But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
— Romans 4:24-25
But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
— Romans 4:24
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
— Romans 1:17-18
For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
— Romans 4:3
Justification by Faith Alone, by Jonathan Edwards.
But to him who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
— Romans 4:5
The following things may be noted in this verse:
That justification regards man as ungodly. This is evident by these words, who justifies the ungodly. This cannot imply less than this: that in the act of justification, God has no regard toward anything in the person who is justified, such as godliness or any goodness in him, but immediately before this act, God beholds him only as an ungodly creature. So that, godliness in the person to be justified is not so antecedent to his justification as to be the ground of it. When it is said that God justifies the ungodly, it is absurd to suppose that our godliness, taken as some goodness in us, could be the ground of our justification. When it is said that Christ gave sight to the blind, it is absurd to suppose that their sight was prior to, and was the ground of that act of mercy in Christ. Or when someone, by his bounty, has made a poor man rich, it is absurd to suppose that it was the wealth of this poor man that was the ground of the rich man’s bounty towards him, and the price by which it was procured.
It appears in this verse, that the phrase, him who does not work, does not mean someone who merely doesn’t conform to the ceremonial law. This is because he who does not work, and the ungodly, are evidently synonymous expressions, or they signify the same thing. This appears by the manner of their connection. If this were not so, then to what purpose is the term, the ungodly, brought in? The context gives no other occasion for it, than to show that by the grace of the gospel, God in justification has no regard to any godliness of ours. The foregoing verse is, “Now to him who works, the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt.” In that verse, it is evident that gospel grace consists in the reward being given without works. In this verse which immediately follows it, and in a sense is connected with it, gospel grace consists in a man’s being justified as ungodly. By it is most plain that him who does not work, and the one who is ungodly, mean the same thing. And therefore, not only are works of the ceremonial law excluded in this business of justification, but works of morality and godliness.
It is evident in the words spoken here, that the faith by which we are justified, is not the same thing as a course of obedience or righteousness, since the expression by which this faith is denoted here, is believing in Him who justifies the ungodly. Those who oppose the Solifidians, as they call them, greatly insist that we should take the words of Scripture concerning this doctrine, in their most natural and obvious meaning. Oh, how they cry aloud about our clouding this doctrine with obscure metaphors and unintelligible figures of speech! But when the Scripture speaks of our believing in Him who justifies the ungodly, or the breakers of His law, is this interpreting Scripture according to its most obvious meaning, that the meaning is performing a course of obedience to His law, and avoiding breaches of it? Believing in God as a justifier is certainly a different thing from submitting to God as a lawgiver, especially believing in Him as a justifier of the ungodly, or rebels against the lawgiver.
It is evident that the subject of justification is looked at as destitute of any righteousness in himself, by the expression it is counted, or imputed to him for righteousness. The phrase, as the apostle uses it here and in the context, manifestly imports that God, of his sovereign grace, is pleased in his dealings with the sinner, to regard the one who has no righteousness, the same as if he had. However, this may be from the respect it bears to something that is indeed righteous. It is plain that this is the force of the expression in the preceding verses. In the next to last verse, it is manifest that the apostle lays the stress of his argument for the free grace of God on the word counted or imputed — from the Old Testament text about Abraham. This is the thing in which Paul supposed God showed his grace: in counting something for righteousness in his consequential dealings with Abraham, that was no righteousness in itself. In the next verse (Rom 4.3), which immediately precedes this text, “Now to him who works, the reward is not reckoned as grace, but as debt,” the word that is there translated reckoned, is the same word that is rendered imputed and counted in the other verses. It is as if the apostle said, “As for him who works, there is no need for any gracious reckoning or counting it for righteousness, and causing the reward to follow as if it were a righteousness. For if he has works, then he has what is a righteousness in itself, to which the reward properly belongs. ”
This is further evident by the words that follow. Rom 4.6, “Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works.” What can be meant here by imputing righteousness without works, if not imputing righteousness to the man who has none of his own? For verses 7 and 8 say: “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” How are these words of David to the apostle’s purpose? Or how do they at all prove that righteousness is imputed without works — unless it is because the word imputed is used, and the subject of the imputation is mentioned as a sinner — and consequently, he is destitute of moral righteousness? For David says no such thing as that he is forgiven without the works of the ceremonial law. There is no hint of the ceremonial law, nor any reference to it in his words.
I will therefore venture to infer this doctrine from the words, for the subject of my present discourse:
DOCTRINE:
We are justified only by faith in Christ, and not by any manner of virtue or goodness of our own. That is, the plain meaning is not that we are justified by obedience to the law (as opponents of the doctrine of sola fide claimed), but we are justified despite our disobedience to the law, through faith in Christ’s righteousness alone. For the background, a new surge of Arminianism arose just prior to the Great Awakening. This led Edwards to refute it with these sermons. Also, in 1700, Christopher Ness had written his classic, “Antidote to Arminianism.” – WHG
Rom 4:24 It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Repeating Rom 4.3, which quotes Gen 15.6.
I am sensible that many might be ready to call such an assertion absurd, as betraying a great deal of ignorance, and containing much inconsistency. But I desire everyone’s patience until I am done. In handling this doctrine, I would:
Explain the meaning of it, and show how I would be understood by such an assertion.
Proceed to the consideration of the evidence of the truth of it.
III. Show how evangelical obedience is concerned in this affair.
Answer several objections.
Consider the importance of the doctrine. Evangelical obedience, or gospel obedience, is our personal obedience, holiness, or godliness, as distinct from what is imputed to us from Christ. It is the expression or evidence of our faith, as James points out in his epistle (Jas 2.18). A.W. Pink (1886-1952) offered this description of it, in his article of the same name:
“Evangelical obedience is obviously the opposite of legal obedience — and that [latter] is of two sorts:
“First, the flawless and constant conformity to His revealed will — which God required from Adam, and which He still demands from all who are under the Covenant of Works — for though man has lost his power to perform, God has not relinquished His right to insist upon what is His just due.
“Second, the obedience of unregenerate formalists, which is unacceptable to God — not only because it is full of defects — but because it issues from a natural principle — is not done in faith, and is rendered in a mercenary spirit, and therefore consists of dead works (Heb 6:1; 9:14).
“Evangelical obedience is also to be distinguished from imputed obedience. It is blessedly true that when they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God reckons to the account of all the subjects of the Covenant of Grace, the perfect obedience of their Surety, so that He pronounces them justified, or possessed of that righteousness which the Law requires. Yet that is not the only obedience which characterizes the redeemed. They now personally regulate their lives by God’s commands and walk in the way of His precepts; and though their performances have many blemishes in them (as they are well aware) — yet God is pleased for Christ’s sake to accept the same.
“It should need no long and laborious argument to demonstrate that God must require obedience — full and hearty obedience — from every rational agent, for only thus does He enforce His moral government over the same. The one who is indebted to God for his being and sustenance, is obviously under binding obligations to . . .love Him with all his heart, serve Him with all might, and seek to glorify Him in all that he does. ”
I. The Meaning of the Doctrine.
I would explain the meaning of the doctrine, or show in what sense I assert it. And I would endeavor to evince the truth of it, which may be done in answer to these two inquiries:
What is meant by being justified?
What is meant when it is said that this is by faith alone, without any manner of virtue or goodness “of our own?”
(1) First, I would show what justification is, or what I suppose is meant in Scripture by being justified. Here I would not at all enlarge upon it; and therefore, to answer in short:
A person is said to be justified, when he is approved by God as free from the guilt of sin and its deserved punishment; and having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles him to the reward of life. We take the word justify in such a sense, and we understand it as the judge’s accepting a person as having both a negative and positive righteousness belonging to him. Therefore, the judge looks at him not only as free from any obligation to punishment, but also as just and righteous; and so he is entitled to a positive reward. This is not only most agreeable to the etymology and natural import of the word — which signifies to make righteous, or to pass judgment on someone as being righteous — but it is also manifestly agreeable to the force of the word as used in Scripture.
Some suppose that nothing more is intended in Scripture by justification , than the bare remission of sins. If so, then it is very strange if we consider the nature of the case. For it is most evident, and none will deny, that it is with respect to the rule or the law of God that we are under, that we are said in Scripture to be either justified or condemned. Now what does it mean to justify a person as the subject of a law or rule, if not to judge him as standing right with respect to that rule? To justify a person in a particular case, is to approve of him as standing right, as subject to the law in that case. And to justify him in general, is to pass judgment on him, as standing right in a state corresponding to the law or rule in general. But certainly, in order for a person to be looked at as standing right with respect to the rule in general, or in a state corresponding to the law of God, more is needed than not having the guilt of sin. For whatever that law is, whether a new or an old one, doubtless something positive is needed to answer to the law. We are no more justified by the voice of the law, or by someone who judges according to the law, by a mere pardon of sin, than Adam was, our first surety. He was justified by the law at the moment of his existence, before he had yet fulfilled the obedience of the law, or had so much as a trial as to whether he would fulfill it or not. If Adam had finished his course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified; and certainly his justification would have implied something more than what is merely negative. He would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the righteousness of the law. Accordingly, he would have been adjudged to be due its reward.
I. Meaning of the Doctrine
So Christ, our second surety (in whose justification all who have him as their surety, are virtually justified ), was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments through all trials. And then, in his resurrection, he was justified. When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit , 1Pet 3.18, then he who was manifest in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit, 1Tim 3.16. But when God justified Him in raising him from the dead, He not only released him from his humiliation for sin, and acquitted him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what he had done. Indeed, the justification of a believer is none other than being admitted to communion in, or participation in the justification of this Head and Surety of all believers. For Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our surety. So when he was raised from the dead after this suffering, he was justified in this, not as a private person, but as the surety and representative of all who would believe in him. So that he was raised again not only for his own, but also for our justification, according to the apostle. He says in Rom 4.25, “Who was delivered for our offenses, and raised again for our justification.” This is why the apostle says in Rom 8.34, “Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore, who is risen again.”
But it is more directly taught in the Scriptures, that a believer’s justification implies not only remission of sins, or acquittal from the wrath due to it, but also an admittance to a title to that glory which is the reward of righteousness. See particularly Rom 5.1-2, where the apostle mentions both of these as joint benefits implied in justification: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” So remission of sin, and inheritance among those who are sanctified, are mentioned together, as what are jointly obtained by faith in Christ. Act 26.18, “That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among those who are sanctified through faith in Me.” Both of these are without doubt implied in passing from death to life , which Christ speaks of as the fruit of faith, and which he opposes to condemnation. Joh 5.24, “Truly I say to you, he who hears my word, and believes in Him who sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but has passed from death to life.”
(2) Secondly, I now proceed to show what is meant when it is said that this justification is by faith only, and not by any virtue or goodness of our own.
This inquiry may be subdivided into two parts: How it is by faith.
How it is by faith alone, without any manner of goodness of ours. Virtually justified: justified in essence or effect, but not yet in fact. WCF 11.4: “God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect (Gal 3.8; 1Pet 1.2,19,20; Rom 8.30); and Christ did, in the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification (Gal 4.4; Rom 4.25): nevertheless, they are not justified until the Holy Spirit, in due time, actually applies Christ to them [upon their personal belief in Christ].(Col 1.21,22; Gal 2.16; Tit 3.4-7) – WHG Not only privately for himself, but also as a public person and the FEDERAL representative of His people. – WHG
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