JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.
By John E. Moore
“THEREFORE being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Rom. 5:1. A Biblical definition of faith is, “The substance [ground or confidence] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Heb. 11:1. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Rom. 10:17. The Word of God comes down to us well authenticated as a revelation from our heavenly Father. It is a letter from our very best Friend, containing His will, in which it is clearly demonstrated that He is especially interested in the weal and happiness of every created intelligence, and would have them to comply with all of the conditions stipulated in it, in order that God might be gracious to all mankind in translating them “into the kingdom of his dear Son,” making them “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” Rom. 8:17. He would bring them “to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter 1:4, 5. Our true standing and character is very prominently portrayed and delineated in this divine revelation, which plainly informs us that “we have all sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), and have thereby subjected ourselves to the penalty of his law, which is death. “For the wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23. God, who is rich in infinite love and mercy, hath not left us to grope our way in darkness and misery, and then go down to eternal night. But he has provided a way for our escape through the gift of “his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. God gave his only-begotten Son to suffer and die in our stead, that we by accepting of him as our life and security and as our true, unfallen, spiritual, representative, should not come into condemnation of the law, but have life, joy, peace, and happiness here in this present world, and in the world to come the gift of eternal life, with a beautiful home, where never-withering flowers bloom perennially throughout the years of eternity. There is but the one way for us to reach this ecstatic life in God, and that is through the righteousness of his dear Son. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; 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; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Rom. 3:19-28. The apostle Paul continues by saying in verse 31, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” He recognizes the fact that “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Rom. 7:12. The law of God is a transcript of his character; it is a plain statement as to what he is and what he would have us to be. The commandments of God are his righteousness. Faith does not make void the righteousness of God, but always works in perfect harmony with it. It has been truthfully said by Elder E. J. Waggoner:— All unrighteousness is sin, or the transgression of the law. The Gospel is God’s remedy for sin; its work, therefore, must be to bring men into harmony with the law, to cause the working of the righteous law to be manifested in their lives. But this is wholly a work of faith. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Faith in the beginning, and faith in the end. As it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” Rom. 1:17. This has been true in all ages since the fall of man, and will be true until the saints of God have his name in their foreheads, and see him as he is. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” No one who comes up to the end (or purpose) of the law finds in himself any redeeming qualities or virtues, but only the opposite, condemnation and death. But thanks be to God that Christ is entrenched there as our security. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that he might bring us back to God by being made a curse for us, dying in our place the death to which our own disobedience and transgression had subjected us. When a conscientious, awakened man comes up to the end of the law, and sees nothing but death and eternal separation from God, then it is that he is enabled to look away from the violated law of God to Christ, by faith, as his life, security, and Redeemer, who has met his Father’s broken law and rendered complete satisfaction to it. When man is brought to see and realize this fact by faith he is ready and willing to comply with the conditions of the Gospel, “repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,” ready to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God that worketh in him, both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Phil. 2:12, 13); glad to turn away from his sins and to turn to God with a true purpose of heart, laying down his puny arms of rebellion, surrendering all to his rightful Owner, who has purchased him with His own precious blood upon Calvary’s cross. Then it is that God meets his returning prodigal son out upon the way, accepting him in Christ Jesus, pardons and liberates him from the thraldom and bondage of sin, and brings him out from under the condemnation of the law, making him a new creature in Christ Jesus, perfectly free in the Lord as long as he does by faith the things contained in the law. Peace like the river of life, passing all understanding, flows through his heart, permeating his entire soul with the consciousness that he is at peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcomed home to his Father’s house, adopted into the heavenly family, with the blessed assurance that his name is registered upon the fair pages of the Lamb’s book of life, he rejoices with “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” He then enjoys the blessed experience of the apostle Paul: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Rom. 8:35-39.