Christ Set Forth, Book III: Matter of Triumph about Our Justification

How our faith may raise from hence just matter of triumph about our justification. An explication how we are justified by faith although justified in Christ at his Hcsurrcctiori.

AXD hereupon is grounded this triumph of faith here, from Christ’s Resurrection, Who shall condemn? It is Christ that is risen: the meaning whereof is, that he was justified at his Resurrection, (Justified in the Spirit, and Quickened in the Spirit, being all one) and we in him. Yea, and a rather is put upon this, rather than upon his death; for this act was a solemn discharge from all sin and condemnation: it was a legal acquittance given to Christ for all our sins, and so to us also considered as in him. His Death was but the satisfaction and payment; but this is the first act of absolution: yea, and this is the original act, which is upon record between God and Christ; and our justification and atonement (when we are justified by faith in Christ) is but a copy fetched from this roll, and court sentence then pronounced.

And such a way and course to ratify and make acts good and legal, (even to have them done by another representing one’s person) is common among men, as those instances I formerly gave do shew. An attorney at law receives a debt, or an acquittance for a debt, paid or given for another man, and it is as legal, as if the man himself, or creditor had done it, and the debtor had received the acquittance himself. Yea, acts of the greatest and highest concernment are oft-times no otherwise transacted; as the marriages of princes are by proxy solemnized, their ambassadors representing their persons, and contrading and marrying their wives in their stead, which acts are thereby made as irrevocable and irrepealable, as if themselves had in person done them. And so if we were justified when Christ did rise and was justified, our justification then cannot be reversed, but stands as legal and warrantable as any act that God or man ever ratified or confirmed. And who then shall condemn?

Only, for further explication sake, lest there be a mistake, let me add this, that it is necessary that we be justified in our own persons byj’aith, (notwithstanding this former act thus legally passed) whereby we lay hold upon what God did thus before for us in Christ, to the end that God upon our believing may according to his own rules justijy his justifying of us unto all the world; which until we do believe, he could not do. For according to the revealed rules of his word, (which he professeth to proceed by at the last day) there is a curse and a sentence of condemnation pronounced against us, under which we stand till he shall take it off by giving us faith; unto which faith, or upon which believing he hath, in the same word made the promise of justifying us in our own per sons, as before he had done in Christ. Yet still notwithstanding, so, as, although when we first be lieve, then only justification is actually and personally applied to us; yet at Christ’s Resurrection, and in his being then justified, this act and sentence was virtually pronounced upon us, and so doth necessarily require and exact at God’s hands, the bestowing faith upon us; that so by virtue of this former act passed, we come to be actually justified in our own consciences, and before all the world: and so our justification which was but secretly wrought, and passed upon us in Christ, is never made void, but stands irrepealable; and so ratified, that our personal justification by faith doth always infallibly second and succeed it. And (to illustrate it a little) our condemnation in Adam, and this our justification in Christ, do in this hold parallel together, that as in Adam we were all virtually condemned, (In Adam all die) (and that legally enough too, for thereupon came out that statute-law, statutem est, it is appointed that all should die) and yet we are not in our own persons condemned, till we are born of him; nor do we personally die, until we lay down our flesh: even so is it in the matter of our justification; it was done virtually in Christ, and afterwards when we believe, is actually passed in and upon ourselves. Now I call this former but a virtual justification, even as by the sentence, of condemnation passed upon a malefactor, he is called a dead man, that is, he is so in law, as we say, though naturally he die not many days after, but in that respect may be still alive; so by Christ’s being justified, we are all virtually, ancj in law justified, through a secret, yet irrepealable Covenant between God and Christ, who only di then know who were his.

And for a confirmation even of this also, that God accounts all the Elect justified in his justifying of Christ, we shall not need to go any further than the words of this text, if we do but diligently compare their standing here, with that of theirs in that place out of which they are taken, and where we find them first recorded and spoken, namely, in that of Isaiah 1. 7, 8, He is near that justifies me. who is he that shall condemn? Now there (as interpreters agree, and as the context shews) those words are spoken by Christ himself; for verse 5th, he speaks of God’s boring his ear to do his will, (the same expression that is used of Christ, Psalm xl. 6,) and farther says, I gave my bade to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that pulled of the hair, and I hid not MI/ face from shame and spitting; (all which you may read in Christ’s sufferings, Matt, xxvi. 27, and xxvii. 26.) And he spake before (in verse 4) of God’s having given him the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season to him that is weary; (which you may read done by Christ, Matt. xi. 28.) Now those words were spoken by Christ, to comfort himself against the Jews condemning him, as considering that God would justify him; as at his Resurrection you have heard he did. Now mark it, those very words which Isaiah brings in Christ speaking as of himself alone, those very words, Paul here boldly applies, in the like triumph, to all the Elect of Christ, Who shall condemn? It is God that justifies; and this, because Christ is dead and risen, and acquitted by God. Christ spake those words as a public person, in the name of all his Elect, whom he in his death and in his justification represented; and for that very respect Paul speaks the like words over again, of all Elect believers, as being as truly and really intended of them, when spoken by Christ, as of, himself, and his own person. He is near that justifies me, says Christ, who shall condemn? namely, Me, or mine elect, whose persons I sustain. And Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect, says Paul, It is God that justifies, who shall condemn? for Christ hath died, and been condemned for them, and Christ was justified from that condemnation, and they in him. And because the justification of himself, which Christ spake of, as looked for from God, was to be made at his Resurrection, as hath been said, therefore Paul here puts a rather upon his Resurrection.

And farther to establish this, as you heard before out of Rom. vi. 10, that in respect of Sanctificatiou we were dead with Christy even then when he died; so in Coloss. ii. 13, we are said to be risen with him in respect of our justification, which is the thing in hand. The words are, And you being dead in sins, (namely, the guilt of your sins) and the uncircumcision of your flesh, (that is, in respect of the power of corrupt nature) hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses. See here, the forgiveness of our sins, or our justification, is called a quickening, or a raising up of us, (as the 12th verse hath it) together with him, in a conformity and relation to that justification from our sins, which at his Resurrection he received in our names. His meaning is, he was justified then, and in our names: and so we are now justified through the virtue of that our communion with him therein; for if you mark the connexion of the words with what follows (verse 14) you will find this forgiving their trespasses (verse 13) through their being quickened together with him,not only to have been done when they believed, and so when they had that justification personally applied to them, (of which, it is true, the words in the 12th verse are to be understood) but also then to have been done, when he having (us it follows in the 14th verse; blotted out the /land-writing of ordinances which was against us, nailing it to his cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers, and got the victory, namely, in his rising again, had made a shew of them openly, in his ascending to heaven, triumphing over them (en auto) in himself, as the margin hath it (of which words I shall farther speak in the next head). So as then when Christ did this in himself, then were our sins forgiven; then were we acquitted with him, and triumphed with him; he doing all this in our stead, representing us.