because it is the
bond between us and the Substitute; a very slender bond in one sense, but
strong as iron in another. The work of Christ for us is the object of faith; the
Spirit's work in us is that which produces this faith: it is out of the former,
not of the latter, that our peace and justification come. Without the touch of
the rod the water would not have gushed forth; yet it was the rock, and not
the rod, that contained the water.
The bringer of the sacrifice into the tabernacle was to lay his hand upon
the head of the sheep or the bullock, otherwise the offering would not have
been accepted for him. But the laying on of his hand was not the same as
the victim on which it was laid. The serpent-bitten Israelite was to look at
the uplifted serpent of brass in order to be healed. But his looking was not
the brazen serpent. We may say it was his looking that healed him, just as
the Lord said, "Thy faith hath saved thee"; but this is figurative language. It
was not his act of looking that healed him, but the object to which he
looked. So faith is not our righteousness: it merely knits us to the righteous
One, and makes us partakers of His righteousness. By a natural figure of
speech, faith is often magnified into something great; whereas it is really
nothing but our consenting to be saved by another: its supposed magnitude
is derived from the greatness of the object which it grasps, the excellence of
the righteousness which it accepts. Its preciousness is not its own, but the
preciousness of Him to whom it links us.
Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician. It is not even
our medicine; it only administers the medicine, divinely prepared by Him
who "healeth all our diseases." In all our believing, let us remember God's
word to Israel: "I am Jehovah, that healeth thee" (Exo 14:26). Our faith is
but our touching Jesus; and what is even this, in reality, but His touching
us?
Faith is not our savior. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and
died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for
us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again
for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Savior is another. Faith is one thing, and
the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor,
imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the
Living God.
Faith is not perfection. Yet only by perfection can we be saved; either our
own or another's. That which is imperfect cannot justify, and an imperfect
faith could not in any sense be a righteousness. If it is to justify, it must be
perfect. It must be like "the Lamb, without blemish and without spot." An
imperfect faith may connect us with the perfection of another; but it cannot
of itself do aught for us, either in protecting us from wrath or securing the
divine acquittal. All faith here is imperfect; and our security is this, that it
matters not how poor or weak our faith may be: if it touches the perfect
One, all is well. The touch draws out the virtue that is in Him, and we are
saved. The slightest imperfection in our faith, if faith were our
righteousness, would be fatal to every hope. But the imperfection of our
faith, however great, if faith be but the approximation or contact between us
and the fullness of the Substitute, is no hindrance to our participation of His
righteousness. God has asked and provided a perfect righteousness; He
nowhere asks nor expects a perfect faith. An earthenware pitcher can
convey water to a traveler's thirsty lips as well as one of gold; nay, a broken
vessel, even if there be but "a shard to take water from the pit" (Isa 30:14),
will suffice. So a feeble, very feeble faith, will connect us with the
righteousness of the Son of God; the faith, perhaps, that can only cry, "Lord,
I believe; help mine unbelief."
Faith is not satisfaction to God. In no sense and in no aspect can faith be
said to satisfy God, or to satisfy the law. Yet if it is to be our righteousness,
it must satisfy. Being imperfect, it cannot satisfy; being human, it cannot
satisfy, even though it were perfect. That which satisfies must be capable of
bearing our guilt; and that which bears our guilt must be not only perfect,
but divine. It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a sin-
bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can pay
no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It brings
us to the cross, where there is expiation, and propitiation, and payment, and
cleansing, and righteousness; but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor the
sacrifice; it is not the altar, nor the laver, nor the mercy-seat, nor the
incense. It does not work, but accepts a work done ages ago; it does not
wash, but leads us to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. It does
not create; it merely links us to that new thing which was created when the
"everlasting righteousness" was brought in (Dan 9:24).
And as faith goes on, so it continues; always the beggar's outstretched
hand, never the rich man's gold; always the cable, never the anchor; the
knocker, not the door, or the palace, or the table; the handmaid, not the
mistress; the lattice which lets in the light, not the sun.
Without worthiness in itself, it knits us to the infinite worthiness of Him
in whom the Father delights; and so knitting us, presents us perfect in the
perfection of another. Though it is not the foundation laid in Zion, it brings
us to that foundation, and keeps us there, "grounded and settled" (Col 1:23),
that we may not be moved away from the hope of the gospel. Though it is
not "the gospel," the "glad tidings," it receives these good news as God's
eternal verities, and bids the soul rejoice in them; though it is not the burnt-
offering, it stands still and gazes on the ascending flame, which assures us
that the wrath which should have consumed the sinner has fallen upon the
Substitute.
Though faith is not "the righteousness," it is the tie between it and us. It
realizes our present standing before God in the excellency of His own Son;
and it tells us that our eternal standing, in the ages to come, is in the same
excellency, and depends on the perpetuity of that righteousness which can
never change. For never shall we put off that Christ whom we put on when
we believed (Rom 12:14; Gal 3:27). This divine raiment is "to everlasting."
It waxes not old, it cannot be rent, and its beauty fadeth not away.
Nor does faith lead us away from that cross to which at first it led us.
Some in our day speak as if we soon got beyond the cross, and might leave
it behind; that the cross having done all it could do for us when first we
came under its shadow, we may quit it and go forward; that to remain
always at the cross is to be babes, not men.
But what is the cross? It is not the mere wooden pole, or some imitation
of it, such as Romanists use. These we may safely leave behind us. We need
not pitch our tent upon the literal Golgotha, or in Joseph's garden. But the
great truth which the cross embodies we can no more part with than we can
part with life eternal. In this sense, to turn our back upon the cross is to turn
our back upon Christ crucified,-to give up our connection with the Lamb
that was slain. The truth is, that all that Christ did and suffered, from the
manger to the tomb, forms one glorious whole, no part of which shall ever
become needless or obsolete; no part of which can ever leave without
forsaking the whole. I am always at the manger, and yet I know that mere
incarnation cannot save; always at Gethsemane, and yet I believe that its
agony was not the finished work; always at the cross, with my face toward
it, and my eye on the crucified One, and yet I am persuaded that the
sacrifice there was completed once for all; always looking into the grave,
though I rejoice that it is empty, and that "He is not here, but is risen";
always resting (with the angel) on the stone that was rolled away, and
handling the grave-clothes, and realizing a risen Christ, nay, an ascended
and interceding Lord; yet on no pretext whatever leaving any part of my
Lord's life or death behind me, but unceasingly keeping up my connection
with Him, as born, living, dying, buried, and rising again, and drawing out
from each part some new blessing every day and hour.
Man, in his natural spirit of self-justifying legalism, has tried to get away
from the cross of Christ and its perfection, or to erect another cross instead,
or to set up a screen of ornaments between himself and it, or to alter its true
meaning into something more congenial to his tastes, or to transfer the
virtue of it to some act or performance or feeling of its own. Thus the
simplicity of the cross is nullified, and its saving power is denied.
For the cross saves completely, or not at all. Our faith does not divide the
work of salvation between itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment
that the cross alone saves, and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the
cross, nor to its healing virtue. It owns the fullness, and sufficiency, and
suitableness of the work done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its
labors and enter into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It
comes to see the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this
completion without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is
finished!" of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen." Where faith begins, there
labor ends,-labor, I mean, "for" life and pardon. Faith is rest, not toil. It is
the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in
order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth
so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but
loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that good will to
any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his own
performances or goodnesses, and relying implicitly upon the free love of
Him who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
Faith is the acknowledgment of the entire absence of all goodness in us,
and the recognition of the cross as the substitute for all the want on our part.
Faith saves, because it owns the complete salvation of another, and not
because it contributes anything to that salvation. There is no dividing or
sharing the work between our own belief and Him in whom we believe. The
whole work is His, not ours, from the first to last. Faith does not believe in
itself, but in the Son of God. Like the beggar, it receives everything, but
gives nothing. It consents to be a debtor for ever to the free love of God. Its
resting-place is the foundation laid in Zion. It rejoices in another, not in
itself. Its song is, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but
by His mercy He saved us."
Christ crucified is to be the burden of our preaching, and the substance of
our belief, from first to last. At no time in the saint's life does he cease to
need the cross; though at times he may feel that his special need, in spiritual
perplexity or the exigency of conflict with evil, may be the incarnation, or
the agony in the garden, or the resurrection, or the hope of the promised
advent, to be glorified in His saints, and admired in all them that believe.
But the question is not, "What truths are we to believe?" but, What truths
are we to believe FOR JUSTIFICATION?
That Christ is to come again in glory and in majesty, as Judge and King,
is an article of the Christian faith, the disbelief of which would almost lead
us to doubt the Christianity of him who disbelieves it. Yet we are not in any
sense justified by the second advent of our Lord, but solely by His first. We
believe in His ascension, yet our justification is not connected with it. So
we believe His resurrection, yet we are not justified by faith in it, but by
faith in His death,-that death which made Him at once our propitiation and
our righteousness.
"He was raised again on account of our having been justified" (Rom
4:25) is the clear statement of the word. The resurrection was the visible
pledge of a justification already accomplished.
"The power of His resurrection" (Phil 3:10) does not refer to atonement,
or pardon, or reconciliation; but to our being renewed in the spirit of our
minds, to our being "begotten again unto a living hope, by the resurrection
from the dead" (1 Pet 1:3). That which is internal, such as our quickening,
our strengthening, our renewing, may be connected with resurrection and
resurrection power; but that which is external, such as God's pardoning, and
justifying, and accepting, must be connected with the cross alone.
The doctrine of our being justified by an infused resurrection-
righteousness, or, as it is called, justification in a risen Christ, 1 is a clear
subversion of the Surety's work when "He died for our sins, according to
the Scriptures," or when "He washed us from our sins in His own blood," or
when He gave us the robes "washed white in the blood of the Lamb."
It is the blood that justifies (Rom 5:9). It is the blood that pacifies the
conscience, purging it from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:14).
It is the blood that emboldens us to enter through the veil into the holiest,
and go up to the sprinkled mercy-seat. It is the blood that we are to drink for
the quenching of our thirst (John 6:55). It is the blood by which we have
peace with God (Col 1:20). It is the blood through which we have
redemption (Eph 1:7), and by which we are brought nigh (Eph 2:13), by
which we are sanctified (Heb 13:12). It is the blood which is the seal of the
everlasting covenant (Heb 13:20). It is the blood which cleanses (1 John
1:7), which gives us victory (Rev 12:11), and with which we have
communion in the Supper of the Lord (1 Cor 10:16). It is the blood which is
the purchase-money or ransom of the church of God (Acts 20:28).
The blood and the resurrection are very different things; for the blood is
death, and the resurrection is life.
It is remarkable that in the book of Leviticus there is no reference to
resurrection in any of the sacrifices. It is death throughout. All that is
needed for a sinner's pardon, and justification, and cleansing, and peace, is
there fully set forth in symbol,-and that symbol is death upon the altar.
Justification by any kind of infused or inherent righteousness is wholly
inconsistent with the services of the tabernacle, most of all justification by
an infused, resurrection-righteousness.
The sacrifices are God's symbolical exposition of the way of a sinner's
approach and acceptance; and in none of these does resurrection hold any
place. If justification be in a risen Christ, then assuredly that way was not
revealed to Israel; and the manifold offerings so minutely detailed, did not
answer the question: How may man be just with God? nor give to the
worshippers of old one hint as to the way by which God was to justify the
ungodly.
"Christ in us, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27), is a well-known and blessed
truth; but Christ IN US, our justification, is a ruinous error, leading man
away from a crucified Christ-a Christ crucified FOR US. Christ for us is
one truth; Christ in us is quite another. The mingling of these two together,
or the transposition of them, is the nullifying of the one finished work of the
Substitute. Let it be granted that Christ in us is the source of holiness and
fruitfulness (John 15:4); but let it never be overlooked that first of all there
be Christ FOR US, as our propitiation, our justification, our righteousness.
The risen Christ in us, our justification, is a modern theory which subverts
the cross. Washing, pardoning, reconciling, justifying, all come from the
one work of the cross, not from resurrection. The dying Christ completed
the work for us from which all the above benefits flow. The risen Christ but
sealed and applied what, three days before, He had done once for all.
It is somewhat remarkable that in the Lord's Supper (as in the Passover)
there is no reference to resurrection. The broken body and the shed blood
are the Alpha and Omega of that ordinance. In it we have communion (not
with Christ as risen and glorified, but) with the body of Christ and the blood
of Christ (1 Cor 10:16), that is, Christ upon the cross. "This do in
remembrance of me." "As oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do
show the Lord's death till He come." If, after we have been at the cross, we
are to pass on and leave it behind us, as no longer needed, seeing we are
justified by the risen Christ in us, let those who hold that deadly error say
why all reference to resurrection should be excluded from the great feast;
and why the death of the Lord should be the one object presented to us at
the table.
"Life in a risen Christ" is another way of expressing the same error. If by
this were only meant that resurrection has been made the channel or
instrument through which the life and justification are secured for us on and
by the cross ,-as when the apostle speaks of our being begotten again unto a
lively hope by the "resurrection of Christ from the dead," or when we are
said to be "risen with Christ,"-one would not object to the phraseology. But
when we find it used as expressive of dissociation of these benefits from the
cross, and derivation of them from resurrection solely, then do we condemn
it as untrue and anti-scriptural. For concerning this "life" let us hear the
words of the Lord: "The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world" (John 6:51). "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last
day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that
eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him" (John
6:53-56).
This assuredly is not the doctrine of "life in a risen Christ," or "a risen
Christ in us, our justification and life." I do not enter on the exposition of
these verses. I simply cite them. They bear witness to the cross. They point
to the broken body and shed blood as our daily and hourly food, our life-
long feast, from which there comes into us the life which the Son of man,
by His death, has obtained for us. That flesh is life-imparting, that blood is
life-imparting; and this not once, but for evermore. It is not incarnation on
the one hand, nor is it resurrection on the other, on which we are thus to
feed, and out of which this life comes forth; it is that which lies between
these two,-death,-the sacrificial death of the Son of God. It is not the
personality nor the life-history of the Christ of God which is the special
quickener and nourishment of our souls, but the blood-shedding. Not that
we are to separate the former from the latter, but still it is on the latter that
we are specially to feed, and this all the days of our lives.
"Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us." Hence we rest,
protected by the paschal blood, and feeding on the paschal Iamb, with its
unleavened bread and bitter herbs, from day to day. "Let us keep the feast"
(1 Cor 5:8). Wherever we are, let us keep it. For we carry our Passover with
us, always ready, always fresh. With girded loins and staff in hand, as
wayfarers, we move along, through the rough or the smooth of the
wilderness, our face toward the land of promise.
That paschal lamb is CHRIST CRUCIFIED. As such He is our
protection, our pardon, our righteousness, our food, our strength, our peace.
Fellowship with Him upon the cross is the secret of a blessed and holy life.
We feed on that which has passed through the fire; on that which has
come from the altar. No other food can quicken or sustain the spiritual life
of a believing man. The unbroken body will not suffice; nor will the risen or
glorified body avail. The broken body and shed blood of the Son of God
form the viands on which we feast; and it is under the shadow of the cross
that we sit down to partake of these, and find refreshment for our daily
journey, strength for our hourly warfare. His flesh is meat indeed; His blood
is drink indeed.