THE KING’S BUSINESS
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is incommunicable, for it is of the very es sence of God, and therefore cannot be im parted to a creature. In Rom. iv:l-9 this righteousness is said to be reckoned to the believer, is imputed to him. But an attrib ute of God cannot be imputed or reckoned; it stands forever as an essential and in variable quality of God’s nature. More over, Paul declares in Rom. i:17, that the Gospel reveals a righteousness of God, and hence he was not ashamed to proclaim this Gospel even in the world’s great centers of influence and power. But if the righteous ness he mentions is no more than God’s justice, how could he preach it? For jus tice can only condemn the guilty, and sen tence the sinner to everlasting perdition. That surely would be no good «news to lost men, nor a message in which Paul could both joy and boast. Let us hold fast the truth that the righteousness that the Gospel reveals is something else and something dif ferent from God’s justice. It is something with which justice is in strict harmony, and in which it can glory with a joy all its own. Instead of being mercy at the expense of justice, it is righteousness in the strictest accord with every requirement of divine jus tice. Moreover, it is quite evident that if by the righteousness of God is meant the attribute of justice, Paul could not so em phatically say that it is revealed by the Gospel, for the supreme end and aim of the law was to declare and denounce God’s inflexible justice against all sin. Long be fore the Gospel was preached the law re vealed God’s justice. A WIDE DIFFERENCE 2. The righteousness of God is not one inherent in the sinner; not some gracious work wrought by the Holy Spirit within the breast of the sinner. Let us grasp the truth of this statement,, and also its vital worth. It marks the difference between the Romanists and the Reformers. If the right eousness spoken of in the epistle to the Ro mans is the product of the Spirit working in us conjointly with our faith and good works, then there is no justification for the Reformation, and men like Luther and Cal-
in the New Testament, imports that mighty work of God in the person of His Son Jesus Christ, whereby He justifies, pardons and saves whoever accepts the divine testimony concerning Christ. It is with this sense of the phrase we have now to do. I. Note, that Paul was not ashamed to preach the Gospel in the imperial city of Rome, the world’s capital; for it reveals a divine righteousness on tne. ground of which God justifies him that believes in His Son. Then he proceeds to show how utterly destitute of righteousness the nations are, ch. i: 18-32. With all their philosophy, art and culture, with their military power and prowess, with their huge civilization, they were sunk in the most'awful and re volting crimes and sensuality. There are three stages in their apostasy, low, lower, lowest; and three times the judgment of God falls upon them: “God gave them up,” verses 24, 26, 28. Nor is the Jew in a better state. With all his privileges and his light, he has apostatized from God and is totally destitute of righteousness also; chaps, ii-iii:19. With verses 19, 20 of chap ter iii, the apostle draws his world-wide conclusion—“all the world has its mouth stopped, for it is proved guilty before God.” THE DEFINITION II. But what is the righteousness of God ? Do the Scriptures define it; and if they do, in what terms or sense do they explain it ? This point, all must recognize, is supremely important. If we are to have thorough peace in believing on Jesus our Lord, we must know assuredly what the nature of His work is which constitutes us righteous in God’s sight. Let us now address ourselves to this inquiry. 1. The righteousness of God must be distinguished from the attribute of divine justice. The phrase cannot mean God’s jus tice in not a few places in Romans. Take chap, iii :22 as an example. Here we are told that the righteousness of God is unto and upon all them that believe. It is some thing that is given to the believer, is unto him and upon him. But a divine attribute
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