Romans 5:19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. I. THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST. 1. Personally and privately, in regard to His own moral character. He fulfilled all righteousness. He alone, of all the human race, has maintained from first to last a perfectly spotless character before the tribunal of God. 2. Officially, Christ's obedience was equally perfect. He came into the world to fulfil a public mission, as the Lord's servant, and at the close it was not necessary for Him to bewail shortcomings or to avow Himself an unprofitable servant (John 17:4). Nor was His an easy task. He needed more meekness than Moses, more Wisdom than Solomon, more watchfulness than Isaiah, and more courage than Daniel. Yet never in all His public course did He betray an unworthy spirit or act unwisely. No doing or saying of His requires to be covered with the cloak of charity. 3. As a sacrificial victim for sin, we find Christ equally obedient. He received this commandment from the Father, that He should lay down His life for His sheep. This He was to do by surrendering Himself into the hands of wicked men. He might have refused and have consumed His enemies. He might have come down even from the Cross, and declined to shed His heart's best blood for such a thankless race; but no, He submitted to it all without a murmur. His own language was, "The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?" (cf. Isaiah 53:4-6, 10; Philippians 2:8; Hebrews 2:10). II. THE WAY IS WHICH WE ARE MADE RIGHTEOUS BY THIS OBEDIENCE. 1. By the eternal purpose of God Himself. He gave His Son to achieve such mighty results for us, and He accepts us in the Beloved, and imputes to us a righteousness, which is purely of grace, and through faith in Christ. "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." 2. The ground of this imputation, undoubtedly, is the perfect obedience of Christ, our Head; and the principle of it is, that, because of our union with Christ, what belongs to Him comes to be regarded as belonging to us. He takes our sins, that we may take His righteousness. 3. Yet, in looking at Christ's obedience as the ground of our righteousness, we must view it as a whole. We cannot say that one part of the blessing we derive from Christ is to be ascribed to His sinless life, and another to His vicarious suffering. We take a whole Christ as a whole Saviour. 4. Yet in this gift of righteousness we find these three blessings. (1) Pardon. This we have in Christ's obedience unto death. That death owes its merits to His preceding spotless life. (2) Holiness. This relates to the present, as pardon to the past, and we owe it to Christ's holy life, setting us an example; to His mediatorial labours, teaching us the law; and to His sacrificial death, constraining our love, and procuring for us the Spirit, by whose indwelling we are quickened, renewed, changed into the Divine likeness, and enabled to wall: as becometh saints. (3) Heaven. This relates to the future. Even if we were pardoned, and made holy, we could by no means earn for ourselves a title to glory. It is God's free gift: bestowed upon us only for the sake of the perfect obedience of Christ, who hath purchased this inheritance, and secured it for us. It is He who both washes us from our sins and makes us kings and priests unto God and His Father forever. Conclusion: 1. Behold, then, the Scripture doctrine of substitution, which ascribes our salvation, not to our own obedience, but to the obedience of Christ. This is — (1) A conceivable arrangement: it is in harmony with equity and justice, provided only that the substituted victim of suffering be a voluntary one, and that he be not a permanent loser by what he endures. (2) An arrangement, analogous to much that we see in nature and providence, and especially to the hereditary law of association, which obtains among all mankind. (3) Necessity. For without it no member of our fallen race could ever have risen to holiness and happiness at all. (4) An accomplished reality, for Christ hath actually suffered for our sins, once for all, and put them away by the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9:26-28). 2. A few practical inferences. (1) Christian believer, see your dependence on Jesus, and rejoice in it. Cultivate a simple and confiding faith in Him, and believe that if your salvation be the reward of His obedience, there is no limit to what God is able and willing to do for you. (2) Penitent inquirer, behold the way of righteousness, and walk in it. Come, as a sinner, to the throne of grace; and ceasing from your own works, enter by faith into spiritual rest. (3) Ye unconverted, we point you to the Cross. There see what sin has done. Reflect, repent, return unto the Lord, for He will have mercy upon you, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. (T. G. Horton.) Parallel Verses KJV: For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. |
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