ROMANS 3 (FROM CAC'S NOTES)
ROMANS 3 (FROM CAC’S NOTES)
Paul must have thought of what he was himself in writing Romans 2: 17 - 20. But he had to find that he was transgressing the law all the time. Here it is not quite a question of the spirituality of the law but of its actual precepts: he does show here that the outward is not sufficient. One must be right inwardly. The law required what was inward in the last commandment. It is only as having Christ and the Spirit that we can be circumcised in heart and spirit. The natural man can follow the letter of things but he cannot touch the spirit. God is occupied with the inward. Outwardly we may take on the colour of our surroundings. A woman broke bread for years but said she had never been in fellowship. Are we inwardly in what we profess? This requires faith in exercise all the time and walking in the Spirit.
The Jew has a great advantage outwardly and first indeed in having the oracles of God. They put us in direct contact with the source of faith. All that faith requires for its foundation is there. The faith of God is the faith that has God as Object and it is ever the result of new birth. God’s righteousness in chapter 3: 5 is that He has said what was true about man.
Righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ. It is by the coming in of One wholly of God and without sin so that by faith in Him we may acquire the gain of what is in another Man. It is not setting up the man of the previous verses but the heart giving place by faith to God’s Man. So that righteousness of God is towards all but it is towards all by faith of Jesus Christ. A perfect righteousness and wholly of God, it comes in to be upon all those who believe. All may have it, but only by faith of Jesus Christ. This is the way in which righteousness of God becomes available for all men. It is by [p. 436] one Man. The whole race of mankind has been shown to have no righteousness, but righteousness of God comes in by the faith of another Man. Every other has sinned and come short of the glory of God. But this Man did not come short. It is in connection with the perfection of Christ that righteousness of God comes in. What is put upon the believer is according to God’s estimate of righteousness — what is wholly of Himself. Faith gets it.
Being justified freely by His grace: the believer can be divinely cleared of all charge without the slightest worthiness on his part — freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. The whole power and value of what brings it about is redemption, and this wholly of God in Christ Jesus. Redemption is in the Man of God’s purpose.
God has set Him forth on His own part as a Mercy-seat in His blood. The value of it extended back to all the Old Testament believers. And it extends to all New Testament believers also in a fuller way for they are justified and know it. And the righteousness they have is solely of God. It is entirely in the value of Christ and His death so that it can be said that they are justified in Christ (Galatians 2: 17).
The whole state of man as under sin is brought out in Romans 1 - Romans 3. It is evident that it is no use to make a demand on him for righteousness or to answer to the glory of God. If the state of things is to be met God must undertake everything Himself. Sin having come in it must be displaced by righteousness, and this brought in by God Himself. The whole of Scripture shows that God was the only One who could act in the presence of sin and death so that His own glory might be met and His creature set up in a way that was suitable to Himself. What God would be for His creature came out in promise before, but now it has come out in a wonderful way in Jesus Christ. If men have the faith of Jesus Christ the Son of God they see how God has undertaken everything. A divine Person in manhood who shows what was in God for man. And it is for everybody; God is great [p. 437] enough to be known as supplying all that is needed by every human being. The provision of righteousness means the undoing of the works of the devil. All are alike in sinning and coming short; all may be alike in being invested with divine righteousness. This provision of divine righteousness means that those who get it are justified. They are righteously cleared before God of all that attached to them as members of a sinful race. God is set before us in the glad tidings as One who blots out fully and in perfect grace the whole dark history set forth in Romans 1 - Romans 3. To be justified means that God has absolutely nothing against the believer. It is in God’s mind that things shall be on this footing through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Such is the saving grace of God and such is the value of redemption that every believer is as free from every charge of sin as if he had never been a sinful creature. Christ Jesus is a dignified title of our precious Saviour! It speaks of Him as anointed to do a greater work than creation. The Creator has become the Redeemer and redemption is in all the infinite value and glory of His person. He is set forth on God’s part as a Mercy-seat in the value of His blood. God is willing to justify at His own cost and to provide for His own glory at the same time (see Leviticus 16). There has been consuming judgment outside the camp. At what a cost God has secured to Himself the right to justify! The mercy-seat has the blood upon it — the witness of death. God has been glorified by the sentence of death coming upon One who came under it in grace and obedience. God’s glory in grace to the sinful creature has been brought out in a superlative way. And it is for faith to lay hold of it. And that shows how God was acting in righteousness when He passed by the sins of Old Testament believers. We see His righteousness in the present time also. But justification is not the setting up of the sinful man again, but the putting the believer in the presence of God entirely on the ground of Christ and His death. To put one spot back upon the believer would be to rob God of His glory as the [p. 438] Justifier, and to rob Christ of the glory of redemption. The whole matter is covered by the law of faith. We see by faith that it is the pleasure of God to justify. It is the putting of His creature before Him completely free from the stain and reproach of sin and really in Christ (Galatians 2: 17). The righteousness of God is seen in putting believers before Himself absolutely free from all charge, as invested with all that He has brought in in Christ. God has done it all. The righteousness of God is a greater thing than any human righteousness could be, however perfect. Christ raised again for our justification shows that justification gives us the status with God of Christ risen. Indeed He is our righteousness — we are set up quite apart from any righteousness that could be ours as living in this world. Faith is rightly prominent as being a divine principle in the soul of man.
God reckons righteousness to the one who has faith (Romans 4: 6, 11). It is free grace acting on the ground of redemption: Christ in the value of His blood is the sacrificial basis of it, but faith is the principle on which it comes to the soul. A divine principle is brought into the soul of man — the man becomes marked by receiving a report that comes from God. There is a moral foundation in the man which is of God. Now God provides that where there is this foundation righteousness shall be, so to speak, attached to it, and that this shall be made known so as to be the known principle on which we are with God. The whole state of the fallen man has been dealt with in the death of Christ as well as the sins that accrue out of that state. Death was upon man and this could only be set aside by resurrection power. That power has acted for man in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that resurrection enters into our justification. We are just as helpless in this matter of justification as if we were actually dead but God has raised our Lord Jesus Christ from among the dead.
A question was raised as to the difference between forgiveness and justification. “God was in Christ, reconciling ..., not reckoning to them their offences”. Now forgiveness is [p. 439] preached so that man may be encouraged to turn to God. He is in the attitude of forgiveness and peace known through Christ and through His death. Peter calls upon the men at Jerusalem to be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. But we must go to Paul to learn about justification and having faith reckoned as righteousness. Justification and having faith reckoned as righteousness belong to Paul’s gospel. It was through faith, not through works, that Abraham was righteous. Now God justifies the ungodly, and He is to be believed on in that character, and the one who does has his faith reckoned to him as righteousness. David declares the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness without works, and we learn from this that the forgiven man has his faith reckoned to him as righteousness. Righteousness is reckoned to all them that believe. If it is faith the matter is altogether of God; He sets us up in a subsisting righteousness according to grace; He would make sure that all that He has in mind — the promise — shall be brought to pass. We find a seed here who is to be brought into all that God has before Him for men. He then brings into view God’s quickening power and His giving a name to what had not existed before. Now the heavenly seed has come in on the principle of resurrection power. Now we believe on God as the One who has raised our Lord Jesus from among the dead. Our justification is connected with resurrection and it is therefore not for this world but for God’s world.
If God reckons righteousness to a man in virtue of faith it is for evermore (Psalm 106: 31). The righteousness that is reckoned must be according to what the man believes. If God reckons righteousness to a man it is according to His own thought of righteousness. That is, it is in perfect contrast to the whole state of man as under sin. There is substance in it. For God is known as having adjusted the whole matter perfectly. And this even for the ungodly. What is God’s grace? What is redemption’s worth? What is the free gift of righteousness? ‘The state of accomplished subsisting righteousness before God, in which justification places us’ (see note k to Romans 5: 16).
Five times the promise is referred to in the latter part of Romans 4. The promise is what God has set before faith, for us, that we should come into all the wealth of the new Head, leading up to eternal life.
Righteousness means that all the disorder brought in by sin has been adjusted to God’s satisfaction. Is it not mainly the righteousness of God in chapter 3 and the righteousness of faith in chapter 4? Down to the end of chapter 4 the truth of the glad tidings is stated in a general way. There is no personal appropriation. But when God is believed on as the Raiser up of the Lord Jesus, that faith is reckoned as righteousness and there is appropriation. Having been justified on the principle of faith clearly shows that there has been appropriation, for it is said, “We have peace towards God”. So that there is no known justification until God is known and believed on as the Raiser up of Jesus our Lord. Many are attracted to the blessed Person presented in the gospels and have joy in thinking of Him in His wondrous grace, and many value His death as the only ground of forgiveness and blessing, but they can hardly be said to be justified by faith. They are not set by faith in a state of accomplished subsisting righteousness before God. So that it has been said that we do not believe on His death apart from His resurrection. Until God comes before the soul as the Object of confidence as raising up the Lord Jesus there can hardly be said to be justification by faith. A man may be justified in the sight of God long before he can appropriate chapter 5: 1. It may sound strange, but it is true, that generally we have to learn the gospel after we are converted. There was no one in the state of a risen man for the eternal pleasure of God until Jesus our Lord was raised, but He was put in that position for our justification. Our sins were upon Him vicariously on the cross, but that they are all gone does not quite give the divine [p. 441] measure of the justification. We must see God putting His blessed Son in a position where no sins or sin could ever be imputed to Him again for all eternity. Now we confide in God as the One who has raised Him because His mind was to have us as clear before Him as the risen Christ. We have to learn all this from Paul. Peter will not tell us, nor even John. We must come to the apostle of the Gentiles.
Then our Lord Jesus Christ is seen as the great Administrator in the kingdom of God. He brings to us all that God is in blessing for us, and it comes through the risen and glorified Man. It is God’s favour into which the justified enter, and they obtain and possess it. This enters into all our relations with God. We stand in it; it is a fixed position. And it is by faith and we boast in hope of the glory of God. The more the glory shines out the happier it is for us. The time is drawing near when there will not be one bit of the glory of man to be seen.
But then it brings in what might seem to be a strange thing. We boast in tribulations also. Tribulations compel us to bring God in in a proved way, and that tests as to what value we really put upon God. Moses persevered as seeing Him who is invisible. The more we prove God the more hopeful we are, because we know that what He has been in the past He will be in the future. And hope in God will never let us down, for the Holy Spirit has been given to us to shed abroad the love of God in our hearts. If we take the steps up to this point we shall not fail to prove this. But if we try to follow a crooked path we shall find there is an obstruction. The Holy Spirit will not take the crook out. We must do that. How He sheds the love of God abroad is by bringing the death of Christ before us. This is not for sinners to hear but for saints.
It is well that we should understand the difference between justification and reconciliation and particularly in the way in which they work out in our souls. Justification leaves me clear in conscience so that I have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But the effect of reconciliation is to [p. 442] bring me near. Justification is how I stand righteously before God in a state of accomplished subsisting righteousness of which Christ is the expression. But it does not in itself suggest nearness. Nearness comes in in relation to moral distance. Enemies are persons in moral distance. If two persons need to be reconciled it shows that distance has come in between them. How great was the distance that sin brought in between man and God! It is not only that I have committed sins but my whole state is one of distance from God.
Indeed it is the distance of death. Now God has removed the distance in the death of His Son. We get the thought of a divine righteousness brought in in the coats of skin but not that of nearness to God. But in Abel, I think we may say there is a certain hint of nearness, followed up by Enoch and Noah walking with God. Now it seems to me that reconciliation underlies this. I do not say it was brought out then but we can look at it now in the light of what has come out since.
The death of His Son seems to bring out in a remarkable way how God’s affections enter into this. At all cost to His own love He would remove the distance and it was really by removing the man who was the enemy. We were naturally enemies. What hard thoughts of God; what rebellion; what infidelity! The prodigal illustrates distance, but the moment he returned to God in mind he found that the father removed the distance. The Son of God came into the distance that we are in and removed it so that when the prodigal wanted nearness he found no obstacle in the way. The same gospel that tells us we are justified tells us that we are reconciled. But we have to receive it by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we can understand why the saints boast in God. He has undertaken to remove the distance to His own satisfaction that we might be near to Him in the joy of what He has brought to pass. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Administrator of all that is in the heart of God for us. He brings it all out in the fullest possible way. The Lord’s table and His supper are in His administration of love. They present His death in view [p. 443] of nearness. If we are in the fellowship of His death we will part from the man of distance. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes before us as ministering to us all that is in Himself of what God is in His wondrous thoughts to usward. So that the Supper and what follows it ministers to the thought of nearness. We move with Christ into the great thoughts of God which are set forth in Him. In a word, we come to Christ as Head. All the teaching of Romans from chapter 3 to chapter 5: 11 is leading us to the apprehension of an order of things which all flows out of the relation in which Christ stands as Head. His place is emphasised in contrast with the first man.
The Spirit of God is leading us in Romans 5: 12, etc., to see how much can come in by one man. The whole history of the world sets it forth. God has given everybody the opportunity to see it for themselves. Adam is thus one of the greatest types of Christ in the Old Testament; a figure of Him to come. Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even when there was no law to break. Now if so much resulted from the act of one man it ought to touch us to think of how much came by another one Man. If God is pleased to perform a great act of favour will it not be suitable that the results shall correspond with the results of the offence? The act of favour is the bringing in of a new Head. No one can deny that he has been affected by headship. Every man has come under sin and death by having a false head. The most important question that can be raised is, is there another head? If there is it is by an act of favour on God’s part. The grace of God and the free gift in grace is by the one Man, Jesus Christ. Now it is for everyone to enquire what has come by that one Man. The grace of God will never be understood until it is seen as coming by the one Man. He was full of grace and truth. Mercy is great in the need that it meets, but grace is great in the thought of the One who exercises it. Those who were conscious that they were under sin and death met with nothing but grace in Jesus. He declared God from the bosom of the Father. The Father is the name of grace; He judges no [p. 444] man. Then the free gift in grace is, as I see it, His righteousness. As justified we are set up in righteousness before God. Any man can be justified by coming to the knowledge of God in grace. God’s great act of favour is that if we have many offences there is justification for us through Christ (see note k to chapter 5: 16). The abundance of grace and of the free gift of righteousness — everyone who really sees the abundance of grace in Christ receives it. The god of this world blinds men’s eyes so that the light should not shine forth for them. Those who do receive reign in life by the One, Jesus Christ. That involves deliverance. The one righteousness comes in here as towards all men. That is the great act of righteousness upon the cross; sins were judged there; sin in the flesh was condemned; the penalty of death borne. God was glorified in the highest possible way. This is for the benefit of all men, but those who come into the benefit have justification of life. They live soberly, righteously and piously in the present course of things.
As to verse 19, it does not say by one obedience, but by the obedience of the One, thus leaving room for the whole precious obedience of Christ to have its part and place. That is, our link with Christ is surely to be as real as our link with Adam. We were naturally linked with Adam but we are spiritually linked with Christ. And such are constituted righteous. It is utterly foreign to a believer to steal or defraud or tell a lie. Indeed he is marked by love which fulfils the law. Grace has overabounded so that it might reign through righteousness to eternal life. It is really the blessing of the gospel enjoyed under the reign of grace. As we know, it is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is in that Person.
One offence had its bearing towards all men to condemnation, but now there is one righteousness which has its bearing towards all men to justification of life. God would call the attention of all men to that one act of righteousness. It is the precious work of Christ looked at in its universal bearing; the one righteousness — the dealing with all that the first man [p. 445] brought in, in a perfectly righteous way to the glory of God, so that men may come into the value of it and may begin to live as completely detached from their former life of sin. Those who take in the meaning of the one righteousness do not go on with what was condemned in it. They take sides with God in accepting the rightness of what was done at the cross. They come into line with it and they do not go on sinning. The following chapters open this out. They bring out what justification of life really is. The one righteousness was accomplished altogether outside of us but it was accomplished that a certain effect might be produced in us. It is a fact that those who are affected by the one righteousness do not go on as sinning. There is justification in a practical sense — that is of life. This is the result seen as it is worked out; the thing in view. The effect of the one righteousness is to lead men to judge what has been judged there. And if I judge a thing I do not go on with it. We begin to measure everything by the standard of the cross. If I judge everything that was judged at the cross I shall be in justification of life.
Then the obedience of One is the converse to this. That is, we see in the obedience of Christ the perfect answer to the will of God in a positive way. It takes in His whole life from the manger to the cross. That element of obedience enters into the whole fibre of the believer’s life. He is constituted righteous. And grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life. The elements that hindered entrance into eternal life are eliminated.
Now we can see how it is assumed that believers have died to sin. It is that principle which has come into the world by one man, an all-pervading principle. We have only got out of it through the death of Christ. It is not only to Christ that we have been baptised but to His death. As to the whole character of our old life we are buried by baptism unto death. Something of the radiance of the Father’s glory is to be seen as the believer walks in newness of life. Jesus is seen here as the Pattern; in chapter 5 He is the last Adam. A baptised [p. 446] man is inconsistent if he walks in the life of the old man. We are justified from sin as having died with Christ. We are coming out in the likeness of His resurrection; now that is to be so morally at the present time. If we are not identified with Christ in death we have no blessing at all.
Christ was great enough to bring everything that had come in by Adam before God for judgment, but this is the way of grace to men that men might be morally adjusted and recovered for God. And this through the acceptance of a divinely appointed Head.
We have seen what a glorious Head has been divinely provided by God’s act of favour and that the faith of Him and of what has accrued through Him results in believers reigning in life and having justification of life and being constituted righteous. It is easy to see that this involves complete severance from the evil principle that came in by Adam; a severance so complete that death is the only adequate expression of it. So that the relation of the believer to sin is that he is dead to it; and this was brought before us in a striking way in our baptism. We were baptised to death, even to the death of Christ. Those who baptised us knew that the only right ground for the children of Adam to be on is that of identification with Christ in death. The man identified with the principle of evil must come under death, but the wonderful thing is that that is now set forth in the way of grace, for Christ has been into death. The judgment of the disobedient man has been borne by the obedient Man that the disobedient man might disappear, and that we might walk in newness of life so that our practical life might be of a new order morally. “Knowing ... that our old man has been crucified with him” (Romans 6: 6), so that all that expresses the will of the fallen man might be ended “that we should no longer serve sin. For he that has died is justified from sin”; he can no longer be charged with sin when he is dead.
We are only baptised once. We come on to the ground of Christ and His death and there is no going back, any more [p. 447] than the Israelites could go back over the Red Sea. We are buried with Him and we do not come back again in the old character of life at all. What a precious thing to know this — to obey it from the heart! If we obey from the heart it is evident that we have come under the new Head in our affections. So that the newness of life is that we now walk in relation to Christ; the word ‘with’ occurs five times in Romans 6: 4 - 8. His death was necessary to sever our link with the old life; we should have no title to break away from our old head if Christ had not died, so that our identification with His death is our liberation from that link. Our old man was the man linked with Adam, and he was crucified with Christ. This is so that the whole body of sin might be annulled, not merely certain members annulled, but the whole body, that is the whole man displaced by another Man. It is not correcting details but the whole body annulled so that we do not serve that principle any more. It is only as having died with Christ that we are justified from sin. I have to obey this from the heart. This is not experience but divine instruction. As having died with Christ we shall also live with Him; this reaches on to all the future. Christ does not go back to His life in flesh, holy as it was. He is now for ever beyond death. From chapter 6: 12 it is the believer practically.
Believers as having obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which they were instructed have obtained freedom from sin. As having come under the new Head they have received abundance of grace and of the free gift of righteousness; they are under grace; they have changed their headship. They are free and they have power; not exactly here the power of the Spirit but the power of the new system of grace as brought in in the new Head. So that now the believer is in control of his mortal body. It is not exactly here what the Spirit does but what the believer does. He is not to let sin reign. There are lusts connected with the mortal body but if we obey them we are not reigning in life. Our members are viewed here as instruments of which we have charge.
[p. 448] They were formerly instruments of unrighteousness for, indeed, we were free from righteousness. Our whole life was a doing of our own will; it was bondage to the principle that came in by Adam. But we are entitled to be free from that principle as being dead with Christ so that we may yield ourselves to God as alive out of death. We are to understand that we have come out of death as under the grace of our new Head. As knowing the grace of God in the new Head I may live out of my previous state of death and as having been instructed in the form of teaching. We are now to live as in relation to the new Head and we yield ourselves to God as living in a way that He can take account of as being alive. Now the members are to be instruments of righteousness to God. It is most blessed to think of God having a people really alive to Him and whose members are actively serviceable to righteousness for His pleasure. It shows the power of the new economy.
But then this must be a practical thing. We are bondmen either of sin or of obedience, but through God’s grace we have moved in our affections into obedience. This act of yielding is a definite act on the part of the believer. He is now found as superior to the power of sin; he has come out of the surrounding death as alive and is now to be yielded to God as free from sin. The prodigal was alive when he came to the father’s house. It is not exactly the power of the Spirit here but what the believer is constitutionally as under grace in the new Head. It is possible to yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but this is never to be done by the believer. We are to yield ourselves as a once accomplished act to God. It is due to His grace that He should have us, and not only are our members to be instruments of righteousness, but they are to be so to God. We are now bondmen to the principle of obedience, and nothing is right that is not the outcome of obedience. We have become bondmen to righteousness as in contrast with sin. It is bondage as being a condition from which there is no escape, and it is entered [p. 449] upon by a conscious act of yielding. Being bondmen to God is a great privilege. We have our fruit unto holiness and the end eternal life. Yielding to God is a movement of life — it is a great delight to God. We live on the principle of faith in chapter 1; that is how we live objectively by what we know of God in His revealed grace, but now we live out of death for God’s pleasure. There is life there with great potentialities, for it is evidenced by yielding ourselves to God. There is a sense of His pleasure in us morally for our members are instruments of righteousness to God. It is His own work coming to light in a practical way. The first use of our members to please God is an indispensable thing in conversion. “Behold, he is praying” (Acts 9: 11).
We are under the domination of grace. Believers are a new race morally, marked by obedience. One act of lawlessness leads to another, but every act of righteousness leads in the direction of holiness. That is a state of heart that repels what is evil by its own purity.