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I. WITHOUT WORKS.

1. Faith is a condition of justification opposed to man's own righteousness which is of the law.

(1) Faith acknowledges that the legal, proper, primitive sense of the term justify, as the pronouncing him to be righteous who is righteous, is forever out of the question.

(a) As to the law: it has been broken, and its condemnation is acknowledged; it demands an obedience that never has been rendered since the fall.

(b) Then as to man himself, faith renounces all trust in human ability. It utterly abjures the thought of a righteousness springing from self. It acknowledges past sin, present impotence, and the impossibility of any future obedience cancelling the past (Galatians 2:16). It disclaims all creaturely righteousness as such; the nullity of this is taught by conviction, felt in repentance, and confessed in faith.

(2) Hence the specific Evangelical phrase, "Faith is counted for righteousness." This implies the absence of personal righteousness, and the reckoning of a principle, not righteousness, in its stead by a kind of substitution. In its stead: not as rendering good works needless, but displacing them forever as the ground of acceptance. Therefore faith does not justify as Containing the germ of all good works; as "fides formata charitate," or faith informed and vivified by love. Not justifying through any merit in itself, it justifies as the condition on which is suspended the merciful application of the merits of Christ. Faith is not righteousness, as justifying; it is "put to the account" of a man in the mediatorial court as righteousness; not as a good work, but reckoned instead of the good works which it renounces. Lest the faith as itself a work should be regarded as righteousness the apostle varies the expression. He also says again and again inversely that righteousness — not, however, Christ's — is imputed to the believer; not to faith itself, as if God regarded the goodness wrapped up in it (Romans 4:6, 22, 24). It is the man, in the naked simplicity of his self-renouncing, work-renouncing trust in God on whom the sentence of justification is pronounced.

(3) Imputation or reckoning has two meanings; the ascribing to one his own and what is not his own. The latter predominates in the three great theological imputations; that of the sin of Adam to the race, that of the race to Christ, and that of the benefit of Christ's righteousness to the believer, as through the imputation of "one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (ver. 19), and as "the Lamb of God bore the sin of the world," "being made sin for us" by imputation as a sin offering "who knew no sin," so the ungodly who in penitence believes has the efficacy of Christ's obedience reckoned to him.

(4) This faith as a negative condition is of the operation of the Holy Ghost. He enables the soul to renounce every other trust. He convinces the mind of guilt and impotence; awakens in the heart the feeling of emptiness and longing desire; and so moves the will to reject every other confidence than Christ. But, though the influence of the Spirit produces it, it is so far only negative — a preparation for good rather than itself good.

2. Faith is the active instrument as well as the passive condition of justification.

(1) It is its instrumental cause; the originating being God's love; the meritorious, Christ's atoning obedience; the efficient, the Holy Ghost.

(2) Its object is God in Christ. In this as in all, "I and My Father are one." Yet the specific object is not God absolutely, nor Christ in His revelation generally, but Christ as the mediatorial representative of sinners, and God as accepting the atonement for man (Acts 16:31; Galatians 2:16). In two ways this Epistle describes God as the object. Romans 4:5 implies what had preceded (Romans 3:25, 26); and in relation to His resurrection (Romans 4:24). But the God of our whole redemption in Christ is the object of faith (John 3:16; Romans 8:32, 11). He is the One God of the One Christ.

(3) It is never said that we are justified "on account of" faith, but "through" faith. Faith as the act of the soul by which it unites itself with the Lord, makes the virtue of His merit its own. It apprehends Christ and His atonement; ascribing all to Him, it receives all from Him.

(4) Faith is not assurance; but assurance is its reflex act. The same Spirit who inspires faith — which is alone (and without assurance) the instrument of salvation — ordinarily and always, sooner or later, enables the believer to say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 1:13).

(5) Faith, whether receptive or active, is an exercise of the human heart under the influence of the Holy Spirit through His actual revelation of Christ to the soul, the eyes of which are at the same moment opened. The unveiling of the Saviour and the unveiling of the sight to behold the Lamb of God in one and the same critical moment is the sufficing definition of saving trust. And at the same moment the active energy and passive renunciation of saving faith are, brought to the perfection of their unity.

II. FAITH AND WORKS.

1. The works of faith declare the life and reality of the faith which justifies. Those works did not declare its genuineness at first when forgiveness was received (Romans 4:6, 13); but afterwards and to retain that justification its works must absolutely be produced (James 2:18, 21, 24). In the whole sequel after receiving Christ, a man is justified not by faith only — which in this connection is no faith at all — but by faith living in its works (James 2:26) Here is the origin of the term living or lively faith; it is remarkable, however, that the invigorating principle is not from the faith to the works, but from the works to the faith.

2. The expression "living faith" suggests the vital relation of this subject to union with Christ. When St. Paul says "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21), he means more than the non-imputation of sin. "That we might become"; our forensic justification being included of necessity, our moral conformity to the Divine righteousness cannot be excluded. These closing words are a resumption of the preceding paragraph, which ended with, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." "The righteousness of God in Him" is the full realisation of the new method of conforming us to His attribute of righteousness. It is impossible to establish the distinction between "in Christ" for external, and "Christ in us" for internal righteousness; still the distinction may be used for illustration. We are "accepted in the Beloved," "in whom we have redemption through His blood," in order that "Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith" (Ephesians 1:6, 7; Ephesians 3:17), that His grace "may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." The vital union of faith secures both objects: our being reckoned as righteous because "found in Him," and our being made righteous because He is in us as the Spirit of life and strength unto all obedience (Romans 8:2, 4).

3. The justification of faith itself in and through its works, forms the Scriptural transition to internal and finished righteousness, which, however, is generally viewed as entire sanctification; improperly, however, if sanctification is regarded as finishing what righteousness leaves incomplete. To him who insists on bringing in the doctrine of sanctification to supplement as an inward work what in justification is only outward, St. James replies, "Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?" (James 2:22). Here is the finished result of "faith which worketh by love" (Galatians 5:6); that one and indivisible "work of faith" (1 Thessalonians 1:3), in the assertion of which at the outset of his teaching St. Paul, by anticipation, declared his agreement with St. James. Both show that justifying faith in a consummate religion is "made perfect" in its effects; and both with reference to the law, as again Antinomian renunciation of it (see also Romans 8:4). If "righteousness is fulfilled in us," that must be by our being "made righteous" while reckoned such. But always, whether at the outset where works are excluded, or in the Christian life when they are required, whether on earth or in heaven, justification will ever be the imputation of righteousness to faith. Works only declare faith to be genuine and living. This alone can secure eternal life to those who, though as holy as their Lord Himself, will be apart from Him and in the record of the past, sinners still (Jude 1:21).

(W. B. Pope, D. D.)

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KJV: Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

WEB: Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;