may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin." As plain as these words of God are, strangely enough there are many to-day who are preaching the law as a way of salvation. But when they so preach they are preaching another way of salvation than that laid down in God's own word.
2. The second part of the answer to the question as to how we are justified we find in Rom. 3:24. "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." The word translated "freely" in this passage means, as a free gift, and the verse tells us that men are justified as a free gift by God's grace (i.e., God's unmerited favour) through (i.e., on the ground of) the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. In other words, justification is not on the ground of any desert there is in us, not on the ground of anything that we have done, we are not justified by our own doing nor by our own character. Justification is a free gift that God bestows absolutely without pay. The channel through which this free gift is bestowed is the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We shall see later that this means through the purchase price that Christ paid for our redemption, i.e., the shedding of His blood on the cross of Calvary.
3. This leads us to the third part of the answer to the question, how men are justified. We find
this third part of the answer in Rom. 5:9, "Much more then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God through Him." Here we are told in so many words that we are justified, or counted righteous "by," or more literally, "in," Christ's blood, i.e., on the ground of Christ's propitiatory death. We were all under the curse of the broken law of God, for we had all broken it, but by dying in our stead on the cross of Calvary our Lord Jesus "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." (Gal. 3:13.) Or, as Peter puts it in 1 Pet. 2:24, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the tree." Or as Paul puts it again in 2 Cor. 5:21, "Him who knew no sin he (God) made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." We shall have occasion to come back to this passage later. All that I wish you to notice in it at this time is that it is on the ground of Jesus Christ becoming a substitute for us, on the ground of His taking the place we deserved; on the cross, that we are reckoned righteous. The one and only ground of justification is the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Of course, this doctrine is entirely different from the teaching of Christian Science, and entirely different from the teaching of much that is called New Theology, and entirely different from the teaching of New Thought and Theosophy, and
entirely different from the teaching of Unitarianism, but it is the teaching of the Word of God. We find this same teaching clearly given by the prophet Isaiah seven hundred years before our Lord was born, in Isaiah 53:6, where he says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid (literally, made to strike) on him (i.e., on the Lord Jesus) the iniquity of us all." Get this point clearly settled in your mind, that the sole but all-sufficient ground upon which men are justified before God is the shed blood of Jesus Christ, offered by Jesus Christ as an atonement for our sins and accepted by God the Father as an all-sufficient atonement.
4. The fourth part of the answer to the question how men are justified we find in Rom. 3:26, "For the showing, I say, of his (i.e., God's) righteousness at this present season: that he (i.e., God) might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." Here we are taught that men are justified on the condition of faith in Jesus. If possible, Rom. 4:5 makes this even more plain, "But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness." Here the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Apostle Paul, tells us that to those who believe in Jesus their faith is counted for righteousness. In other words, faith makes ours the shed blood which is the ground of justification, and we are justified when we
believe. All men are potentially justified by the death of Christ on the cross, but believers are actually justified by appropriating to themselves what there is of justifying value in the shed blood of Christ by simple faith in Him. In other words, the shed blood of Christ is the sole and all-sufficient ground of justification: simple faith in Jesus Christ who shed the blood is the sole condition of justification. God asks nothing else of the sinner than that he should believe on His Son, Jesus Christ, and when he does thus believe he is justified. When we believe we are justified, whether we have any works to offer or not; or, as Paul puts it in Rom. 3:28, "We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law." Or, as it is put in the verse already quoted, Rom. 4:5, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness." A man is justified entirely apart from works of the law, i.e., he is justified on condition that he believes on Jesus Christ, even though he has no works to offer as the ground upon which to claim justification. When we cease to work for justification and simply "believe on Him who justifieth the ungodly," that faith is reckoned to us for righteousness, and therefore we are counted righteous. The question then is not, have you any works to offer, but do you believe on Him who justifies the ungodly. Works have nothing to do with justification except to hinder it when we trust in them. The blood of
Jesus Christ secures it, faith in Jesus Christ appropriates it. We are justified not by our works, but by His work. We are justified upon the simple and single ground of His shed blood and upon the simple and single condition of our faith in Him Who shed the blood. So great is the pride of the natural heart that it is exceedingly difficult to hold men to this doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works of law. We are constantly seeking to bring in our works somewhere.
5. But we have not as yet completely answered the question of how men are justified. There is another side to the truth and if our doctrine of justification is to be complete and well-balanced, we must look at that other side. You will find part of this other side in Rom. 10:8, 10, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved; for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." God here tells us that the faith that appropriates justification is a faith with the heart, i.e., a faith that is not a mere notion, or opinion, but a faith that leads to action along the line of that faith, and it is therefore a faith that leads to open confession with the mouth, of Jesus as our Lord. If some one has some kind of faith, or what he calls faith, that does not lead him to an open confession of Christ, he has a faith that does not justify; for it is not a faith with the heart.
Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself tells us that heart faith leads to open confession; for He says in Matt. 12:34, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Faith in Jesus Christ in the heart leads inevitably to a confession of Jesus as Lord with the mouth, and if you are not confessing Jesus as your Lord with your mouth you have not justifying faith and you are not justified.