St Paul's Letter to the Romans: Its Great Theme

“So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For

THEREIN IS THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD RE-VEALED from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” — ROM. i. 15-17.

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” — Phil. III. 7-9.

II.

{Preached at the Porta del Pop oh, February 26, 1871.)

Rom. i. 17.. “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed.”

LAST Lord’s day, I entered on a brief series -* of discourses illustrative of incidents in the life of St Paul, bearing on his connection with this ancient capital of the Roman Empire. I began with the announcement of his own purpose and resolve in coming hither, viz., to preach the Gospel of Christ, as “the power of God unto salvation,” To-day, I would venture to direct your thoughts to what may still be deemed a preliminary theme; but it is one which cannot well be passed in silence. Not only does it form the second special proposition consequent on the Apostle’s announcement, “I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are in Rome also (For, therein is the righteousness of God revealed);” but it is the subject, of all others, specially interwoven with his great Epistle to the early Church in this city.

I need not further premise, by reminding you of the place that Epistle itself occupies, alike in the writings of the Apostle, and in the canon of inspired Scripture. It is the sublimest which issued from his pen; — the most logical, argumentative, conclusive, — an epitome and compendium of divine truth. More than this, it is a repertory of comfort. And we may well ask, when or where was an “Afflicted man’s companion” more needed or more welcome, than when that letter wras sent within the gates of the metropolis? For what was the position the Christians there occupied? Truly, they were as sheep in the midst of wolves. An inhuman tyrant was reigning in the halls of Caesar; while an obsequious multitude were too ready, with fire and sword, to carry out his behests of cruelty against the hated Nazarenes. They were trembling on the edge of a volcano; — the slumbering forces ready at any moment to burst forth. Poor human nature would, at times, be under

ITS GREAT THEME. I 2C)

strong temptation to abandon the struggle, to surrender the unequal fight, and abjure the name of Christ. It is for these brave yet desponding believers the cheering words of the Epistle were penned. It is the rallying-cry of their great hero, — the trumpet-blast to nerve and prepare them for the battle. Take one extract from it; — that which is contained in the matchless eighth chapter. How their eyes would kindle, and their faltering courage revive, as they read aloud of “no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus!“* Called to the renunciation of beloved earthly ties, how would they be braced to the sacrifice and endurance, as they traced the glowing lines, i( Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” -f- When summoned to more cruel tortures, how the precious words of the divine keepsake would sustain their mangled frames, — “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed!” I How would it serve to mitigate the

* Rom. viii. I. + Rom. viii. 35. $ Rom. viii. 18.

gloom of the dungeon, or the horrors of the circus, their repeating to one another, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God? “* As Romans, too, their grandest dream, once at least, was that of conquest: how would they be animated, as they heard of something far transcending the triumphs of those garlanded heroes they had seen, oft and again, passing along their Via Sacra and ascending the steps of their Capitol? As Christ’s warriors, how would they be sustained with the thought, that by loyal adhesion to His cause and fidelity to death, they would be made, at last, a more than conquerors” *[* through Him that loved them.

But it is not to its treasures of comfort and consolation I desire, now, to direct your attention, but rather to the great doctrinal key-note of the Apostle’s teaching in that remarkable Letter; what would doubtless, also, form the keynote to his oral ministrations, when his longing wish came to be fulfilled, “X.o preach the Gospel

* Rom. viii. 28. t Rom. viii. 37, to you that are in Rome also.” After an irresistible, we may rather say, a humiliating demonstration of our fallen state by nature, — that t: by deeds of law no flesh living can be justified,” — bringing in a culprit-world “guilty before God,” he proceeds to explain and enforce the topic of which we are now to speak. Having discovered and laid bare the disease, he reveals the antidote and remedy. He reaches the height of his high argument, in the revelation of “the Righteousness of God.” “For therein is the Righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.” “Now the Righteousness of God without the law is manifest,... even the Righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe.” “We are made the Righteousness of God in Him.” “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord,”* It is the Word — the Theme — we shall come to find on his tongue when the last

* Rom. i. 17; iii. 21, 22; v. 21.

shadows are falling: the music of the same keynote of his Roman letter, lingers in sustained energy in his dying song, and forms the closing glorious outburst of his dying lips, — “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day.”

We shall state the general doctrine, as that is unfolded in other parts of Scripture, as well as in this Epistle; and then speak of its experimental power and bearing, on the history and teaching of the great Apostle,

The Believer needs a positive as well as a negative justification. It is not enough, that, on account of the vicarious sufferings and death of his great Redeemer, he stand acquitted at the bar of God, with the sentence (so to speak) of “not guilty” pronounced upon him. “The righteous Lord loveth righteousness!’ At the entrance-gate of heaven the summons is heard, “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation, which keepeth the truth, may enter in.” It is “the righteous” who shall go into “life eternal.” “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the glory of the Father.” Paradise lost, involved the loss of righteousness; Paradise regained, is the regaining of the forfeited blessing. But if the King’s daughter must be thus “all glorious,” her “clothing of wrought gold,” where is the shuttle to fabricate the gorgeous tissue? In other words, where is such Righteousness, in the unqualified sense of the term, denoting absolute moral perfection, to be found? Where is this perfect coincidence of the human will with the divine? Can man himself effect or secure it? “There is none,” and there can be none, thus “righteous, no not one.” The holiest and the best, weighed in the balances, are found wanting. God’s strongest cedars have quivered and bent and fallen under the blast of temptation. God’s best heroes and saintliest men have been “of like passions” after all. They have nobly fought, indeed; but have again and again succumbed in the battles of the soul — mournful impotence and failure side by side with gigantic deeds. They enter heaven covered with the scars of the enemy; with ruffled plumes in the helmet of salvation. To stand on the great Day of judgment attired in this their own imperfect righteousness! The fire of God would burn up its gossamer threads, and leave them naked and speechless. Hear the testimony and averment, in this very Epistle, of the boldest and the best of these heavenly warriors, as to the shortcomings and deficiency of his loftiest aims and efforts: “The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do,”* Or of an older saint still, “Though I wash myself with snow-water and make my hands never so clean, yet wilt Thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.” *f* If the sinner, then, despair of having a. personal, he must have a borrowed righteousness; he must stand indebted to another, for what he cannot obtain for himself. Like the Hebrews of old at the Exodus, he must not only go forth from Egypt with his chains broken, but with borrowed jewels. With (t earrings of gold, and chains and

* Rom. vii. 19. T Job ix. 30.

bracelets of silver,” he must march onwards to the promised land; and that spangled attire, in which God’s spiritual Israel are robed, is the glorious Righteousness which Christ wrought out by the obedience of His life.

Brethren, let us have clear and distinct ideas of what that Righteousness is. Let us not blur the peerless truth. Let us not pare- it down or defraud it of its own grand symmetry and proportions. Let us not think of it as merely implying that Christ has set before us an absolute example of human excellence, — a perfect divine copy, — which we are to seek to imitate. Were it so, from being a doctrine of surpassing comfort, it would rather lead to a depressing and hopeless despondency. Gazing on that spotless Model, would only more assuredly convince of the utter impossibility of ever attaining to any measure of acceptable obedience. It would only bring home to the soul, a crushing, overwhelming sense of its own deficiencies, and fill it with dismay at the thought of standing at the tribunal of a holy God! But that Righteousness is imputed — put down to our account —

I36 ST PAULS LETTER TO THE ROMANS!

reckoned as if it were our own. We stand accepted, in the garment of our Elder Brother. Listen to some Scripture testimonies on this great truth. “I bring near,” says God, “My Righteousness.” * Daniel speaks of the advent of Messiah the Prince, after seventy weeks of years, “to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. “f” I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,” says the believer, or the Church, in the prophecies of Isaiah; “my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with a robe of righteousness.” J “This is the name whereby He shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness/^ Not to enumerate other references in this Epistle to the same theme, in the fifth chapter, the Apostle draws a beautiful parallelism between the two Adams — the one, “of the earth, earthy;” the other, “the Lord from heaven:” the two federal heads or representa-

* Isa. xlvi. 15. + Dan. ix. 24.

J Isa. lxi. 10. § Jer. xxiii. 6 tives of the two covenants, — the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. In the one case, the sin of the first Adam has been imputed to all his posterity. We have fallen in him; the taint of corruption and the penalty of death has been transmitted by him from generation to generation. I do not pause to examine the difficulties of that doctrine. However strange and anomalous it may seem that we should be made to stand responsible for the guilt and doings of another; — however pride and reason may reject and repudiate the truth, — I take it as it stands, a recorded fact, a solemn statement in the Word of God. But if there be apparent mystery in the doctrine of the imputation of sin, objection to that doctrine, if not disarmed, is surely at least neutralised, by looking at it, side by side, with the glorious parallel and counterpart truth — that the Righteousness of Jehovah-Jesus, the federal Head of the second covenant, is in the same manner imputed to all who believe. “As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men unto condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” *

Such, then, is the truth contained in the text; — Jesus, the Lamb of God, in His life of sinless obedience, has procured that robe for me. He has not only died in my room, to save me from sin’s penalty, but He has lived in my room, to present me with a free gift of spotless righteousness. All that wondrous life of His, from the cradle to the cross, was a weaving of the needed garment; His kindness, His love, His unselfishness, His submission, His humility, His meek acquiescence in His Fathers will, all these have been put down to my account, reckoned as if, I had done them. By casting this divinelywrought garment over us, all our blemishes and shortcomings and deficiencies are covered and concealed. The eye of a holy God, in looking upon us, can see” neither spot nor

* Rom. v. 18, 19.

wrinkle, nor any such thing.” “See,” exclaims the Psalmist, as he screens himself behind the burnished shield of this glorious Righteousness, hiding all his own defects and unworthiness, — “See God our shield, look on the face of Thine Anointed!”

Shall we go to the outer world for some image to illustrate this great doctrine? You have seen, in our own land, summer’s dying sun bathing the hills in a blaze of light. The dark purple summits, the rugged corries, the splintered granite peaks, were all hid from view, buried and lost in the excess of that setting radiance. That is the picture of the soul, with all its yawning chasms of guilt and vileness, lost and hidden in the glory of Christ’s righteousness. You have seen the rugged root of some unsightly tree cast into a fire. Its ruggedness is lost in the flames; it has itself soon become one mass of ruby splendour. So with the soul cast into this glowing fire of “imputed righteousness” — the eye even of Infinite purity can see nothing but a mass of radiant glory. Or, shall we go again for typical illustration, to the surer page of Scripture? Open the Old Testament, teeming as it is with pictures of the great coming salvation, and behold both phases of the work of Jesus, atoning for sin by His death, and working out righteousness by His life: God hath joined them together, and let not man put them asunder! We love to look at the impressive type of the scape-goat, — the hands of the priest laid upon its head, and the innocent animal bearing the imputed load away to a land of oblivion. We see, in this, the representation of the former truth — our sins laid on the head of the surety Saviour. But I go to other symbols. I go to the earliest type of all, and see the glorious doctrine of Christ’s imputed righteousness shining amid the blighted bowers of Eden. I see the guilty pair at first screening their nakedness with the covering of fig leaves sewed together, but which are speedily superseded by other garments divinely gifted and provided (Gen. iii. 7-21). These “coats of skins,” we have every reason to believe, were those of animals slain in sacrifice: if so, they formed, surely, expressive emblems of the garment of righteousness provided through the obedience and death of a mightier Victim, the Lamb thus “slain from the foundation of the world.” Or shall we take a later typical vision. Joshua, the High priest, the type and representative of the ransomed sinner, stands before the Lord. He is a redeemed man, — his sins are forgiven, — he is a “brand plucked from the burning.” But see his dress: he is attired in filthy garments. High priest as he was — redeemed as he was — a monument of grace — he stands in tattered clothing. What says the covenant angel? He strips off the miserable vestments, clothes him with change of raiment, and sets “a fair mitre on his head.” Behold the living picture of Christ’s righteousness put upon us! From being clad in beggars’ garments, “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked,” we are royally robed, royally crowned. We are made “kings and priests unto God,” and arrayed as such. What says the believer in the song? “I am black but comely:” black in my own righteousness, comely through the righteousness and comeliness of another. How could the Lord address His Church in that same precious portion of Scripture, unless He regarded it as a fortress gleaming with a glory not its own? “Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men,” Nor need we pause with the recorded testimony of the Church in ancient times. What formed the theme of the glorious company of Apostles and the goodly fellowship of prophets, has been the precious jewel in the creed of holy men of all subsequent ages. See how Luther clings to it: — “He gives me what is His, and I give Him what is mine; I give Him all my sins, and He gives me back in exchange, all His righteousness.”

And although on this we cannot now enter, full and ample is the warrant for receiving and appropriating the offered garment. “The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all, and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference,” * The

* Rom. iii. 22.

Elder Brother has a treasury filled with these garments — “the best robe” of the parable. All that we need is to use the key of faith to unlock it: — “It is the righteousness which is of God by faith!’ Accept it; reach forth the hand of faith to take this richer robe than Tyrian loom ever wrought — this garment of richer gold than Ophir mines ever produced. It is not beyond the reach of one here present. Listen to God’s own inspired description of it in this same Epistle: —” The righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart who shall ascend into Heaven?’’’ (i.e., it does not ask you to attempt the impossibility of scaling the heavens to bring it down), “or who shall descend into the deep?” (it does not demand a similar impossibility of descending into the depths of the sea or the caverns of the earth to bring it up). “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, the word of faith which we preach” (Rom. x. 6-8).

Touching and very instructive is this subject in connection with the life and character of that great Apostle whose footsteps we are now tracking in this city of his habitation. In a letter of his (a. portion of which we read at this morning’s service), written not to Rome, hut from Rome, to his best-loved Church at Philippi, his first-begotten children in the Gentile world, we find him enumerating particularly his “gains,” — his rare catalogue of natural virtues and religious privileges; what the world wrould have called ’ a splendid righteousness, How many would have coveted him,- — lived and died, happy, in the conscious possession of so distinguished a stock of merit! “If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;... touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But,” he adds, “what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.” * And it must indeed have been no

* Phil. iii. 4-7.

small effort for him, to discard all he once so fondly loved and prized, and to which he so proudly clung. Sad to go to that gallery of pleasant pictures which he himself had hung in the chambers of his soul, and with his own hand to wrench one by one from its place; — to tear sculpture by sculpture from niche and pedestal, and to write upon these walls, so lately gleaming with fancied righteousness, “All loss for Christ!’ The seaman does not grudge taking to pieces his old rotten boat; demolishing some miserable craft, with gaping sides and worm-eaten timbers. It costs him not a thought to have it broken up and destroyed. But that noble ship of Tarshish, just launched from the docks, in the pride of conscious inherent strength, and filled with precious stores! it could not be, without an effort, that the owner (convinced of some irremediable defect), brings it back to port, takes it asunder, timber by timber, stripping it of its garniture and beauty. So it was with St Paul. He saw that the vessel of legal and ceremonial righteousness, with all its pride of form and bearing, could not weather the storm. These frescoed pictures on the walls of his heart, are, in the eye of God and of His holy law, only daubs of untempered mortar. He was led to see, what others might not — that on the Great Day, all that once boasted righteousness would be but as “wood and hay and stubble.” It would avail him nothing as a ground of justification: — a poor miserable counterfeit: “The day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures!” And he adds, “Yea doubtless, and I count all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” *

In these words, he has undoubtedly reference to that wild night in the sea of Adria, when pursuing his voyage to Rome in the Alexandrian corn-ship. The tempest was threatening; the safety of the ship seemed to demand a lightening of the cargo. But that precious corn! must it be sacrificed for the safety of the vessel? It was “gain;” but must it come to be reckoned

* Phil. iii. 8.

as “loss,” and tossed overboard? Yes, the tempest decides the question. It must be consigned to the waves, otherwise the vessel will founder. There is no room for debate; the crew make up their minds to “suffer the loss of all” Nay more, when the tempest howls with greater fury, and danger and death stare them full in the face, they go a step further. The “loss” is never thought of. They do not now pause in uncertainty and indecision, saying, ‘Cannot we spare these precious barrels of merchandise? ‘Imminent danger makes them glad to plunge them into the roaring sea. When the question is between the loss of the wheat, and the loss of the ship, there can be no hesitation. They account them as absolutely worthless — of no value. They are glad to see them pitching against one another in the dark abyss. They look upon them now, not as gain or treasure, but as having proved an absolute hindrance, endangering their safety.

And this was the process in St Paul’s mind. First, there was a clinging to all these birthright gains, and self-righteous confidences. He was loath to part with them. Secondly, he underwent the “loss,” but it was accompanied with “suffering.” It was a violent effort to him to renounce all which he had once so fondly treasured and trusted in. But the third stage of feeling was when he was brought to say, ‘I hate them all: they are as dung: they are worthless: they are imperilling the vessel’s safety; they are endangering my soul’s interest; let them go every one of them! They were once u gain to me;” once I endured “suffering’’ at the thought of losing them; but now, heave them all into the raging sea. I have learnt to hate them. I count them as refuse, sweepings, husks, “that I may win Christ, and be found in him.’”

Is this our case? Can we, as voyagers on the sea of life, make such a protestation, that all in which we once trusted and gloried, as a ground of justification in the sight of God, — our good name, our good doings, our moralities, and natural virtues and amiabilities and alms-deeds, our acts of kindness and sterling integrity and unselfish benevolence, — these we toss overboard, in order that the giant deed of Christ’s doing and dying may stand out alone in solitary grandeur? “Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness wThich is of God by faith.” Oh! there is no other garment for the soul to cover its spiritual nakedness; — there is no other rest for the soul burdened with the sense of its shortcomings. Xot only is it the dove hidden in the clefts of the smitten Rock {that is the image of pardon and safety); but it is the dove, too, soaring aloft to the celestial windows in the borrowed plumage of a glorious righteousness; — its wings ‘; covered with silver, and its feathers with yellow gold.” It is a truth which may well bring with it peace and joy and elevation of heart. “The effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance for ever,” “We which believe do enter into rest,” ’ and that, quaintly says an old writer, ’ by ceasing from our own works, as God, on the seventh day, did irom His.’

If it be a blessed truth to live on, what a blessed truth to die on! What a joyous garment this, wherewith to wrap us round when the billows are high, and we are plunging into Jordan! We can imagine, when that solemn hour arrives; when, perhaps suddenly, we are laid on the pillow from which we are to rise no more; and when, despite of our well-grounded confidence in the Gospel, gloomy visions and memories of former guilt will gather around, filling us with trembling and dismay, — oh! in the midst of the thick darkness, to feel girded with a panoply, which the rush of waters cannot penetrate, and of which the King of terrors cannot despoil us — the robe which we got at the cross, and which we are to wear before the throne!

Yes, children of God, of every age and rank and experience, tune your hearts and lips for the joyous strain! Aged believers, sing it! ye whose earthly, pilgrim-garments are soiled and travel-worn, but whose robe of righteousness is fresh as in the day of your espousals with the Heavenly Bridegroom. Young believers, sing it! ye who may have but recently stood at the marriage-altar with your Lord, and received at His hands the glistering vesture; who may have a long journey, it may be, still to traverse, ere you reach the Kind’s Palace. Sorrowing believers, sing it! take down your harps from the willows of sadness. Ye are in mourning attire; but through your weeds there shines this bright clothing of wrought gold, which the shadows of death and the grave cannot dim or alloy. Dying ones, sing it! if our voice could reach you from this place, whether ye be old or young, rich or poor; the aged pilgrim of heaven, falling gently, like a shock of corn in its season, or the child, whose lips early grace has perfected with praise — going to an early crown: Oh! let the whole Church of the living God, divided on other themes, — dumb and mute with other songs, — join together in glad acclaim, kindle into holy rapture with this —

” Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
‘Mid flaming worlds, in these array’d,
With joy I shall lift up my head.

iS2 s t Paul’s letter to the romans, etc.

“This spotless robe the same appears
When ruin’d nature sinks in years;
No age can change its glorious hue — The robe of Christ is ever new.

“And when the dead shall hear Thy voice. And all Thy banish’d ones rejoice, Their beauty this, their glorious dress, — Jesus the Lord our Righteousness!”