Justified by Faith by D. A. Robinson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 18, 1875

Justified by Faith.

By D. A. Robinson

THOSE who deny the perpetuity of the law of God plead that we are “justified by faith.” A no-law Adventist, at the close of a discourse on the Sabbath question, said, “Knowing that a man is justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the deeds of the law; for ‘by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.’” These words were spoken with an air of triumph, as though that settled the question. In reply, a passage from the same apostle was quoted as follows: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified,” Rom. 2: 13, and the friend was requested to harmonize the two passages with his view of the subject. Of course, he could not do this.

Justification by faith would never have been needed had man always kept the law of God; but having become involved in sin, or transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), and there being nothing in the law to justify him, he flees to Christ for pardon. His faith takes hold of the great sin offering, who came not to put away the law, but the transgression of it, by the sacrifice of himself.

The sinner believes that he is able to save him from his sins, not in them; and that he is “set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past.” Having received remission for his past sins, he stands justified by faith. But how shall he retain his justification? By obedience to the law that proved him a sinner, and showed him his need of justification.

After declaring that none are justified by the works of the law, Paul adds these forcible words, “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin?” Gal. 2: 17. That is, after you have been justified by Christ, if you are then found a sinner, or transgressor of the law, you make Christ the minister of sin, but, says Paul, “God forbid.”

Again, men are to be judged by the law. “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law, . . . in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” Rom. 2: 12, 16.

But we are told that the law here spoken of is Christ’s law, and that the law of ten commandments has been abolished. Let us briefly examine this position. It is admitted by all that it was the ten commandments which proved the Jew a sinner. This fact is too plain to be denied. Now carry it a little further. The Judgment was a future event when Paul wrote: Now, when the case of the Jew who died in his sins comes up in the Judgment, by what law will he be proved worthy of the second death? It cannot be the ten commandment law, the one which proved him a sinner in the former dispensation; for that has been abolished, and so he must be acquitted because the law which showed his guilt has passed away; hence the universal salvation of all who died before the first advent of Christ becomes a fixed fact. These are some of the absurdities that follow the terrible position that the law of God is abolished.

May you, dear reader, be found among those of whom it can be said, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus;” and may you, by obedience to the righteous, holy, just, and good law of God, have a right to the tree of life, and an entrance through the gates into the city. Rom. 7: 12; Rev. 22: 14. D. A. ROBINSON.

Mattapoisett, Mass., Oct. 23, 1875.