Faith in His Blood

Second Sermon on a Pauline Text

BEING JUSTIFIED FREELY BY HIS GRACE THROUGH THE REDEMPTION THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS: WHOM GOD HATH SET FORTH TO BE A PRO-PITIATION THROUGH FAITH IN HIS BLOOD: FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS THA T ARE PAST, THROUGH THE FOR-BEARANCE OF GOD: TO HIM WHICH BELIEVETH IN JESUS. — Rom. iii. 24-26.

I “HE happy period was now arrived which Jwas to shake off my fetters. I flung myself into a chair near the window, and seeing a Bible there I ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. The first verse I saw was the S 5 th of the third of the Romans:” Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.’’ Immediately I received strength to believe, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement that Christ had made. I saw my pardon sealed in His blood. I saw all the fulness and completeness of His righteousness for me. In a moment I believed and received the atonement.’ So writes William Cowper in his Memoirs of his early days.

N 193 ‘Being justified freely by His grace, The Apostle does not say — being foreknown, or being predestinated, or being adopted, or being sanctified, or being glorified. He will say all these things afterwards; at the proper time and to the proper persons. But not now, and not yet. For the Apostle has before him at this moment an audience of sinful men; an audience of men whose mouths, in the Apostle’s own words, are stopped because of their guilt before God. And Paul speaks to that, and confines himself to that. A guilty and a condemned man may need much to be done for him afterwards. But his immediate need; his first need that makes all Iiis other needs to be forgotten, is his need of pardon. Get his pardon sealed,and his prison door set open — that is the one thing needful for him at the present moment. And thus it is that Paul addresses the whole of this great passage to those men whose mouths are stopped, and his great gospel message to all such men is this: their free and full justification before God, and their acceptance and peace with God.

But what is this justification concerning which so much is said by the Apostle? ‘Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.’ You cannot have justification better defined than that, unless it is in the Larger Catechism and the Confession of Faith. One of the first death-beds I ever attended in this city had this impressive and memorable fact about it. The dying man had always the Confession of Faith open on his pillow, and open at the chapter on justification. And as his end drew near, he and I often read this rich section together: ‘Those whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; by imputing the obedience and the satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting upon Christ, and upon His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.”* * I sink in deep waters,’ cried another dying man. * All His waves and His billows go over me.’ Then said the other, ‘Be of good cheer, my brother. I feel the bottom, and it is good.’

‘Being justified freely by His grace.’ This is an instance of what the rhetoricians call reiteration and tautology. Strictly speaking, and speaking coldly, it would be enough to say either ’ freely,’ or to say — ‘by His grace.’ Both expressions, taken literally and severely, are not needed. But there are some things that cannot be reiterated too often, and free grace is one of them, and is the chiefest of them. You cannot tell me too often, or with too much emphasis, that I am a forgiven sinner, and that not for works of righteousness that I have done, but by the free grace of God. And besides, the style is the man. Paul’s style is Paul and Paul alone. Paul is here preaching his own experience, and his own thoughts and feelings about his own experience deeply colour and warmly enrich his style of writing. He is telling here to all that fear God what God in His free grace has done for his soul. Let this great reiteration therefore stand, if only it helps in any degree to encourage and comfort a single sinner, or to assure a single saint. Let it stand, indeed, in letters of gold a finger deep. For it is ‘grace dyed in grace,’ as Goodwin says. And again, it is ’ gracious grace.”* Let it stand; for too frequent or too emphatic repetition is impossible in this great matter here in hand.

‘For the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God.’ A great preacher of Paul’s gospel, as often as his conscience became untender; as often as his faith and love and holiness threatened to fall asleep; was wont to awaken himself by going back and taking a turn up and down among the sins of his unregenerate state, and that never failed, so he tells us, to bring him to his senses. Now, whether we are regenerate or unregenerate, we should be like that great evangelical preacher. We should, from time to time, and frequently, take a turn up and down among our past sins. It would do us good. It would break our hearts, indeed, but it would be our salvation. Let us therefore, and not seldom, go back upon ourselves and say, ‘Look, O my soul, at thy past self, and past through the forbearance of God. Look at that place where thou didst once dwell, and in which thou didst live a life of such sin. And look at that person — where is he now? — thy companion in thy sin. And look often at those things in thy past that no one ever saw but God Himself, whose forbearance toward thee and toward thy sins has been so long and so great, And when your heart turns sick as you go back upon your past, betake yourself again to Cowper’s passage, and to Him whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God.

‘To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness.’ ‘This time’ to Paul was just that moment when he sat, pen in hand, over this passage. And then ‘this time’ to the Romans was the first time they read this passage, or again heard it read. But their time is now long past, and our time has this day come to us. This, in Paul’s words in another epistle of his, is our accepted time, and our day of salvation. Now, is it so? Or is it to be so? All our past sins close round us at this time, beseeching us to seek their remission before the time of remission is for ever past. Now what is your answer? What are you intending to do with those sins that are past, but are past only through the forbearance of God.’* Are you to go on counting on His continued forbearance.? Or will you not make His long-suffering your salvation, and at this time cast yourself and all your sins on His free and full forgiveness? Which of the two is it to be at this time? It is for you to say. For neither God nor man can say it for you. Only, as ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God, that God may in your case also be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

And then, him which believeth in Jesus’ will be your true and proper name from this time henceforward. And when once you have attained to that great name, hold fast by it. At all times and in all places look on yourself, and give this always as your true and proper name and address, * him which believeth in Jesus.’ As often as you join that great gospel preacher, and take a turn with him up and down among the sins that are past, always begin that review and end it as a believer in Jesus. Never, for one moment, dare to face either your past sins or your present sinfulness, but as a believer in Jesus. And if you have been a great transgressor in the past, and still are a great sinner in your heart, then, all the more, be a great believer in Jesus. Whatever other parts you may, or may not, play in life: whatever other characters you may, or may not, sustain: whatever other designations or descriptions you may, or may not, answer to, — be in all, and be above all, a believer in Jesus. All your days, and above everything else, practise believing in Jesus till you become an adept in that most important of all the arts and accomplishments of human life in this world. And then when your believing days on earth come to an end, — What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death? The souls of believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory, and their bodies being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection. And then, — What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection? At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief 1