The Grace of Christ, or,
Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness
William S. Plumer, 1853
"We believe it is through the grace of our
Lord Jesus that we are saved." Acts 15:11
Justification. Christ's righteousness is imputed to
believers
As our works are the works of sinners—we must either
stand before God, covered with the filthy rags of our own righteousness, or
we must obtain some better righteousness than we are capable of working out
for ourselves. We must either be justified by God without any cause, and
this would be both connivance at sin—and approbation of it, to assert which
of God would be blasphemy; or by works in their nature imperfect and sinful,
as all ours confessedly are—and that would be an admission that the law had
once demanded too much; or by the all-perfect work and infinite merit of
Jesus Christ. This last is God's published plan.
Christ is "the Lord our righteousness." The end of his
life on earth was that he might be the end of the law for righteousness to
every one who believes. His righteousness is not imparted, but imputed to
us. It does not cure our corruption, but it covers our nakedness. It is not
infused into us, but it is reckoned to us. It is not inherent in us, but it
is set down to our account. We do not imbibe it, but we are invested with
it. We are not imbued, but endued with it. It does not give us a fitness for
heaven, but a title to it. It is not Christ's work in us, but his
work and sufferings for us—which give us an indefeasible title to the
privileges of sons of God.
To enter the kingdom of God without a right would make us
stand before him as presumptuous intruders, called by Christ "thieves and
robbers, who had climbed up some other way." To enter it with a title less
perfect than the law requires would be exalting mercy at the expense of
justice, and relaxing all the bonds of God's moral government. To enter it
with a title based upon our own merits would be a public and bold denial of
our guilt and ruin. But here is Jehovah's way. "The grace of God, and the
gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many."
"Those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness,
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." "By the righteousness of one the
free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." "By the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous." "Our righteousness," says Calvin, "is
not in ourselves but in Christ."
"As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so
by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." What is placing our
righteousness in the obedience of Christ, but asserting that we are
accounted righteous only because his obedience is accepted for us as if it
were our own?" Such Scriptures and such reasonings settle to the
satisfaction of the great mass of God's people, the truth of the imputation
of Christ's righteousness to his people.
The righteousness by which a sinner stands accepted is
called the righteousness of God, because it is in opposition to the
righteousness of men, because God provided and approves it and none other,
and because he puts great honor upon it. It is called the righteousness of
Christ, because our Lord Jesus being made under the law, was obedient
to all its precepts, and suffered its dreadful penalty for us, and so he
himself brought in everlasting righteousness for us. It is called the
righteousness of faith, because it is apprehended and appropriated by
faith. It is not a righteousness secured by working, but by believing. "We
are justified by faith." This righteousness is at least once called the
righteousness of the law, because in its absolute perfection it is
all that the moral law, spotless and eternal, demands for the justification
of a sinner in the sight of God.
It may well excite amazement that the doctrine of the
imputation of Christ's righteousness should be so violently opposed as it
sometimes is. Owen says: "In our day nothing in religion is more maligned,
more reproached, more despised, than the imputation of righteousness unto
us, or our imputed righteousness." Thomas Scott says, "the proud heart of
man is prone to deny, or object to it, even with blasphemous enmity." And
Archibald Alexander says: "No part of evangelical doctrine has met with a
more determined opposition than the doctrine of imputation. It has been
loaded with reproaches, as a doctrine the most unreasonable, the most
dangerous, and the most impious. It is a remarkable circumstance, however,
that all the objections, which have been made to it, are founded on a
misapprehension or a misrepresentation of the true nature of imputation."
It is said that a divine of our own country has been so
far left to himself as to say publicly that "imputed righteousness is
imputed nonsense." The motives of those, who revile this doctrine, will be
judged by Him, who cannot err. No human tribunal is competent to pronounce
upon them. But the pretended arguments brought against the doctrine of the
imputation of Christ's merits to his people, as they have often been, so
they should again and again be fully and fairly answered. He who defends,
and he who assails, this doctrine are busied at a vital point of
Christianity. Some have really held and taught the substance of this
doctrine, and yet rejected the term, imputation. If any ask, why we should
insist on the use of the term and not yield it to such people and others,
the answer is ready.
First, we have the example of inspired men on our side.
Psalm 32:2, and 2 Cor. 5:9; Romans 4:6, 11, 23-25. If David and Paul use the
word, why may not we also? If any man should propose to banish the word
redemption from our theological vocabulary, what friend of truth would
consent to it? Imputed righteousness is and ought to be just as dear to
millions of God's people as redemption.
Secondly, we could not get on well without this term. It
conveys the very idea we wish to present in the pulpit and in our writings.
If a man gives due notice that henceforth he will always call a hat a spade,
it cannot fairly be said that he deceives any one by such a misnomer, but
surely he will give trouble both to himself and his friends. Nor will he
gain any good, unless he esteems the reputation of singularity such.
And he may mislead some one.
Thirdly, good theological terms are not easily obtained
and agreed upon; and when they are settled they become out-posts to
important truths, and should not be surrendered. The man, who asks that the
people of the United States shall no more use the phrases, republican
government, union, federative system, rights of the States—would be very
confusing. It is an old art of enemies to assault, and of traitors to
surrender the out-posts.
Fourthly, this phrase has long been in use, is
incorporated into many symbols of faith, into many manuals of Christian
doctrine, and into nearly all bodies of divinity, and so ought not to be
given up. Those who have objected to it have suggested no better, indeed
none so good. The Swiss Reformers in the Confession of Helvetia say: "God
imputes the righteousness of Christ unto us for our own: so that now we are
not only cleansed from our sin, and purged, and holy, but also endued with
the righteousness of Christ. To speak properly, then; it is God alone who
justifies us, and that only for Christ, by not imputing unto us our sin, but
imputing Christ's righteousness unto us." Romans 4:23-25. The Augsburg
Confession says: "When therefore we say, that 'we are justified by faith,'
Romans 5:1, this is our meaning: that we do obtain remission of sins, and
imputation of righteousness, by mercy showed us for Christ's sake." The
confession of France says: "Casting away all opinion of virtues and merits,
we do altogether rest in the only obedience of Jesus Christ, which is
imputed to us, both that all our sins may be covered, and that we may obtain
grace before God." The Confession of Saxony says: "Christ himself is our
righteousness, because that by his merit we have remission, and God does
impute his righteousness to us, and for him does account us just." The
Confession of Belgia says: "Christ himself is our righteousness, which
imputes all his merits unto us; faith is but the instrument, whereby we are
coupled unto him." The Church of England says: "We are accounted righteous
before God only for the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith;
and not for our own works or deservings, therefore, that we are justified by
faith alone—is a most wholesome doctrine and full of comfort." The Church of
Ireland says: "We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, applied by faith. And this righteousness,
which we receive of God's mercy, and Christ's merits, embraced by faith, is
taken, accepted, and allowed of God, for our perfect and full
justification." The Confession of Wirtemburg says, that "man is made
acceptable to God and accounted just before him for the only Son of God, our
Lord Jesus Christ, through faith; and when we appear before the
judgment-seat of God, we must not trust to the merit of any of those virtues
which we have, but only to the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose merit
is ours by faith." The Confession of Sueveland says: "This whole
justification is to be ascribed to the good pleasure of God, and to the
merit of Christ, and to be received by faith alone." John 1:12, 13, Eph.
2:8-10.
The Savoy, the Cambridge and the Boston Congregational
Confessions, and the London and Philadelphia Baptist Confessions hold forth
these very words: "Those, whom God effectually calls, he also freely
justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their
sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for
anything wrought in them, or done by them—but for Christ's sake alone; not
by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical
obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing Christ's active
obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in his death, for their
whole." It is well known that all branches of the Presbyterian Church in
North America and in Great Britain and her colonies, with the exception of a
few Arians in Ireland and a few Unitarians in England, who for some reason
wear the Presbyterian name, use almost verbatim the same formula on this
subject.
The Heidelberg Catechism thus speaks:
"56. What do you believe concerning the forgiveness of
sins? "That God, for the sake of Christ's satisfaction, will no more
remember my sins, neither my corrupt nature, against which I have to
struggle all my life long, but will graciously impute to me the
righteousness of Christ, that I may never be condemned before the tribunal
of God.
"59. But what does it profit you that you believe all
this? "That I am righteous in Christ, before God, and an heir of eternal
life.
"60. How are you righteous before God? "Only by a true
faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuses me that I have
grossly transgressed all the commands of God, and kept none of them, and am
still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding God, without any merit of mine,
but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction,
righteousness, and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor
committed any sin; yes, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience
which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit
with a believing heart.
"61. Why are you are righteous by faith alone? "Not that
I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, but only
because the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my
righteousness before God, and that I cannot receive and apply the same to
myself any other way than by faith only."
The Welch Calvinistic Methodists' Confession says:
"Justification is an act of the grace of God, judging and proclaiming man to
be righteous, through imputing to him the righteousness of Christ, which is
received by the sinner through faith." "Justification includes in itself a
forgiveness to the transgressor of all his iniquities, so that he shall not
die on their account; an exaltation of the person to the favor of God; and a
bestowing on him a lawful right to enjoy never-ending happiness."
We are made the righteousness of God in Christ, in the
same sense in which he was made sin for us. As his receiving the curse for
us did not defile his soul, or make him personally ill-deserving; so our
receiving the blessing does not make us pure or personally meritorious. We
are made righteous in Christ in the same way, in which we are made sinners
in Adam. In neither case is there an identity of person. In neither case do
the personal acts or qualities of these our representatives become our acts
or qualities. In both cases are we counted, reckoned, regarded, held and
treated in law—as if they were ours. As Christ did none of the acts which
were imputed to him for expiation, so we have done none of the acts, which
are imputed to us for justification.
Men sometimes say—How can we be justified by a
righteousness not our own? It is freely admitted that our justifying
righteousness is not inherently ours. Nor is it in any sense so ours that we
can proudly boast of it, and so deny that in ourselves we are perishing
sinners. Nor is our justifying righteousness ours by any hereditary right,
nor until God imputes it to us, and we receive it by faith. But if the
objectors mean that when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and God
imputes his righteousness to us, it does not become ours in the eye of the
law, then they do contradict God's word and the sense of God's people in all
ages. How is he "Jehovah our righteousness," (Jer. 23:6,) if his merits in
no sense become ours? If these objectors are right, what sense is there in
such passages of Scripture as those already quoted from the fifth chapter of
Romans? or what is the meaning of these words: "Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone who believes?" Romans 10:4; or of this,
"Christ is of God made unto us righteousness?" 1 Cor. 1:30; or of this, "He
has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him?" 2 Cor. 5:21. See also Romans 4:5, 6, and Gal.
3:6, 9, 22.
Augustine says: "There is a righteousness of God, which
is made ours, when it is given unto us. It is called the righteousness of
God, lest man should think that he had a righteousness of himself." Cowper
says: "The righteousness of Christ is ours, and ours by as great a right, as
any other thing which we possess; to wit, by the free gift of God; for it
has pleased him to give a garment to us, who are naked, and to give us, who
had none of our own—a righteousness answerable to justice." A. Alexander
says: "Whatever Christ has done or suffered for our salvation, in order that
it may be available to us, must in some way become ours." Again: "When God
imputes the righteousness of Christ to a sinner, he actually bestows it upon
him for all the purposes of his complete justification."
The doctrine commonly held by the Church of God is, that
what Christ has done and suffered for his people becomes actually and
legally theirs, in the sight of God, in virtue of their union with him. So
that we do not, we dare not teach that a man is justified by a righteousness
in no sense his own. The great difference between saints and sinners in the
matter of justification is, that the former are partakers of the
righteousness of Christ, and the latter are not. This is our title to life
and immortality. This is the believer's claim to the infinite merits of
Christ.
The doctrine maintained is simply that God looks upon
believers in Christ as one with the Savior, that Christ's righteousness is
counted, reckoned to them for righteousness; or that as their surety he
meets all the demands of the law on them as transgressors, and makes over to
them his perfect obedience as ground of their acceptance with God.
It is sometimes said that the doctrine of imputed
righteousness sets aside the fulfillment of the law. But this is surely a
mistake. Paul says, that God sent his Son to the very end "that the
righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." And Dr. Gill well says
that "though righteousness does not come by our obedience to the law, yet it
does by Christ's obedience to it. Though by the deeds of the law as
performed by man, no flesh shall be justified; yet by the deeds of the law
as performed by Christ, all the elect are justified." So that now "if we
confess our sins, God is faithful and JUST to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9. On any other scheme than
that which is here contended for—what sense is there in the word, just,
in the text last quoted?
If the import of the objection is that the doctrine is
unfriendly to the promotion of holiness among men, the answers are ready. In
Romans 6:1, 2, Paul meets this objection thus: "What shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid; how shall we who
are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" In that and the next chapter he
says much more to the same effect. Besides, the whole gospel plan goes on
the supposition that the strongest motive, which can incline man's heart to
holiness, is love. Now "love is the fulfilling of the law." "We love him
because he first loved us." "The love of Christ constrains us, because we
thus judge—that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died
for all, that those who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but
unto him that died for them." And the facts are all on one side. It would be
impossible to find in any age an eminently holy man, who did not openly
declare that his hope was in God's mercy—not in his own doings; in the
righteousness of Christ—not in his own deservings.
There was as much agreement among the Reformed churches,
for more than two hundred years from the days of Luther and Calvin, in
receiving this doctrine, as that of the divinity of Christ, or the
personality of the Holy Spirit. Some say, if we are justified on the ground
of the merits of Christ, where are the grace and mercy of the gospel? The
answer is that God's rich grace and abundant mercy shine forth in the whole
work of salvation from first to last. The whole devising, execution,
application and crowning of redemption flow from God's boundless grace, and
infinite, eternal, and unchangeable love. Grace is not connivance at sin.
Mercy is not contempt of law. The grace of Christ vindicates the justice and
government of God, while it brings salvation to the guilty. Hear the
language of the Baptist and Congregational Confessions, which have been
already quoted in this chapter: "Christ by his obedience and death did fully
discharge the debt of all those who are justified, and did by the sacrifice
of himself, in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty
due unto them, make a proper, real and full satisfaction to God's justice in
their behalf; yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his
obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for
anything in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the
exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification
of sinners."
The Presbyterian Confession has nearly the same words. To
the question, "if our justification be thus purchased by the perfect
obedience and satisfaction of Christ, how is it of free grace?" Thomas
Boston replies, "Very well; for 1. God accepted our surety, when he might
have held by the sinner himself, and insisted that the soul that sinned
might die. Romans 5:8. God did this freely.
2. God himself provided the Surety. John 3:16. The Father
gives the Son, and the Son assumes man's nature and pays the debt. What is
there here but riches of grace to the justified sinner?
3. God demands nothing of us in payment for it. It is a
rich purchase, a dear purchase, the price of blood; but the righteousness
and justification are given to us most freely through faith. That is, we
have it, for 'take-and-have.' And the very hand, wherewith we receive it,
namely faith, is the free gift of God unto us. Eph. 2:8. So that most
evident it is that we are justified freely by his grace."
Calvin says: "It betrays ignorance to oppose the merit of
Christ to the mercy of God. For it is a common maxim, that between two
things, of which one follows or is subordinate to the other, there can be no
opposition. There is no reason therefore why the justification of men should
not be gratuitous from the mere mercy of God, and why at the same time the
merit of Christ should not intervene, which is subservient to the mercy of
God." Thus the doctrine has been explained, it has been proven from
Scripture, it has been shown to be interwoven with our best formulas of
doctrine, and objections to it have been answered. In the next chapter some
additional testimonies in its favor will be given.