p. 197 | CHRIST ALL AND IN ALL

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 31, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 13.

CHRIST ALL AND IN ALL.

CHRIST, who was without sin, suffered in our stead the penalty of our sins, that the honor of God's holy law might be vindicated, and that man might be restored to favor. Man is accounted just, or is justified in the sight of God, because Christ died to make atonement for his sins, and because he trusts in Christ as the procuring cause of his release from the punishment which is justly due to the transgressor. Christ paid our debt, and therefore sin can be remitted. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." It is not our repentance, our holiness, or our faith, which moves the divine mind for our justification; for, although we are said to be "saved by faith," and to be "justified by faith," yet faith is only the instrument by which God works—faith is only the hand which takes hold of Christ.

Justification is a gift. Eternal life is a gift. And Jesus Christ is the efficient and meritorious cause through which these gifts are bestowed. The virtue is in Christ, and it goes out of him for the healing of the sinner, who, by faith, touches even the border of his garment. See Matt. 9: 20, 21.

Perhaps the nature of the sinner's justification is as briefly and earnestly set forth in the following passage from the "judicious Hooker," as can be found in the same space in uninspired words:—

'Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in him. In him God findeth us, if we be faithful; for by faith we be incorporated into him. Then, although in ourselves we are altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man which in himself is impious, full of iniquity, full of sin, being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin in hatred through repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, taketh quite away the punishment due thereto by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous as if he had fulfilled all that is commanded him in the law; shall I say, more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say; but the apostle saith, 'God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' We are such in the sight of God the Father, as is the very Son of God himself.'

But the inquirer after truth is often troubled about the evidences of justification. He wants to know when he passed from condemnation to justification, from death unto life.

In looking for this evidence, however, let him bear in mind that the act by which the sinner is justified being God's sentence of pardon, we cannot have the same kind of evidence that at such a moment or hour the change took place, as if we were before a human tribunal and heard with our ears the judge pronounce the sentence of acquittal. In this case we could say, "Then I was pardoned." But we must walk by faith as to the time in which God grants us pardon, and we must judge of the reality of the change by the fruits.

Thus "the path of the just," or the justified, is set before us "as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Its beginning may not be marked. A cloud may hide the sun at its rising. But we shall find that where there is a beginning, there is progress. If the sun has risen, there is light and heat. Whom God justifies, them he also sanctifies. If he blots out our sins through the blood of Christ, he also renews our nature by the Holy Ghost, and gives us, at least, a measure of that "peace of God which passeth all understanding."

Hence, the righteousness of sanctification, or the indwelling of the Spirit, working in us according to his own will, is the Scripture evidence of the righteousness of justification, or the forgiveness of all our sins, and the accounting us in God's sight as though we had never sinned.

Let not the anxious seeker after righteousness, then, perplex himself unduly as to the time when, or the mode in which, God called him and he did not resist the drawings of his love. Let him rather look for the evidence of his justification, through the indwelling of the Spirit, in following after, and reaching unto a larger measure of the righteousness of sanctification. Let him bear in mind that although there is a point of beginning in the Christian life, yet it may not be distinctly and certainly known. If anyone, therefore, as he compares the present with the past, finds that with him "old things have passed away, and all things have become new"—if Christ and his salvation are more precious to him than all worldly good, and if he is willing to take him as the Lord his righteousness—then, although he may not be able to trace all the way in which God has led him, yet may he reasonably hope that he is justified in the sight of God, if by perseverance in well doing, he follow on to know the way of the Lord more perfectly.

And may Jesus, "who is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," fulfill his gracious work in every such soul.—American Tract Society's Tract, No. 647.