Romans, by William R. Newell, Chapter 3, Part 3

It has ever been the first step to heresy—the denial that Divine wrath for sin fell on Christ. It was, indeed, certainly not anger at Christ’s Person—He was obediently drinking a cup His Father had given Him. Nor was it anger at the sinner: “God so loved that He gave.” But it was wrath against sin,—the going forth of the infinitely holy nature of God against sin. Alas, how little we feel its awfulness! How poor our knowledge of it; how weak our hatred of it! But wrath against it fell full on Christ. We beseech you, hold this fast. “God spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”

God is holy in His being: He is righteous in His character. Righteousness appears in His dealings with others. The term righteousness is a relative one; it assumes the existence of others. It is a word of relationship: whether in attitude or in government, God will ever be righteous. But holiness is not a word of relationship, but of nature, of being. God is holy: if there were no creatures He would yet be holy, the Holy One, “Whose Name is Holy.”

It is in this holiness of God that we must look for the necessity of propitiation. That there must be propitiation does not indicate, primarily, that God is offended and must be appeased; but that God is holy and cannot by sinful creatures be approached. Only holy beings (like the seraphim, the cherubim of glory, and the elect angels) can possibly abide in His presence. Sin cannot come nigh Him. It is not that He hates sinners (He gave His Son to ransom them!) but it is that He is holy and cannot look upon sin. And if there be sin, there must ‘be wrath against it: not merely the vindication of God’s offended government, but the infinite abhorrence of His holy nature! He “dwelleth in light unapproachable.” It is death to draw nigh: not because God is vindictive,—He is love: but because He is holy, and we are sinful, unclean, unholy.

True, we are also guilty: the penalty of sin is upon us. And that means judgment, and the infliction of wrath. But behind this, and deeper than even our guilt, is the abhorrence of a holy God of our sin itself. It is the abominable thing His holy being hates. We must be banished under wrath from His sight! Let all those who think to stand in the day of judgment before God think on this. The atonement arises out of a necessity in the nature of God Himself.

Now in the type of the great Day of Atonement of Leviticus 16, we have the two goats setting forth two great facts, which we must not confuse: First (and most important) the blood of the slain goat brought into God’s presence in the holy of holies: the sprinkled blood being the witness that there has been death, a life laid down: 78 and no effort to come otherwise into God’s presence,—no Cain-way, which does not recognize sin, or that holiness of God which was wrath and death toward sin. The blood of the goat sprinkled on the mercy-seat was the witness that all the claims of God, His holiness, His truth, His righteousness, and the majesty of His throne, had been admitted and met by a substitute which had laid its life down.

Then, second, there was the transferring in type of the actual sins,—all of them, to the head of the scape-goat (the “goat of dismissal”), which was then led to the wilderness, never to be found again: thus setting forth the result of the death of the first goat,—for the two are really one, in that the two set forth the effect of Christ’s death: (1) toward God; and (2) toward sinners.

It is this latter phase of Christ’s work,—His taking away our sins forever, that we so constantly find in our hymns (and rightly). But it is the first phase that the Word of God calls “the lot for Jehovah” (Leviticus 16:8, 9, 15). It is of first importance that God should be glorified where sin had so dishonored Him! Sin outraged His holiness, insulted His Majesty, defied His righteous government. And the cross made good all this, and publicly, before the universe. This was first. And second, God could now let ‘sinners, in all their guilt, turn to Him! And we should learn to look at the cross as first of all glorifying God; and not solely from the viewpoint of the blessed and eternal benefits accruing to us thereby!

It is the character of God and the character of sin that are before us in Leviticus 16, in the Great Day of Atonement. “That I die not” (verse 13) was upon the mind of the high priest as he swung the censer when entering the presence of Jehovah, the Holy One, to sprinkle the blood, “to make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleannesses of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins.” Note here that it is “uncleannesses” that are mentioned, even before “transgressions” or “sins”! Read carefully Leviticus 16,—especially verses 15 and 16.

Taking the blood in before God, in the holy of holies, was not a gift to God! Nor was it that God “delighted in bloodshed”—the monstrous claim of God’s enemies. Christ’s blood witnesses that a life has been laid down (though that of a Substitute, a Lamb, God Himself in love has provided). So that a sinner, unable to be in God’s presence at all, and guilty, might, in the Name and Person of that Substitute, be in God’s presence, pardoned and justified. So that the blood witnesses at once the infinite holiness and righteousness of God, and also His fathomless love! The words “made nigh in Christ’s blood” should be in the constant consciousness of every Christian!

Now in order that these things may be impressed on our hearts, we quote a few of the ever recurring references in Scripture to the holiness of God: its effect in godly fear upon the saints, and also its effect upon the wicked. We have placed these passages in a footnote. We beg you to stop and humbly read them; for the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New. Indeed, that great passage in the Sixth of Isaiah in which the seraphim veil their faces, crying, “Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts,” is directly declared in the Twelfth of John to have been spoken of the Lord Jesus Christ: “These things said Isaiah, because he saw His glory [Christ’s] and he spake of Him” (John 12:39-41). The fact that the Son of God has come, sent by a God of love, and has borne sin for us, so that we who believe shall not come into judgment, but draw near to God by Christ’s blood, does not at all change the character of the holy God; but, on the contrary, reveals His holiness as nowhere else!79

Therefore we see m the word translated “propitiation” a propitiatory sacrifice that has expiated guilt; and therefore the “mercy-seat” where God is in all His holiness, and the effect of Christ’s expiatory sacrifice, in the bringing into God’s holy presence sinners, the defiled and guilty,—whose Substitute has borne their defilement and guilt, His blood becoming the witness thereto before God.

We know that we read in Hebrews 9:8 concerning the sacrifices in that first tabernacle: “The Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest, while the first tabernacle is yet standing.” Besides, we also read in Hebrews: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way . . . let us draw near with a true heart, in fulness of faith” (Hebrews 10:19, 22). God’s being and character do not change. The cross is the deepest witness of all to that fact!

In every great revival in church history, as in the Old Testament, there has been a coming back into the consciousness of being guilty, lost sinners, dependent on the shed blood of a Redeemer. If the world has gotten past being recalled to that blessed sinner-consciousness in the presence of a God of mercy at the cross—there is nothing left but judgment!

Verse 26: For the showing forth of His righteousness at this present season: that He might be Himself righteous, while declaring righteous the person having faith in Jesus.

Both in verse 25 and verse 26 it is the effect of Christ’s sacrifice, as displaying the Divine righteousness, that is before us. From Adam to Christ God had “passed over,” not judged and put away, sin. The word translated “passed over” (paresis) in Chapter 3:25, is not the word for “remission,” of Matthew 26:28, which is used fifteen times for the active pardon of sins; whereas the present word (paresis) is used in Romans 3:25 only. This word carries, in a sense, almost the same thought as the word “overlooked,” in Acts 17:30. Of course there had to be, before the cross, such displays of Divine government as the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues in Egypt, and the dispersion of rebellious Israel. Nevertheless, God did not take up man’s sin for judgment according to His own being, until the cross. There He held the public Judgment Day of human sin, displaying His absolute righteousness in not sparing His own Son. Before the cross, as Bengel says, “the righteousness of God was not so apparent, for He seemed not to be so exacting with sin as He is, but to leave the sinner to himself, to regard not.” But in the atoning death of Christ, God’s righteousness was fully exhibited in His wrath against sin as it was in His holy sight. He was shown righteous, at the very moment He was, in love, working out the deliverance of the sinner from the wrath due. He was the Justifier, and yet just!

In the words, “at this present season,” God directs our gaze back to the cross, where Christ was publicly set forth and judged for our sin; and also He covers this whole “season” of mercy the present dispensation. Old Testament believers looked forward: they were forgiven on credit. But “this present season,” is better. It is characterized by a righteousness already displayed in God’s judging our sin at the cross; and therefore by God as the righteous Justifier of all who believe.

Now our faith is that one act of our hearts that appropriates the work of Christ; and we stand, by virtue of that work alone in the immediate presence of the infinitely holy God. The words “most holy” occur about forty times in describing the sanctuary matters of the Old Testament; but faith in the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ who fulfills all those shadows, takes the place of all this: therefore, in the New Testament, our faith is called “our most holy faith”! (Jude 20).

Verse 27: Where then is the [Jewish] boasting? It is excluded. By what manner of law? of works? Nay: but by a law of faith.

Where then is the [Jewish] boasting? It is plain all through this discussion that Paul has the religious position and opposition of the Jews in mind. Boasting “was excluded at the moment when the law of faith, that is, the gospel, was brought in.”80

In view of this new gospel-revelation of the finished work of Christ, who did the whole work for us on Calvary, and that by God’s appointment, everything is seen to be of God, and not at all of man. Therefore, even the Jews, to whom the Law had been given, had their mouths completely stopped, “because there was no work done,” and no ground for boasting!

By what manner of law? of works? Not at all! but by a law of faith. “Law” in this instance is rule, or plan. This “law,” or principle, of faith, applies not only to our justification, but to every aspect of the believer’s life thereafter,—“building up yourselves on your most holy faith.” “That life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God.”

Verse 28: For we reckon that a man is declared righteous by faith, apart from Works of law—This verse is not a conclusion arrived at, but a reason given why boasting is excluded.

Verses 29 and 30: Or is God [the God] of Jews only? [who alone had the Law]. Is He not [the God] of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also: since it is one God who shall declare righteous the circumcision on the principle of faith, and the uncircumcision through faith. To paraphrase: “Or is God the God of the Jews only? (as He must be, if justification is by the Law: for only to the Jews did God give the Law). Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also: since God is One (in His being, and alike to all nations). And He shall justify the circumcision (Jewish believers) out of simple faith (and not by their keeping Moses’ Law though they had it from God), and the uncircumcision (Gentiles, who had nothing) through their faith (apart from His giving them the Law).”

Verse 31: Do we then annul law through faith? Banish the thought! on the contrary, we establish law.

It is the constant cry of those who oppose grace, and most especially that declaration of grace that our justification is apart from law—apart from works of law—apart from ordinances, that it overthrows the Divine authority. But in this verse Paul says, “We establish law” through this doctrine of simple faith.

To illustrate: In the wilderness a man was found gathering up sticks to make a fire on the Sabbath day. Now, the Law had said, “Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations on the Sabbath day.” How, then, was this Law to be “established”? By letting the law-breaker off? No. By securing his promise to keep the Law in the future? No! By finding someone who had kept this commandment always, perfectly, and letting his obedience be reckoned to the law-breaker? No, in no wise!

How then, was the Law established? You know very well. All Israel were commanded by Jehovah to stone the man to death. We read:

“And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. And they put him in ward, because it had not been declared what should be done to him. And Jehovah said unto Moses The man shall surely be put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him to death with stones; as Jehovah commanded Moses” (Numbers 15:33,ff).

Thus and thus only was the commandment of Jehovah established—by the execution of the penalty.

Paul preached Christ crucified: that Christ died for our sins, that “He tasted death for every man.” And that Israel, who were under the Law, He redeemed from the curse of that Law by being made a curse for them. Thus the cross established law; for the full penalty of all that was against the Divine majesty, against God’s holiness. His righteousness, His truth, was forever met, and that not according to man’s conception of what sin and its penalty should be, but according to God’s judgment, according to the measure of the sanctuary, of high heaven itself!

The Jew, prating about his own righteousness, went about to kill Paul, crying that he spake against the Law; whereas it was that very Jew who would lower the Law to his own ability to keep it, instead of allowing it its proper office; namely, to reveal his guilt, curse him, and condemn him to death, and thus drive him to the mercy of God in Christ, whose expiatory death established law by having its penalty executed!81

RIGHTEOUSNESS WITHOUT WORKS

If God announces the gift of righteousness apart from works, why do you keep mourning over your bad works, your failures? DO you not see that it is because you still have hopes in these works of yours that you are depressed and discouraged by their failure? If you truly saw and believed that God is reckoning righteous the ungodly who believe on Him, you would fairly hate your struggles to be “better”; for you would see that your dreams of good works have not at all commended you to God, and that your bad works do not at all hinder you from believing on Him,—that justifieth the ungodly!

Therefore, on seeing your failures, you should say, I am nothing but a failure; but God is dealing with me on another principle altogether than my works, good or bad,—a principle not involving my works, but based only on the work of Christ for me. I am anxious, indeed, to be pleasing to God and to be filled with His Spirit; but I am not at all justified, or accounted righteous, by these things. God, in justifying me, acted wholly and only on Christ’s blood-shedding on my behalf.

Therefore I have this double attitude: first, I know that Christ is in Heaven before God for me, and that I stand in the value before God of His finished work; that God sees me nowhere else but in this dead, buried, and Risen Christ, and that His favor is toward me in Christ, and is limitless and eternal.

Then, second, toward the work of the Holy Spirit in me, my attitude is, a desire to be guided into the truth, to be obedient thereto, and to be chastened by God my Father if disobedient; to learn to pray in the Spirit, to walk by the Spirit, and to be filled with a love for the Scriptures and for the saints and for all men.

Yet none of these things justifies me! I had justification from God as a sinner, not as a saint! My saintliness does not increase it, nor, praise God, do my failures decrease it!

Footnotes:

50
The Greek expression mç-genoita, translated in both A. V, and R. V. “God forbid,” does not contain the name of God, and should not be so translated. It amounts to “Banish the thought!” Literally, it is, “Be it not so!” or, “Let it not be conceived of!” Paul uses it frequently,—as much as nine or ten times in this Epistle—to denote instant and horrified rejection of a conception.

Probably Alford is right in viewing these objecting questions “not as coming from an objector, but as asked by the apostle himself anticipating the thought of his reader.” I would suggest, however, that the questions beginning in this manner in verse 1 proceed to Paul’s thinking Jew-wise in verse 5, and finally, in verse 7, quoting verbally what a Jew (not Paul) would say. This whole passage is generally regarded as one of the most difficult in the whole Epistle. But it will, as we spend work upon it, repay us, Bunyan says:

“Hard texts are nuts—I would not call them cheaters:

Whose shells do ofttimes keep them from the eaters.”

52
We know that in this dispensation of Grace some Jewish “advantages” become actually a hindrance to one desiring to enter all Divine blessing wholly on grace grounds. This is set forth by Paul in Philippians 3:4-7 ff. There he enumerates seven natural advantages, of which, curiously, circumcision is the first mentioned, zealous persecution of the Church the sixth, and outward legal blamelessness the seventh! These were on the profit side (Greek, literally, “gains” side), of Paul’s ledger, but he transferred them to the “loss” side: “What things were gains to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.”

“As to the expression, “God’s oracles” (Gr. logia) we quote: Olshausen: “No doubt in the first place the promises (Acts 7:38; I Peter 4:11, etc.), and indeed especially those of the Messiah and the kingdom of God, to which all others were related . . . but the whole Word of God is also indicated by this expression. The Divine promises were confided to the Jews, since in what follows it is just this faithlessness (apistia) in the possession of these promises which is spoken of. The mention is made of Divine faithfulness (pistia) only in connection with this faithlessness.”

Tholuck; “Oracles (logia) here are primarily, Divine declarations; hence, particularly, promises and prophecies.”

Alford: “Not only the law of Moses, but all the revelation of God hitherto made of Himself directly, all of which had been entrusted to Jews only.”

Meyer: “Paul means the Holy Scriptures and especially the prophecies of the Messiah and the kingdom. These are not destroyed by the Jews’ unbelief.”

54
“Godet says: “God cannot become guilty of any wrong toward any being whatever. Now this is what He seems to do to the sinner, when He at once condemns and makes use of him.”

This awful list of fourteen facts about the human race, quoted from the Old Testament Scriptures, describes, of course, humanity as it is by nature. Therefore if we have believed the gospel, and are thus righteous before God in Christ, we have double reason to study these truths: first, that we may by understanding the facts, as God sees them, about ourselves, have a correct estimate of humanity, which, of course, unenlightened men never gain; and, second, that we may be constantly moved to give praise to God for His measureless grace that reached even such as we were!

Meyer’s outline of verses 10 to 18 is: “(1) A state of sin generally (verses 10-12); (2) practices of sin in words (verses 13-14); in deeds (verses 15-17); and (3) the sinful source of the whole (verse 18).”

Haldane thus sums them up: “The first of them, verse 10, prefers the general charge of unrighteousness; the second, verses 11 to 12, marks the internal character, or disorders of the heart; third, verses 13 to 14, those of the words; the fourth, verses 15 to 17, those of the actions; the last, verse 18, declares the cause “of the whole.”

56
It is striking how God uses the aorist tense here and in the previous count. The race is looked at from Adam down, and as partaking of his guilt, and wilfully in his path. Note also hemarton of verse 23: “all sinned, and are [as a result] falling short,” We shall note this word further, in Chapter 5:12.

57
This ignorance, of course, is itself a matter of guilt, as is abundantly shown in Leviticus 4:2, 13, 22, 27: “If any of the people of the land sin unwittingly in doing anything . . . and be guilty.”

58
Many insist that the words “the Law” of verse 19 include only all the quotations from Scripture from verse 9 to verse 18; and they would apply it only to the Jews, as alone possessing that Law, But God in verse 9 applies to both Jews and Greeks what is “written” in the following Scriptures (of verses 10-18). We would regard “the Law” in verse 19, then, in a stricter and more confined sense,—as when our Lord said to the Jews, “Did not Moses give you The Law?” Our Lord’s general division was “The Law and The Prophets” (Luke 16:16); and in Luke 24:44 He speaks of “the things that are written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning Me.” In John 10:34 He uses the term “Your Law,” covering even the Psalms. And yet, as we said above, the quotation from Psalm 14, includes the whole human race. And if it be argued that this psalm uses God’s name Jehovah, His special name for Israel, we reply that in the parallel psalm, the Fifty-third, the name used is God, Elohim, the Creator of the whole earth.

59
Someone says, “It is not the good works men have done so much as the good works they persuade themselves they some time will do, in which they hope.” For almost all know themselves to have failed; yet they promise themselves that they will be “better”; and the thought of being declared righteous by a work altogether outside of themselves, never once occurs to them!

By works of law shall no flesh be Justified in his sight; for through law cometh the recognition of sin (3:20).

A man is justified by faith, apart from works of law (3:28).

To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness (4:5).

Not through the Law was the promise made to Abraham . . . but through the righteousness of faith (4:13).

For if they that are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of none effect (4:14).

Through the obedience of the One shall the many be constituted righteous. And law came in alongside, that the trespass might abound (5:19, 20).

Ye are not under law, but under grace (6:14).

Ye were made dead to the Law through the body of Christ (7:4). We have been discharged from the Law (7:6).

Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth (10:4).

Until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth, it not being revealed to them that it is done away in Christ (II Corinthians 3:14).

A man is not justified by works of law but through faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16)

If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under law (Galatians 5:18). Law is not made for a righteous man (I Timothy 1:9).

For there is a disannulling of a foregoing commandment [by Him who gave it] because of its weakness and unprofitableness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and a bringing in thereupon of a better hope, [Christ’s work] through which we draw nigh unto God (Hebrews 7:18, 19).

61
The absence of the definite article, the, before the word law, in 3:21, 28, 31; 4:13, etc., shows that it is the abstract principle of law that is before us rather than the specific, concrete, thing—the Law of Moses, the ten commandments. It will become evident to us that God is dealing with men now upon a different principle altogether than that of law: for grace confers the blessing, and lets the fruit flow from “faith working through love” by the power of the Spirit. Law demands fulfilment of conditions before blessing: grace announces that Christ has fulfilled all conditions.

62
“The Law has no such office in the present state of human nature manifested in history and in Scripture as to render righteous: its office is altogether different, viz., to detect and bring to light the sinfulness af man” (Alford).

63
Your body—you are waiting for the redemption of that. But your body is only the “tabernacle” in which you dwell,—it is not yourself. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (I Corinthians 6:17).

64
Peter indeed declares that “God had foreshawed by the mouth of all the prophets that His Christ shoudl suffer” and “to Him bear all the prophets witness, that through His name every one that believeth on Him shall reeive remission of sins” (Acts 3:18; 10:43). It is well to remember that Paul reminds his hearers in Pisidian Antioch that it is possible to hear the prophets read and really not understand “the voice of the prophets” nor Him of whom they spake (Acts 13:27).

“The resurrection of Christ was not only Divine power in life; there was another truth in it. Divine righteousness was shown in it. His Father’s glory, all that the Son was to Him, was concerned in His resurrection; Christ having perfectly glorified God in dying, and having finished His Father’s work, Divine righteousness was involved in His resurrection. And He was raised, and righteousness identified with a new state into which man, in Him, was brought; and more than that, indeed, for more was justly due to Him—He was set in glory as man at the right hand of God. Not only did the blessed Lord meet for us who believe all our sin as children of Adam, by His death, so as to clear us according to the glory of God from it all in His sight; but He perfectly glorified God Himself in so doing. Man, in the person of Christ, then entered into the glory of God. ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him, . . . and shall straightaway glorify Him.’ But all Christ’s work was wrought in us; our sin was put away by it. Christ, as having thus glorified all God is, is our righteousness. We are thus ‘the righteousness of God in Him.’

“Either Christ, in His own present perfectness, risen from the dead, is my righteousness, His place my place, and I myself absolutely dead and gone as regards the old man; or I am making Christ a completer of my standing, as alive in the old man. Scripture teaches me that I am not alive as a child of Adam in this world. ‘If ye died with Christ . . . why as though alive in the world? says Paul.

“And now I am in Christ, risen and ascended; and have no righteousness to make out, but to glorify God as His child, being the righteousness of God in Christ already. My defects have nothing to do with my righteousness. They have with respect to my living to God and enjoying communion with Him” (Darby).

66
We call attention to the error in the King James Version at the end of Romans 5:11 where those translators render “atonement” when it should be “reconciliation” (katallangç). Therefore, properly speaking, the idea of covering up sin (“atonement,” kaphar, of the Old Testament) is entirely absent in any mention in the New Testament of the effect of Christ’s sacrifice, which does not cover up but puts away sin from God’s sight forever.

67
The “righteousness of God” is the justification of the sinner, is His own attribute of righteousness; that is, His acting in accordance with His own holy nature; manifested, however, not in demanding righteousness from the sinner, but in setting the believing sinner in His own presence, because of the righteous judgment of his sins already visited by God upon his Subtitute, Christ. And God is not only Himself righteous, in remitting the penalty of sin; but He sets the sinner in the very standing in which Christ is, with Him!

68
Of course, God will—does—give him life: it is “justification of life,” in Christ. But he is justified, accounted righteous, while ungodly; and only by the blood of Christ. God will also finally, indeed, present him faultless. But he declares him righteous upon believing—while he is ungodly! If God changed him first, he would not be “ungodly.”

We are glad to note, in Sanday and Headlam’s Romans, this word regarding William Kelly’s Notes on Romans: “His Notes are written from a detached and peculiar standpoint; but they are the fruit of sound scholarship, and of prolonged and devout study, and they deserve more attention than they have received.” This is a fair and honest admission. For its irrefutable setting forth of truth, its Christian fairness and love, and its brevity, make Kelly’s Notes invaluable.

Men prefer “belonging” to a system: (1) Because where faith is not vigorous it comforts the flesh to find oneself among a party.(2) Where direct personal knowledge of Scripture is lacking it is a comfort to the heart to be told “authoritatively” what to believe—what the party to which one belongs, holds, (3) It is abhorrent to the flesh to walk by the Spirit. It is infinitely easier to be occupied with the “Christian duties” practiced or prescribed by your sect. (4) The flesh cannot bear to be little, despised, but desires to be of those that have the regard of “the Christian world” (an awful phrase!). (5) Even among the most earnest Christians the temptation and the tendency have always been to seize upon those truths emphasized by the leaders of the sect they follow and claim those truths and principles as their own! But this in effect denies the unity of the Body of Christ, and that all truth belongs to the whole Church of God.

Now all this is of the very essence of Sectarianism. If your Christian consciousness is of anyone but Christ as Head over all things to the Church, and of any body but the Body of Christ, of which all true believers are members, and you members of them—then you are on forbidden, sectarian, “carnal” ground: “For when one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men . . . are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of men?”

70
I often quote I Timothy 1:15 to inquiring sinners: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” In response to my question, they confess that “came” is in the past tense. Then I say, “How sad that you and I were not there, so that He might have saved us, for He has now gone back to heaven!” This shuts them up to contemplate the work Christ finished when He was here; upon which work, and God’s Word concerning it, sinners must rest: that is faith.

I have found Mr. Darby’s explanations of “God’s righteousness” more clear and illuminating than those of any other. It is therefore unfortunate, as it seems to me, that he adds to verse 22 the confusing phrase, “and upon all.” I ask, what is “upon all”? If, as Mr. Darby holds, the act of justification is a forensic one, a declaration about a sinner who believes, accounting him righteous (although he is not intrinsically so), then why add that this righteousness is “upon” him? For the human mind is unable to conceive of a meaning for such a phrase other than something that a man does not possess being placed upon his person. But this is the exact meaning that Mr. Darby so constantly and justly wars against!

The very thing Mr. Darby so assiduously avoids, that is, the bestowal on a person of a quality, (or of, as he says, “a quantum of righteousness”), he opens the way to, in retaining the phrase “and upon all.” Bishop Moule, for example, remarks: “As to ‘unto all and upon all,’ the Greek phrases respectively indicate destination and bestowal. The sacred pardon was prepared for all believers, and is actually laid upon them as a ‘robe of righteousness.’” We would expect such a comment as this from a churchman, or any one of the Reformation theologians, but it is the very thing that Paul does not say; and it darkens all counsel concerning justification.

The expressions “the righteousness of Christ,” “the merits of Christ,” though not in Scripture, are continually in the mouths even of earnest men, who do not see that our history in Adam ended at the cross, that we died with Christ, and now share His risen life; and that we therefore do not need to have anything whatever ‘put upon” us, nor any qualities or “merits” of Christ made the basis of God’s blessing us. We were in Adam: we are now in Christ, standing in the full, the infinitely complete acceptance of Christ’s own Person!

We gravely fear that some brethren, in their resentment against the Revised Version (which we well know is not perfect, though incomparably more accurate than the King James), have kept this phrase “and upon all,” in spite of the fact that the earliest manuscripts do not have it. Bishop Gore well remarks, “It is not an exaggeration to say that, in this and very many places of the epistles, the Revised Version for the first time renders the thought of the apostles again intelligible to the English reader. And if the Revised Version is not popular, this is, I fear, only a sign that the majority of English Christians do not really care to understand the meaning of the message with which, as a matter of words, they are familiar.”

Mr. Darby himself says that neither the Reformers nor any other human teachers, are an authority for him, so we, agreeing, say that Mr. Darby is in no sense an authority for any Christian. “Prove all things,” said the Apostle.

F. W. Grant admits that the earliest manuscripts omit “and upon all.” He then says, “The earliest of all is corrected.” But why was the earliest manuscript “corrected”? Some hand of legal unbelief “corrected” that manuscript, we certainly believe.

Sanday frankly says: “These words, ‘and upon all,’ are wanting in the best manuscripts, and should be omitted.” As also agrees an excellent Plymouth Brother: “The best Uncial mss. omit ‘and upon all.’ The context confirms the correctness of this, for the Apostle is writing of those who are justified (verse 24)” (C. E. Stuart).

Godet remarks, “The aorist hçmarton, ‘sinned,’ transports us to the point of time when the result of human life appears as a completed fact, the hour of judgment.” With this Burton agrees, calling it a “collective aorist.” See Sanday.

This word is a verb, second aorist tense, meaning, in Paul’s epistles to miss the mark; then, to err, to wander from the path of righteousness; then, to do or go wrong; then, to violate God’s law,—to sin. As we all know, the aorist is a statement of past fact, not of present condition or fact; neither does it have the force of the perfect,—that is, of the finishing of prolonged action.

The King James version translates the same verb-form in 5:12 also: “all have sinned,” It is our contention that this too is an incorrect translation, beclouding the meaning of Scripture.

It is remarkable in 3:23 that a past tense should be used for the verb sin, and a present tense for the universal consequent result! As we find throughout Scripture, the sin of Adam is evermore in the Divine view. “Thy first father sinned,” is God’s continual testimony. The consequent translation of this aorist hçmarton in 5:12 is, “all sinned”—that is, in Adam’s act; and also in 3:23; “all sinned [in Adam] and [consequently] are falling short of the glory of God”: the history of the whole race since.

Of course it will be objected that individual sins and transgressions are treated in the first three chapters of Romans, and federal sin not until the second part of Chapter Five, where the two federal men, Adam and Christ, are set forth, and the effects of their representative acts contrasted. This is true, but why the same aorist form in both 3.23 and 5.12?

Even if Paul used hçmarton in 3.23 as summing up in one word the actions of both Gentiles and Jews as detailed in 1:18 to 3:18, we must still note that it is the aorist and not the perfect tense that he uses. It would then resemble the use of the same aorist, hçmarton, in 2:12: “as many as sinned without law,”—the aorist here expressing the life-choice, looked at in the day of judgment as a past act (as see Godet above). This would make 3:23 say: all made the life-choice of sin,—which we know is not true of those whom God saves and delivers. So that it seems best to read “all sinned,”—as God’s view of men looked at as being sinners, indeed; but their sin a past fact—soon to be connected definitely with Adam’ (5.12, ff.)

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“Passing by or over”; Xenophon uses this word thus: “A trainer of horses should not let such faults pass by unpunished”—Hipparchus 7.10.

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There are, respecting human sin, three judgment-days: (1) of the human race, in Eden; (2) of human sin, at the cross; and (3) of human rebels, at the Great White Throne of Revelation 20.

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Azazel, the Hebrew word, means goat of dismissal, or departure, figuring most vividly the effect for Israel of the blood shed by the first goat: for the two goats are one in representing Christ’s work in its double effect. First, as answering all the claims of the being and throne of a holy, righteous God; and, second, in removing the transgressions from the people “as far as the east is from the west.”

The meaning of the Greek word hilastçrion, translated “propitiation” in Romans 3:25 plainly is, propitiatory sacrifice. How else could it be for “the showing of God’s righteousness”? If we translate it only “mercy-seat,” we forget that it was the propitiatory sacrifice, in its death, which made a mercy-seat possible. It was the slain goat, on the Day of Atonement, (in Leviticus 16:15), the blood of which was brought in to be sprinkled upon and before the mercy-seat. The righteousness of Jehovah was proclaimed in the offering’s death, and in the meeting, on the ground of this shed blood, of Jehovah and man, at the mercy-seat. Therefore righteousness is set forth in the death of the victim; mercy in its effect at the “mercy-seat.”

It will he noticed that all explanations (of hilastçrion) rest on the thought that “Christ’s death was sacrificial and expiatory; a real atonement, required by something in the character of God, and not merely designed to effect moral results in man. We may not know all that this propitiation involves, but since God Himself was willing to instruct His ancient people, by types, of this reality, we ought to know something positive respecting it. The atoning death of Christ is the ground of the ‘reconciliation,’ since it satisfies the demands of Divine justice on the one hand, and on the other draws men to God. Independently of the former, the latter could not be more than a groundless human feeling” (Schaff and Riddle).

“All that God was in His nature, He was, necessarily, against sin. For, though He was love, love has no place in wrath against sin, and the withdrawal of the sense of it—consciousness in the soul of the privation of God, is the most dreadful of all sufferings, the most terrible horror to him who knows it: but Christ knew it infinitely. But God’s Divine majesty, His holiness, His righteousness. His truth, all in their very nature bore against Christ as made sin for us. All that God was, was against sin, and Christ was made sin. No comfort of love enfeebled wrath there. Never was the obedient Christ so precious; but His soul was to be made an offering for sin, and to bear it judicially before God” (Darby).

The doctrine of atonement produces in us its proper effect when it leads us to see and feel that God is just; that He is infinitely gracious; that we are deprived of all ground of boasting; that the way of salvation, which is open for us, is open for all men; and that the motives to all duty, instead of being weakened, are enforced and multiplied.

“In the gospel all is harmonious: Justice and mercy, as it regards God; freedom from the Law, and the strongest obligations to obedience, as it regards men” (Hodge).

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“The great idea in all these offerings (of Leviticus) was that the life of the victim was accepted for the life of the offerer” Angus-Green.

Exodus 3:5: Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

19:22: And let the priests also. that come near to Jehovah, sanctify themselves, lest Jehovah break forth upon them.

24:1, 2: Worship ye afar off, and Moses alone shall come near unto Jehovah; but they shall not come near; neither shall the people go up with him.

Exodus 24:17: And the appearance of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.

Leviticus 9:7: And Moses said unto Aaron, Draw near unto the altar, and offer thy sin-offering, and thy burnt-offering, and make atonement.

10:1-3: Nadab and Abiliu offered strange fire before Jehovah . . . And there came forth fire from before Jehovah, and devoured them, and they died before Jehovah. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that Jehovah spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.

Deuteronomy 4:24: For Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a Jealous God.

5:4, 5: Jehovah spake with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire . . . ye were afraid because of the fire, and went not up into the mount.

Isaiah 33:14: The sinners in Zion are afraid: trembling hath seized the godless ones: Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire? who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?

Hebrews 12:29: For our God is a consuming fire.

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As one has quaintly said, “The Feast of Mercy was on, and the damsel Grace was at the door, admitting everyone who came on the ground of mercy alone. Old Mr. Boasting, in a high hat and fine suit, presented himself. ‘Oh,’ said Grace, as she quickly shut the door in his face, ‘There is no room for you here! The people here are feasting on the free gifts of God.’ So Mr. Boasting was shut out!”

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As to the “modernist,” being more shallow by far than even the Sadducees of our Lord’s day, he is not even exercised in his conscience concerning the Law, or the difference between law and grace as a means of righteousness,—of righteous standing with God. For, forsooth, the “modernist” has already a “character,” an “innate nobility,” though where the poor fellow gets these things, alas, who can discern? We know from Scripture that his first father was Adam; and that this “modernist,” was, like David, “shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin.” We have immeasurably more respect for a Jew, who is at least endeavoring by his imagined law-keeping to attain righteousness,—which presupposes that he knows he has it not! Even the Seventh Day Adventists, with their unscriptural bondage to law, are worried in conscience: the “modernist” is smugly secure, for what means Thus saith the Lord to him? But wait—till he faces the Great White Throne!

Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded