Hope of Righteousness

Galatiaxs V. 5. — “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.”

Ii partially sanctified human nature we discern a uniform tendency to slide away from a religion that is spiritual, to one wliicli is outward and ceremonial. Carnal, self-righteous man loves to have something palpable in his hand, which he can show as his title.. though it be only a cross, or a string of beads, or a sacrament. Among early Christians, no sooner was the Evangelist or Apostle out of the way, than they strayed off after some false teacher. The simplicity and the liberty of Gospel grace were both yielded. “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years,” verse 10; “I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” They stood not fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free, but, under the guidance of false teachers, had entangled themselves with the Judaic yoke, of which circumcision was the pledge and sign. The consequence of this, as Paul assures the Galatians, was very serious. Those who did so under the idea of being thereby justified in the sight of God, had abandoned the free Gospel. “Ye are fallen from grace,” verse 4; “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.”

This is a proposition which merits our study, as confirming the evangelical spirit on a particular point, not confined to Galatia or to apostolic days. We shall inquire first what righteousness is; secondly, what the hope of righteousness is; thirdly, whence righteousness and hope proceed; and fourthly, by what agency this happy state of mind is wrouo-ht.

I. What is Kighteousness? It is that which puts us right in the sight of God. It is legal rightness. When the rule is applied to a surface in carpentry, and all is coincident,^ we say it is right. When the moral rule, the Law, is applied to human character and deeds, and all is in full conformity, we say such character and deeds are right, and such person is righteous. Observe, though the same person may be inwardly virtuous or holy, and relatively righteous, the two notions are different. The perfect man, for example, unfallen Adam, would be righteous on account of his holiness, but the former is distinguishable as having reference to law and its sanctions. When we think of righteousness strictly so named, we think of a law-giver, ^. ^., God; and we think of his published commandments, his glorious rewards, his awful threatenings, his award of both at the day of judgment, and the heaven and hell which ensue. The character and course of conduct which can answer these demands, meet this scrutiny, and claim this reward, are righteous. And the performance, in human nature, and under the law, which answers all these conditions, is righteousness. The least defect, failure, or blemish destroys the whole claim. The flight towards heaven equally fails if one league or millions of leagues be lacking. Were we sj)eakiDg of mercy, or forbearance, or divine compassion, it would be a different matter; but when we speak of righteousness, we mean perfection. Imperfect righteousness is no righteousness, as a line which deviates is not a right line. Grace may work otherwise, but we are now in the forum of justice, where the question is, Has the debt been fully paid? and he who has discharged all is righteous. God’s law, like himself, demands the utmost obedience; it cannot demand less. Adam rendered this up to a certain point; Christ rendered it to the end. But it is very evident that no mere man, since the fall, has rendered or can render any such obedience; no man is right in the view of law; no man is just in the sight of God. Exactly thus our apostle speaks, iii. 10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written. Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them;” again, 11, “that no man is justified by the law is evident.” The award of every enlightened man’s conscience responds in full agreement. You, my resDected hearer, know assuredly that your heart and life are not in such blameless undeviating agreement with God’s law that you can lay the hand on the heart and say, “O God, thou knowest I am perfectly just.” And, therefore, the sole and inevitable issue, by any lawmethod, is simply damnation.

But what? Is the whole race consigned to wrath, and is there no such thing as actual righteousness or j ustifi cation? Clearly, such would be the result, if right, and law, and mere justice were left to work out the problem. Eternal justice, not blind, but too keenly seeing, holding aloft the infallible scales, lifting the gleaming and insufferable sword, knows nothing of mercy, and can pronounce just him only who sinneth not. Is there then no human righteousness in the universe? Sing, O heavens, there is! Just this is what the Son of God became human for, that he might produce and present a human righteousness, an absolute conformity to law, in the sinning nature. God, whose judgments are always according to truth, pronounces Jesus righteous. But he does more. He makes over this righteousness of Jesus to the sinner. God gives him it; it is his. This single act of free grace turns the scale. This infinite weight thrown in makes it preponderate in the sinner’s favour. This immeasurable value pays the debt. This intervening substitution shifts the edge of the sword from the sinner to the Saviour. What has come in to make this amazing difference is righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, made up of his doing and his suffering, or active and passive. It is the righteousness of God, for God ordained it, accepts it, and confers it. It is the sinner’s righteousness, because God, by a sovereign act in his own court, puts it over to the sinner’s credit, reckons it to the sinner, i, ^., imputes it to the sinner. And this is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, on the ground of which the Lord God justifies the ungodly. This, and nothing less or more, is the available righteousness of every one who is accepted. This made all ring again in apostolic days. “The righteousness of God without the law is manifested.” iii. 21. “To declare his righteousness for remission of sins that are past.” iii. 25. “Unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.” iv. 5. “By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”

V. 19. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” x. .4. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Gal. iii. 13. The justification or declaring righteousness is complete at one act, and is different from the making holy or sanctification. By virtue of Christ’s obedience unto death, undertaken in our stead, performed in our name and nature, and imputed to us, who are at the same moment made one with Christ, God freely, and of his sovereignty, but in infinite grace so far as we are concerned, is pleased to regard his law as satisfied and his glory manifested. And this is righteousness.

II. AVhat is the hope of Righteousness? It lies in the entire clause, ‘’ Wait for the hope of righteousness.” “We most earnestly and expectantly look forward for the accomj)lishment of the great hope of life, namely, the celestial glory awaiting those who are justified.” Called the hope of righteousness, because where there is guilt there is despair, and where there is pardon there is hope of glory. As long as a man

288 HOPE OF TvIGHTEOUSNESS.

is under bondage of sin, at enmity with God, feeling a bad conscience, dreading his Maker, and uncertain what moment wrath may break upon him to the uttermost, he lives, a wretched, desponding creatuie. “Having no hope.” He may divert his attention, but whenever he returns to the great matter... the sword is hanging over him by a hair. All men desire happiness after death, and the least ray of religion shows that this is connected with God’s favour. Conscience sits at the threshold keeping out all hope of peace, till the doorpost is sprinkled with paschal blood. It is a good day for any house, when Christ’s righteousness comes in, bringing peace and joy in its train. I have been greatly struck with the breadth and grandeur of the term Hope in the New Testament. It takes in all heaven. Especially in reference to this matter of justification, it looks forward to the sublime adjudication, when the sinner who has already been justified in the court of God’s decree, and in the court of conscience, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the court of the universe. That is the ultimate justification, immediately antecedent to the throwing open of lieaven-gate and the entrance of the countless tliiongs into the joy of the Lord. As future, this is an object of expectation, and as good, of hope. And, as the original imports, this looking forward is wistful and intense. Amidst the throes of this dark and troubled period of transition and discipline, the saints look to the hills, and watch for the morning. This holds up the head, in deep waters, and makes pain tolerable. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us, for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” viii. 18. The whole company of believers on earth are, as it were, looking with outstretched necks towards the sunrising. “Ourselves also which are the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body; for we are saved by hope.” viii. 23. This hope “we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast;” &c, Chrisf s righteousness has this heavenly reward; and the redeemed soul, at favoured hours, looks forward to the meeting with inexpressible desire. Such is the hope of righteousness.

III. Whence proceed this righteousness and this hope of righteousness? Both from faith; “we wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.” The righteousness and the hope are by faith. 1. The righteousness is by faith. You will hardly expect me now and here to go over the oft-recited passages which prove that our justification is by faith. Let me rather spend the time in explaining to humble minds the point of doctrine which is there proved. Righteousness exists, yonder, in “Jesus Christ the righteous.” But how does this become mine? Seeing all men are not made righteous, how shall I be so made? Or, as the sinner, wrestling with his sins is sometimes led to express it. How can I reach Jesus the Saviour; how is it possible for me to get up to him, so as to be possessed of the advantages of his death? I know he is rich in all treasures of salvation, and has merits enough to lift a universe out of the throat of perdition; but are they mine? or how can they be made available? O, tell me, how to pass this gulf between the Redeemer and my soul? It is true, my dear hearer, that Jesus, all-sufficient Saviour as lie is, does not actually save all men; and it is certainly a possible thing that he may never save you, and that after all your instruction, and all your seeking, and all your impressions, you may go away from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, without a righteousness. It is not necessarily yours. But, hear me, for your soul’s sake. It is yours in sufficiency, yours in fitness, and yours in God’s gift to sinners of mankind. And it is yours in all its largest meaning, and for all your boundless want, if believing you accept it. Faith receives. There is no adding a link of your own to the golden chain which God lets down from heaven; but faith receives. The righteousness of Jesus becomes yours on your simyle believing; it is “received by faith alone.” And this is the reason why with every variety of command, argument, and entreaty, we again and again call upon you to believe. There is nothing that a man can do, say, or feel, which occasions him so little ground of glorying as his faith. Indeed, he does not come to fiiith, till he has tried every thing else and run the whole round of self-righteous endeavour. And when he comes to faith, he finds it so slender, imjDonderable, evanescent an act, that he sees in it only a mode of connection, an instrument of union. But for the very reason that it is all meritless in itself, it glorifies Christ’s righteousness. If there were any even the least particle about faith, to which the old merit-mono;erino; nature could cling, it would do so. But faith, in the scale of merit, is sheer nothing; and hence again and again in the Scriptures, to be justified by faith is to be justified by nothing of our own. Mark how it is put right over against justification by works, as necessary and essentially its opposite, so that justification by faith is gratuitous justification. Romans iii. 22. “The righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all that believe.” 28. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith... without the deeds of the law.” 4, 5. ‘^ To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” And examine with me the words preceding my text, and out of which, as by contrast, my text arises. “Beliold, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing; Christ is become of no effect unto you; whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace, for we [mark the contrast, which establishes the doctrine] we wait for the hope of righteousness through faith.” He that believes, then, does, instantly on his believing, receive the rio;hteousness of Christ as his own. And thus our third inquiry is answered in part; the righteousness is by faith.

But, 2. The hope of the righteousness is by faith; a point of vast importance, but sjDcedily settled. Faith so takes God at his word, so “sets to” its seal, so credits the utterances of eternal love, so appropriates the obedience of Christ, and so cleaves to hun, as a Mediator, Priest, and Deliverer, that where it is strong or of high degree, it instantly grows uj) into hope of salvation. It instantly places this helmet on the head. It j)iercingly looks forward to the future and invisible, and beholds the judgment set and the books opened, but as clearly descries the ever-fresh sacrifice and everprevailing righteousness, lying in heavenly oblation on the altar. Hence the more faith rises, and it is a tiling of degrees, the more does Hope, blessed hope, take hold on immortality. And so we have learned whence this righteousness and this hope of righteousness proceed.

IV. By what agency is this happy state of mind wrought? By the operation of the Holy Ghost. ^’ For we, through the SpiPwIT, wait for the hoj)e of righteousness by faith.” In Paul’s writings you have long ago remarked the continual parallel and contrast between two principles of action, which he calls the flesh and the spirit. There is no understanding his high argument without keeping this fully in mind. In two places this subject is specially discussed; in the seventh chapter of Romans, and in our context. Our apostle represents the two as not only in opposition, but in the struggle of conflict. In the unconverted, it is all flesh; in the glorified, it is all spirit. In the militant members of Christ, there is contest, such as to give pertinency to the exhortation, verse 16, “This I say, then. Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” Yet, day by day, the flesh grows weaker, and the new creature stronger, while the “inward man is renewed day by day.” Comp. John iii. 6. That portion of humanity, so to speak, which is inhabited by the Spirit of God, and from him named spirit, is perpetually actuated by a supernatual and divine energy, under which it puts forth acts in modes of spiritual action which we call graces. Faith, Hope, and Love are the chief of these, but faith and hope are those which concern us here. Every act of believing and holy assurance is produced in the soul by the influence of the indwelling Spirit. The moment a sinner believes, and is thereby united to Christ, he receives, in gracious effluence from the Head, the Spirit of Christ, to be in him an abiding source, a well of water springing up to everlasting life. Those trustings, hopings, and waitings of which we read, are but the filial voices of the Spirit in the heart, the new-born soul crying out for God, for the living God. Slavish feelings, disquietudes, and doubts, are no more from Christ than darkness is from the sun; tliougli incidentally we know the sun occasions shadows. But the operation of the new nature is hope and joy. “So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.” As surely as we are actuated by this influence, or “led by the Spirit of God,” so truly are we “sons of God.” For thus Paul proves it, “for ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.” And thus we find our answer to the question by what agency this blessed state of mind is wrought. “Through the Spirit, we wait for the hojDe of righteousness by faith.”

Our meditation has caused to pass before us the great idea of Gospel righteousness, the hope of redemption from this righteousness, the ground of both righteousness and hope in faith, and the origin of all in the Spirit.

Now I turn suddenly from these doctrinal statements to address those who have no Spirit of power, no faith, no righteousness, and no hope. As the subject has revolved before you, you have wondered perhaps that any should be interested, and we have been unto you as “one that mocketh.” Even if the entire discussion has not seemed dull, it has waked no vibratins; chords of experience. Ah! my hearers, thus it has been in all ages of the church. If our Gos- 23el be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Blindness on this point remains with many all their days, and accompanies them into the gates of death. Having eyes, they see not, and having ears, they hear not. And, what is fearful, they are at ease. One may be blind and not know it. Great cause have you, my perishing fellow-sinner, to bewail that dark and carnal mind which will not admit a ray from the face of Jesus Christ. We hold over your head a celestial crown, but you will not heed it. The terms in which we describe great heavenly blessings are unintelligible to you, through your want of spiritual understanding. You are growing older without coming any nearer to the door of mercy. Again and again you have seen it open to receive some friend or neighbour, and then you have seen it shut. There is an hour coming, hastening on the mighty wings of Time,

when either you will have believed in this sails* a ray of sunlight, steals into the cMnks of this dungeon, and reveals the Son of God standing beside the sufferer, who sinks and says, “My Lord and my God!” Now he knows that justice is satisfied and God reconciled. How gloriously resplendent shines that righteousness which covers the sin and shame of millions! How sweetly he falls into the arms of Divine Love! Lord, I believe, help mine unbelief! The Lord helps indeed, lifts up the fainting one, whispers syllables of peace, and pours in cordials of promise. Is he not secure 1 He looks towards Jehovah as a reconciled father. He looks towards the Judgment Day as a meeting of love with his King. There, at that once dreaded tribunal, he beholds the display of the perfect righteousness in which he trusts. He believes; he is justified; he hopes; he waits in joy. He, through the Spirit, waits for the hope of righteousness by faith. Here is our doctrine turned into experience.

But all this time I am sjDeaking only of the childhood of experience; of sentiments which belong to the babe in Christ. Li spite of the world’s disbelief and the ignorance of shallow.

worldly Christians, the truth must be declared. Keligion is a living process. When the Spirit takes hold of a man to transform him into a child of grace, working faith in him, and opening his eyes to see the boundless riches of grace, the work goes on continually. There is growth of knowledge, faith, and hope. The more the spiritual process advances, the more does religion become distinguished from all its outward forms, and attain likeness to the infinite benevolence of God; as the words next following show: “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avail eth any thing nor uncircumcision, but faith, which worketh by love.” If we have known that faith, my brethren, we are in the state of waiting described in the text. We wait, as the servant, for his Lord’s return. We wait, as the heir, for his inheritance. We wait, as the bride, for her Beloved. The time seems wearisome and the earth is a prison-house, till the day break, and the shadows fly away. There is something better coming than even the higher joys of earthly experience; though this is greater than most of us imagine. We wait for that which shall as much surpass all revelations of the earthly church, as the bright morning surpasses the early twilight. “For we are saved by hoj)e; but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth what doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. And we so wait, we have seen, through the Spirit, “because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God; and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose.” When we cast away our own righteousness and betake ourselves to the righteousness of God, we were like some shipwrecked creatures on the wild ocean, who had left one sinking bark and swam to the gallant vessel of relief But not for relief only. Has she not spread her sails, and is she not bearing away towards those green shores where pain and sin are unknown, and where the hope of righteousness is consummated? We cannot rest here. There, there is our home. Every scene of life, to the eye of the believer, must be tinged with colours fluno over it from the comino: state. Believe in a heaven at all, in a meeting with Jesus, in a gathering together unto him, in a resurrection, and assembling, and universal home-bringing of elect ones, to go out no more for ever —. once believe in this, and human life becomes a different thine;. All its relations are chanoed. Ten thousand matters, otherwise of great interest, grow pale, as stars at sunrise. Of every acquisition and connection we henceforth inquire, How will it stand the test of fire? how will it pass through the judgment? how will it look one thousand years hence? yea, a million ages and millenniums hence? how does it consort with the hoj)e of righteousnsess by faith? If we have a religion which is a progress, we are finding it thus, beloved fellow-Christians, and are coming to him more in the climate and atmosphere of that other country. I say not that our exulting joys necessarily increase; though they often do so; for all are not favoured alike, to wander in the sweet enchantments of the land of Beulah. But this I will affirm, that the growing Christian lives more and more under the powers of the world to come. Losses, gi’iefs, weariness, disappointment, decay may come; weights may hang on the outward man; life may have clouds skirting its evening sky; yet tkere is an increasino and abidins; feelinsr that the day’s work is nearly over, and that the hireling will presently be set free. There is a sense of the utter worthlessness of those things which have only the stamp of a lifelong value, and the immeasurable moment

of those things which stretch on into eternity. And this substantiating of things hoped for, this evidencing conviction of things not seen, is Faith. This firm outlooking for its j)ermanent glories, is Hope. And the play of these two great lights upon the soul is the preparation which God gives for bidding farewell to earth and entering into heaven. The face of Jesus, who is our righteousness, shines brightly on the soul that waits for him. My fellow-disciples, we have known him long, and, beholding his approach, can say, while we rejoice with trembling. This is our Beloved, and this is our Friend!