Part 6 — Chapter II. The Reconciliation Of Man To God, Or The Application Of Redemption Through The Work Of The Holy Spirit. (continued 4)

Acts 5:31—“Him did God exalt with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins”; 11:18—“Then to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life”; 2 Tim. 2:25—“if peradventure God may give them repentance unto the knowledge of the truth.” The truly penitent man recognizes the fact that his sin deserves punishment. He never regards his penitence as offsetting the demands of law, and as making his punishment unjust. Whitefield: “Our repentance needeth to be repented of, and our very tears to be washed in the blood of Christ.” Shakespeare, Henry V, 4:1—“More will I do: Though all that I can do is nothing worth, Since that my penitence comes after all, Imploring pardon”—imploring pardon both for the crime and for the imperfect repentance.

(c) That true repentance, however, never exists except in conjunction with faith.

Sorrow for sin, not simply on account of its evil consequences to the transgressor, but on account of its intrinsic hatefulness as opposed to divine holiness and love, is practically impossible without some confidence in God's mercy. It is the Cross which first makes us truly penitent (cf. John 12:32, 33). Hence all true preaching of repentance is implicitly a preaching [pg 836] of faith (Mat. 3:1-12; cf. Acts 19:4), and repentance toward God involves faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21; Luke 15:10, 24; 19:8, 9; cf. Gal. 3:7).

John 12:32, 33—“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. But this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die.” Mat. 3:1-12—John the Baptist's preaching of repentance was also a preaching of faith; as is shown by Acts 19:4—“John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus.”Repentance involves faith: Acts 20:21—“testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”; Luke 15:10, 24—“there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.... this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found”; 19:8, 9—“the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, To-day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham”—the father of all believers; cf. Gal. 3:6, 7—“Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Know therefore that they that are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham.”

Luke 3:18 says of John the Baptist: “he preached the gospel unto the people,” and the gospel message, the glad tidings, is more than the command to repent,—it is also the offer of salvation through Christ; see Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, on John the Baptist and his Gospel, in Studies on the Gospel according to John. 2 Chron. 34:19—“And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes.” Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 44-46—“Just in proportion as one sins, does he render it impossible for him truly to repent. Repentance must be the work of another in him. Is it not the Spirit of the Crucified which is the reality of the penitence of the truly penitent?” If this be true, then it is plain that there is no true repentance which is not accompanied by the faith that unites us to Christ.

(d) That, conversely, wherever there is true faith, there is true repentance also.

Since repentance and faith are but different sides or aspects of the same act of turning, faith is as inseparable from repentance as repentance is from faith. That must be an unreal faith where there is no repentance, just as that must be an unreal repentance where there is no faith. Yet because the one aspect of his change is more prominent in the mind of the convert than the other, we are not hastily to conclude that the other is absent. Only that degree of conviction of sin is essential to salvation, which carries with it a forsaking of sin and a trustful surrender to Christ.

Bishop Hall: “Never will Christ enter into that soul where the herald of repentance hath not been before him.” 2 Cor. 7:10—“repentance unto salvation.” In consciousness, sensation and perception are in inverse ratio to each other. Clear vision is hardly conscious of sensation, but inflamed eyes are hardly conscious of anything besides sensation. So repentance and faith are seldom equally prominent in the consciousness of the converted man; but it is important to know that neither can exist without the other. The truly penitent man will, sooner or later, show that he has faith; and the true believer will certainly show, in due season, that he hates and renounces sin.

The question, how much conviction a man needs to insure his salvation, may be answered by asking how much excitement one needs on a burning steamer. As, in the latter case, just enough to prompt persistent effort to escape; so, in the former case, just enough remorseful feeling is needed, to induce the sinner to betake himself believingly to Christ.

On the general subject of Repentance, see Anderson, Regeneration, 279-288; Bp. Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 40-48, 311-318; Woods, Works, 3:68-78; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 5:1-10, 208-246; Luthardt, Compendium, 3d ed., 206-208; Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 375-381; Alexander, Evidences of Christianity, 47-60; Crawford, Atonement, 413-419.

2. Faith.

Faith is that voluntary change in the mind of the sinner in which he turns to Christ. Being essentially a change of mind, it involves a change [pg 837] of view, a change of feeling, and a change of purpose. We may therefore analyze faith also into three constituents, each succeeding term of which includes and implies the preceding:

A. An intellectual element (notitia, credere Deum),—recognition of the truth of God's revelation, or of the objective reality of the salvation provided by Christ. This includes not only a historical belief in the facts of the Scripture, but an intellectual belief in the doctrine taught therein as to man's sinfulness and dependence upon Christ.

John 2:23, 24—“How when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, during the feast, many believed on his name, beholding his signs which he did. But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men”; cf. 3:2—Nicodemus has this external faith: “no one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him.” James 2:19—“Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well: the demons also believe, and shudder.” Even this historical faith is not without its fruits. It is the spring of much philanthropic work. There were no hospitals in ancient Rome. Much of our modern progress is due to the leavening influence of Christianity, even in the case of those who have not personally accepted Christ.

McLaren, S. S. Times, Feb. 22, 1902:107—“Luke does not hesitate to say, in Acts 8:13, that ‘Simon Magus also himself believed.’ But he expects us to understand that Simon's belief was not faith that saved, but mere credence in the gospel narrative as true history. It had no ethical or spiritual worth. He was ‘amazed,’ as the Samaritans had been at his juggleries. It did not lead to repentance, or confession, or true trust. He was only ‘amazed’ at Philip's miracles, and there was no salvation in that.” Merely historical faith, such as Disciples and Ritschlians hold to, lacks the element of affection, and besides this lacks the present reality of Christ himself. Faith that does not lay hold of a present Christ is not saving faith.

B. An emotional element (assensus, credere Deo),—assent to the revelation of God's power and grace in Jesus Christ, as applicable to the present needs of the soul. Those in whom this awakening of the sensibilities is unaccompanied by the fundamental decision of the will, which constitutes the next element of faith, may seem to themselves, and for a time may appear to others, to have accepted Christ.

Mat. 13:20, 21—“he that was sown upon the rocky places, this is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth”; cf. Ps. 106:12, 13—“Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel”; Ez. 33:31, 32—“And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but do them not; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their gain. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear thy words, but they do them not”; John 5:35—Of John the Baptist: “He was the lamp that burneth and shineth; and ye were willing to rejoice for a season in his light”; 8:30, 31—“As he spake these things, many believed on him (εἰς αὐτόν). Jesus therefore said to those Jews that had believed him (αὐτῷ), If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples.” They believed him, but did not yet believe on him, that is, make him the foundation of their faith and life. Yet Jesus graciously recognizes this first faint foreshadowing of faith. It might lead to full and saving faith.

“Proselytes of the gate” were so called, because they contented themselves with sitting in the gate, as it were, without going into the holy city. “Proselytes of righteousness”were those who did their whole duty, by joining themselves fully to the people of God. Not emotion, but devotion, is the important thing. Temporary faith is as irrational and valueless as temporary repentance. It perhaps gained temporary blessing in the way of healing in the time of Christ, but, if not followed by complete surrender of the will, it might even aggravate one's sin; see John 5:14—“Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee.” The special faith of miracles was not a high, but a low, form of faith, and it is not to be sought in our day as indispensable to the progress of the kingdom. Miracles have ceased, not because of decline in faith, but because the Holy Spirit has changed the method of his manifestations, and has led the church to seek more spiritual gifts.

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Saving faith, however, includes also:

C. A voluntary element (fiducia, credere in Deum),—trust in Christ as Lord and Savior; or, in other words—to distinguish its two aspects:

(a) Surrender of the soul, as guilty and defiled, to Christ's governance.

Mat. 11:28, 29—“Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me”; John 8:12—“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness”; 14:1—“Let not your heart be troubled: believe in God, believe also in me”; Acts 16:31—“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.” Instances of the use of πιστεύω, in the sense of trustful committance or surrender, are: John 2:24—“But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men”; Rom. 3:2—“they were intrusted with the oracles of God”; Gal. 2:7—“when they saw that I had been intrusted with the gospel of the uncircumcision.” πίστις = “trustful self-surrender to God” (Meyer).

In this surrender of the soul to Christ's governance we have the guarantee that the gospel salvation is not an unmoral trust which permits continuance in sin. Aside from the fact that saving faith is only the obverse side of true repentance, the very nature of faith, as submission to Christ, the embodied law of God and source of spiritual life, makes a life of obedience and virtue to be its natural and necessary result. Faith is not only a declaration of dependence, it is also a vow of allegiance. The sick man's faith in his physician is shown not simply by trusting him, but by obeying him. Doing what the doctor says is the very proof of trust. No physician will long care for a patient who refuses to obey his orders. Faith is self-surrender to the great Physician, and a leaving of our case in his hands. But it is also the taking of his prescriptions, and the active following of his directions.

We need to emphasize this active element in saving faith, lest men get the notion that mere indolent acquiescence in Christ's plan will save them. Faith is not simple receptiveness. It gives itself, as well as receives Christ. It is not mere passivity,—it is also self-committal. As all reception of knowledge is active, and there must be attention if we would learn, so all reception of Christ is active, and there must be intelligent giving as well as taking. The Watchman, April 30, 1896—“Faith is more than belief and trust. It is the action of the soul going out toward its object. It is the exercise of a spiritual faculty akin to that of sight; it establishes a personal relation between the one who exercises faith and the one who is its object. When the intellectual feature predominates, we call it belief; when the emotional element predominates, we call it trust. This faith is at once ‘An affirmation and an act Which bids eternal truth be present fact.’ ”

There are great things received in faith, but nothing is received by the man who does not first give himself to Christ. A conquered general came into the presence of his conqueror and held out to him his hand: “Your sword first, sir!” was the response. But when General Lee offered his sword to General Grant at Appomattox, the latter returned it, saying: “No, keep your sword, and go to your home.” Jacobi said that “Faith is the reflection of the divine knowing and willing in the finite spirit of man.”G. B. Foster, in Indiana Baptist Outlook, June 19, 1902—“Catholic orthodoxy is wrong in holding that the authority for faith is the church; for that would be an external authority. Protestant orthodoxy is wrong in holding that the authority for faith is the book; for that would be an external authority. Liberalism is wrong in holding that the reason is the authority for faith. The authority for faith is the revelation of God.” Faith in this revelation is faith in Christ the Revealer. It puts the soul in connection with the source of all knowledge and power. As the connection of a wire with the reservoir of electric force makes it the channel of vast energies, so the smallest measure of faith, any real connection of the soul with Christ, makes it the recipient of divine resources.

While faith is the act of the whole man, and intellect, affection, and will are involved in it, will is the all-inclusive and most important of its elements. No other exercise of will is such a revelation of our being and so decisive of our destiny. The voluntary element in faith is illustrated in marriage. Here one party pledges the future in permanent self-surrender, commits one's self to another person in confidence that this future, with all its new revelations of character, will only justify the decision made. Yet this is rational; see Holland, in Lux Mundi, 46-48. To put one's hand into molten iron, even though one knows of the “spheroidal state” that gives impunity, requires an exertion of will; and not all workmen in metals are courageous enough to make the venture. The child who leaped into the dark cellar, in confidence that her father's arms would be open to receive her, did not act irrationally, because she had heard her [pg 839]father's command and trusted his promise. Though faith in Christ is a leap in the dark, and requires a mighty exercise of will, it is nevertheless the highest wisdom, because Christ's word is pledged that “him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

J. W. A. Stewart: “Faith is 1. a bond between persons, trust, confidence; 2. it makes ventures, takes much for granted; 3. its security is the character and power of him in whom we believe,—not our faith, but his fidelity, is the guarantee that our faith is rational.” Kant said that nothing in the world is good but the good will which freely obeys the law of the good. Pfleiderer defines faith as the free surrender of the heart to the gracious will of God. Kaftan, Dogmatik, 21, declares that the Christian religion is essentially faith, and that this faith manifests itself as 1. doctrine; 2. worship; 3. morality.

(b) Reception and appropriation of Christ, as the source of pardon and spiritual life.

John 1:12—“as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name”; 4:14—“whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life”; 6:53—“Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves”; 20:31—“these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name”; Eph. 3:17—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”; Heb. 11:1—“Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen”; Rev. 3:20—“Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

The three constituents of faith may be illustrated from the thought, feeling, and action of a person who stands by a boat, upon a little island which the rising stream threatens to submerge. He first regards the boat from a purely intellectual point of view,—it is merely an actually existing boat. As the stream rises, he looks at it, secondly, with some accession of emotion,—his prospective danger awakens in him the conviction that it is a good boat for a time of need, though he is not yet ready to make use of it. But, thirdly, when he feels that the rushing tide must otherwise sweep him away, a volitional element is added,—he gets into the boat, trusts himself to it, accepts it as his present, and only, means of safety. Only this last faith in the boat is faith that saves, although this last includes both the preceding. It is equally clear that the getting into the boat may actually save a man, while at the same time he may be full of fears that the boat will never bring him to shore. These fears may be removed by the boatman's word. So saving faith is not necessarily assurance of faith; but it becomes assurance of faith when the Holy Spirit “beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God”(Rom. 8:16). On the nature of this assurance, and on the distinction between it and saving faith, see pages 844-846.

“Coming to Christ,” “looking to Christ,” “receiving Christ,” are all descriptions of faith, as are also the phrases: “surrender to Christ,” “submission to Christ,” “closing in with Christ.” Paul refers to a confession of faith in Rom. 10:9—“if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord.” Faith, then, is a taking of Christ as both Savior and Lord; and it includes both appropriation of Christ, and consecration to Christ. The voluntary element in faith, however, is a giving as well as a taking. The giving, or surrender, is illustrated in baptism by submergence; the taking, or reception, by emergence. See further on the Symbolism of Baptism. McCosh, Div. Government: “Saving faith is the consent of the will to the assent of the understanding, and commonly accompanied with emotion.” Pres. Hopkins, in Princeton Rev., Sept. 1878:511-540—“In its intellectual element, faith is receptive, and believes that God is; in its affectional element, faith is assimilative, and believes that God is a rewarder; in its voluntary element, faith is operative, and actually comes to God (Heb. 11:6).”

Where the element of surrender is emphasized and the element of reception is not understood, the result is a legalistic experience, with little hope or joy. Only as we appropriate Christ, in connection with our consecration, do we realize the full blessing of the gospel. Light requires two things: the sun to shine, and the eye to take in its shining. So we cannot be saved without Christ to save, and faith to take the Savior for ours. Faith is the act by which we receive Christ. The woman who touched the border of Jesus' garment received his healing power. It is better still to keep in touch with Christ so as to receive continually his grace and life. But best of all is taking him into our inmost being, to be the soul of our soul and the life of our life. This is the essence of faith, though many Christians do not yet realize it. Dr. Curry said well that faith can never be defined because it is a fact of life. It is a merging of our life in the [pg 840]life of Christ, and a reception of Christ's life to interpenetrate and energize ours. In faith we must take Christ as well as give ourselves. It is certainly true that surrender without trust will not make us possessors of God's peace. F. L. Anderson: “Faith is submissive reliance on Jesus Christ for salvation: 1. Reliance on Jesus Christ—not mere intellectual belief; 2. Reliance on him for salvation—we can never undo the past or atone for our sins; 3. Submissive reliance on Christ. Trust without surrender will never save.”

The passages already referred to refute the view of the Romanist, that saving faith is simply implicit assent to the doctrines of the church; and the view of the Disciple or Campbellite, that faith is merely intellectual belief in the truth, on the presentation of evidence.

The Romanist says that faith can coëxist with mortal sin. The Disciple holds that faith may and must exist before regeneration,—regeneration being completed in baptism. With these erroneous views, compare the noble utterance of Luther, Com. on Galatians, 1:191, 247, quoted in Thomasius, III, 2:183—“True faith,” says Luther, “is that assured trust and firm assent of heart, by which Christ is laid hold of,—so that Christ is the object of faith. Yet he is not merely the object of faith; but in the very faith, so to speak, Christ is present. Faith lays hold of Christ, and grasps him as a present possession, just as the ring holds the jewel.” Edwards, Works, 4:71-73; 2:601-641—“Faith,”says Edwards, “includes the whole act of unition to Christ as a Savior. The entire active uniting of the soul, or the whole of what is called coming to Christ, and receiving of him, is called faith in the Scripture.” See also Belief, What Is It? 150-179, 290-298.

Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 530—“Faith began by being: 1. a simple trust in God; then followed, 2. a simple expansion of that proposition into the assent to the proposition that God is good, and, 3. a simple acceptance of the proposition that Jesus Christ was his Son; then, 4. came in the definition of terms, and each definition of terms involved a new theory; finally, 5. the theories were gathered together into systems, and the martyrs and witnesses of Christ died for their faith, not outside but inside the Christian sphere; and instead of a world of religious belief which resembled the world of actual fact in the sublime unsymmetry of its foliage and the deep harmony of its discords, there prevailed the most fatal assumption of all, that the symmetry of a system is the test of its truth and the proof thereof.” We regard this statement of Hatch as erroneous, in that it attributes to the earliest disciples no larger faith than that of their Jewish brethren. We claim that the earliest faith involved an implicit acknowledgement of Jesus as Savior and Lord, and that this faith of simple obedience and trust became explicit recognition of our Lord's deity and atonement just so soon as persecution and the Holy Spirit disclosed to them the real contents of their own consciousness.

An illustration of the simplicity and saving power of faith is furnished by Principal J. R. Andrews, of New London, Conn., Principal of the Bartlett Grammar School. When the steamer Atlantic was wrecked off Fisher's Island, though Mr. Andrews could not swim, he determined to make a desperate effort to save his life. Binding a life-preserver about him, he stood on the edge of the deck waiting his opportunity, and when he saw a wave moving shoreward, he jumped into the rough breakers and was borne safely to land. He was saved by faith. He accepted the conditions of salvation. Forty perished in a scene where he was saved. In one sense he saved himself; in another sense he depended upon God. It was a combination of personal activity and dependence upon God that resulted in his salvation. If he had not used the life-preserver, he would have perished; if he had not cast himself into the sea, he would have perished. So faith in Christ is reliance upon him for salvation; but it is also our own making of a new start in life and the showing of our trust by action. Tract 357, Am. Tract Society—“What is it to believe on Christ? It is: To feel your need of him; To believe that he is able and willing to save you, and to save you now; and To cast yourself unreservedly upon his mercy, and trust in him alone for salvation.”

In further explanation of the Scripture representations, we remark:

(a) That faith is an act of the affections and will, as truly as it is an act of the intellect.

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It has been claimed that faith and unbelief are purely intellectual states, which are necessarily determined by the facts at any given time presented to the mind; and that they are, for this reason, as destitute of moral quality and as far from being matters of obligation, as are our instinctive feelings of pleasure and pain. But this view unwarrantably isolates the intellect, and ignores the fact that, in all moral subjects, the state of the affections and will affects the judgment of the mind with regard to truth. In the intellectual act the whole moral nature expresses itself. Since the tastes determine the opinions, faith is a moral act, and men are responsible for not believing.

John 3:18-20—“He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, lest his works should be reproved”; 5:40—“ye will not come to me, that ye may have life”; 16:8, 9—“And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin ... of sin, because they believe not on me”; Rev. 2:21—“she willed not to repent.” Notice that the Revised Version very frequently substitutes the voluntary and active terms “disobedience” and “disobedient”for the “unbelief” and “unbelieving” of the Authorized Version,—as in Rom. 15:31; Heb. 3:18; 4:6, 11; 11:31. See Park, Discourses, 45, 46.

Savages do not know that they are responsible for their physical appetites, or that there is any right and wrong in matters of sense, until they come under the influence of Christianity. In like manner, even men of science can declare that the intellectual sphere has no part in man's probation, and that we are no more responsible for our opinions and beliefs than we are for the color of our skin. But faith is not a merely intellectual act,—the affections and will give it quality. There is no moral quality in the belief that 2 + 2 = 4, because we can not help that belief. But in believing on Christ there is moral quality, because there is the element of choice. Indeed it may be questioned, whether, in every judgment upon moral things, there is not an act of will.

Hence on John 7:17—“If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself”—F. L. Patton calls attention to the two common errors: (1) that obedience will certify doctrine,—which is untrue, because obedience is the result of faith, not vice versa; (2) that personal experience is the ultimate test of faith,—which is untrue, because the Bible is the only rule of faith, and it is one thing to receive truth through the feelings, but quite another to test truth by the feelings. The text really means, that if any man is willing to do God's will, he shall know whether it be of God; and the two lessons to be drawn are: (1) the gospel needs no additional evidence; (2) the Holy Ghost is the hope of the world. On responsibility for opinions and beliefs, see Mozley, on Blanco White, in Essays Philos. and Historical, 2:142; T. T. Smith, Hulsean Lectures for 1839. Wilfrid Ward, The Wish to Believe, quotes Shakespeare: “Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought”; and Thomas Arnold: “They dared not lightly believe what they so much wished to be true.”

Pascal: “Faith is an act of the will.” Emerson, Essay on Worship: “A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples. Man's religious faith is the expression of what he is.”Bain: “In its essential character, belief is a phase of our active nature, otherwise called the will.” Nash, Ethics and Revelation, 257—“Faith is the creative human answer to the creative divine offer. It is not the passive acceptance of a divine favor.... By faith man, laying hold of the personality of God in Christ, becomes a true person. And by the same faith he becomes, under God, a creator and founder of true society.” Inge, Christian Mysticism, 52—“Faith begins with an experiment and ends with an experience. But even the power to make the experiment is given from above. Eternal life is not γνῶσις, but the state of acquiring knowledge—ἴνα γιγνώσκωσιν. It is significant that John, who is so fond of the verb ‘to know,’ never uses the substantive γνῶσις.” Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 148—“ ‘I will not obey, because I do not yet know’? But this is making the intellectual side the only side of faith, whereas the most important side is the will-side. Let a man follow what he does believe, and he shall be led on to larger faith. Faith is the reception of the personal influence of a living Lord, and a corresponding action.”

William James, Will to Believe, 61—“This life is worth living, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.... Often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.... If your heart [pg 842]does not want a world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never make you believe in one.... Freedom to believe covers only living options which the intellect cannot by itself resolve.... We are not to put a stopper on our heart, and meantime act as if religion were not true”; Psychology, 2:282, 321—“Belief is consent, willingness, turning of our disposition. It is the mental state or function of cognizing reality. We never disbelieve anything except for the reason that we believe something else which contradicts the first thing. We give higher reality to whatever things we select and emphasize and turn to with a will.... We need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. Those to whom God and duty are mere names, can make them much more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day.”

E. G. Robinson: “Campbellism makes intellectual belief to be saving faith. But saving faith is consent of the heart as well as assent of the intellect. On the one hand there is the intellectual element: faith is belief upon the ground of evidence; faith without evidence is credulity. But on the other hand faith has an element of affection; the element of love is always wrapped up in it. So Abraham's faith made Abraham like God; for we always become like that which we trust.” Faith therefore is not chronologically subsequent to regeneration, but is its accompaniment. As the soul's appropriation of Christ and his salvation, it is not the result of an accomplished renewal, but rather the medium through which that renewal is effected. Otherwise it would follow that one who had not yet believed (i. e., received Christ) might still be regenerate, whereas the Scripture represents the privilege of sonship as granted only to believers. See John 1:12, 13—“But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”; also 3:5, 6, 10-15; Gal. 3:26; 2 Pet. 1:3; cf. 1 John 5:1.

(b) That the object of saving faith is, in general, the whole truth of God, so far as it is objectively revealed or made known to the soul; but, in particular, the person and work of Jesus Christ, which constitutes the centre and substance of God's revelation (Acts 17:18; 1 Cor. 1:23; Col. 1:27; Rev. 19:10).

The patriarchs, though they had no knowledge of a personal Christ, were saved by believing in God so far as God had revealed himself to them; and whoever among the heathen are saved, must in like manner be saved by casting themselves as helpless sinners upon God's plan of mercy, dimly shadowed forth in nature and providence. But such faith, even among the patriarchs and heathen, is implicitly a faith in Christ, and would become explicit and conscious trust and submission, whenever Christ were made known to them (Mat. 8:11, 12; John 10:16; Acts 4:12; 10:31, 34, 35, 44; 16:31).

Acts 17:18—“he preached Jesus and the resurrection”; 1 Cor. 1:23—“we preach Christ crucified”; Col. 1:27—“this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we proclaim”; Rev. 19:10—“the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Saving faith is not belief in a dogma, but personal trust in a personal Christ. It is, therefore, possible to a child. Dorner: “The object of faith is the Christian revelation—God in Christ.... Faith is union with objective Christianity—appropriation of the real contents of Christianity.” Dr. Samuel Hopkins, the great uncle, defined faith as “an understanding, cordial receiving of the divine testimony concerning Jesus Christ and the way of salvation by him, in which the heart accords and conforms to the gospel.” Dr. Mark Hopkins, the great nephew, defined it as “confidence in a personal being.” Horace Bushnell: “Faith rests on a person. Faith is that act by which one person, a sinner, commits himself to another person, a Savior.” In John 11:25—“I am the resurrection and the life”—Martha is led to substitute belief in a person for belief in an abstract doctrine. Jesus is “the resurrection,” because he is “the life.” All doctrine and all miracle is significant and important only because it is the expression of the living Christ, the Revealer of God.

The object of faith is sometimes represented in the N. T., as being God the Father. John 5:24—“He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life”; Rom. 4:5—“to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.” We can [pg 843]explain these passages only when we remember that Christ is God “manifested in the flesh”(1 Tim. 3:16), and that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). Man may receive a gift without knowing from whom it comes, or how much it has cost. So the heathen, who casts himself as a sinner upon God's mercy, may receive salvation from the Crucified One, without knowing who is the giver, or that the gift was purchased by agony and blood. Denney, Studies in Theology, 154—“No N. T. writer ever remembered Christ. They never thought of him as belonging to the past. Let us not preach about the historicalChrist, but rather, about the living Christ; nay, let us preach him, present and omnipotent. Jesus could say: ‘Whither I go, ye know the way’ (John 14:4); for they knew him, and he was both the end and the way.”

Dr. Charles Hodge unduly restricts the operations of grace to the preaching of the incarnate Christ: Syst. Theol., 2:648—“There is no faith where the gospel is not heard; and where there is no faith, there is no salvation. This is indeed an awful doctrine.”And yet, in 2:668, he says most inconsistently: “As God is everywhere present in the material world, guiding its operations according to the laws of nature; so he is everywhere present with the minds of men, as the Spirit of truth and goodness, operating on them according to laws of their free moral agency, inclining them to good and restraining them from evil.” This presence and revelation of God we hold to be through Christ, the eternal Word, and so we interpret the prophecy of Caiaphas as referring to the work of the personal Christ: John 11:51, 52—“he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God that are scattered abroad.”

Since Christ is the Word of God and the Truth of God, he may be received even by those who have not heard of his manifestation in the flesh. A proud and self-righteous morality is inconsistent with saving faith; but a humble and penitent reliance upon God, as a Savior from sin and a guide of conduct, is an implicit faith in Christ; for such reliance casts itself upon God, so far as God has revealed himself,—and the only Revealer of God is Christ. We have, therefore, the hope that even among the heathen there may be some, like Socrates, who, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit working through the truth of nature and conscience, have found the way of life and salvation.

The number of such is so small as in no degree to weaken the claims of the missionary enterprise upon us. But that there are such seems to be intimated in Scripture: Mat. 8:11, 12—“many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness”; John 10:16—“And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd”; Acts 4:12—“And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved”; 10:31, 34, 35, 44—“Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.... Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him.... While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word”; 16:31—“Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.”

And instances are found of apparently regenerated heathen; see in Godet on John 7:17, note (vol. 2:277), the account of the so-called “Chinese hermit,” who accepted Christ, saying: “This is the only Buddha whom men ought to worship!” Edwards, Life of Brainard, 173-175, gives an account “of one who was a devout and zealous reformer, or rather restorer, of what he supposed was the ancient religion of the Indians.” After a period of distress, he says that God “comforted his heart and showed him what he should do, and since that time he had known God and tried to serve him; and loved all men, be they who they would, so as he never did before.” See art. by Dr. Lucius E. Smith, in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1881:622-645, on the question: “Is salvation possible without a knowledge of the gospel?” H. B. Smith, System, 323, note, rightly bases hope for the heathen, not on morality, but on sacrifice.

A chief of the Camaroons in S. W. Africa, fishing with many of his tribe long before the missionaries came, was overtaken by a storm, and while almost all the rest were drowned, he and a few others escaped. He gathered his people together afterwards and told the story of disaster. He said: “When the canoes upset and I found myself battling with the waves, I thought: To whom shall I cry for help? I knew that the god of the hills could not help me; I knew that the evil spirit would not help me. So I cried to the Great Father, Lord, save me! At that moment my feet touched the sand of the beach, and I was safe. Now let all my people honor the Great Father, and let no man speak a word against him, for he can help us.” This chief afterwards used every effort to prevent strife and bloodshed, and was remembered by those who came after as a peace-maker. His son told this story to Alfred Saker, the missionary, saying [pg 844] “Why did you not come sooner? My father longed to know what you have told us; he thirsted for the knowledge of God.” Mr. Saker told this in England in 1879.

John Fiske appends to his book, The Idea of God, 168, 169, the following pathetic words of a Kafir, named Sekese, in conversation with a French traveler, M. Arbrouseille, on the subject of the Christian religion: “Your tidings,” said this uncultured barbarian, “are what I want, and I was seeking before I knew you, as you shall hear and judge for yourself. Twelve years ago I went to feed my flocks; the weather was hazy. I sat down upon a rock, and asked myself sorrowful questions; yes, sorrowful, because I was unable to answer them. Who has touched the stars with his hands—on what pillars do they rest? I asked myself. The waters never weary, they know no other law than to flow without ceasing from morning till night and from night till morning; but where do they stop, and who makes them flow thus? The clouds also come and go, and burst in water over the earth. Whence come they—who sends them? The diviners certainly do not give us rain; for how could they do it? And why do I not see them with my own eyes, when they go up to heaven to fetch it? I cannot see the wind; but what is it? Who brings it, makes it blow and roar and terrify us? Do I know how the corn sprouts? Yesterday there was not a blade in my field; to-day I returned to my field and found some; who can have given to the earth the wisdom and the power to produce it? Then I buried my head in both hands.”

On the question whether men are ever led to faith, without intercourse with living Christians or preachers, see Life of Judson, by his son, 84. The British and Foreign Bible Society publish a statement, made upon the authority of Sir Bartle Frere, that he met with “an instance, which was carefully investigated, in which all the inhabitants of a remote village in the Deccan had abjured idolatry and caste, removed from their temples the idols which had been worshiped there time out of mind, and agreed to profess a form of Christianity which they had deduced from the careful perusal of a single Gospel and a few tracts.” Max Müller, Chips, 4:177-189, apparently proves that Buddha is the original of St. Josaphat, who has a day assigned to him in the calendar of both the Greek and the Roman churches. “Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis.”

The Missionary Review of the World, July, 1896:519-523, tells the story of Adiri, afterwards called John King, of Maripastoon in Dutch Guiana. The Holy Spirit wrought in him mightily years before he heard of the missionaries. He was a coal-black negro, a heathen and a fetish worshiper. He was convicted of sin and apparently converted through dreams and visions. Heaven and hell were revealed to him. He was sick unto death, and One appeared to him declaring himself to be the Mediator between God and man, and telling him to go to the missionaries for instruction. He was persecuted, but he won his tribe from heathenism and transformed them into a Christian community.

S. W. Hamblen, missionary to China, tells of a very earnest and consistent believer who lived at rather an obscure town of about 2800 people. The evangelist went to visit him and found that he was a worthy example to those around him. He had become a Christian before he had seen a single believer, by reading a Chinese New Testament. Although till the evangelist went to his house he had never met a Baptist and did not know that there were any Baptist churches in existence, yet by reading the New Testament he had become not only a Christian but a strong Baptist in belief, so strong that he could argue with the missionary on the subject of baptism.

The Rev. K. E. Malm, a pioneer Baptist preacher in Sweden, on a journey to the district as far north as Gestrikland, met a woman from Lapland who was on her way to Upsala in order to visit Dr. Fjellstedt and converse with him as to how she might obtain peace with God and get rid of her anxiety concerning her sins. She said she had traveled 60 (= 240 English) miles, and she had still far to go. Malm improved the opportunity to speak to her concerning the crucified Christ, and she found peace in believing on his atonement. She became so happy that she clapped her hands, and for joy could not sleep that night. She said later: “Now I will return home and tell the people what I have found.” This she did, and did not care to continue her journey to Upsala, in order to get comfort from Dr. Fjellstedt.

(c) That the ground of faith is the external word of promise. The ground of assurance, on the other hand, is the inward witness of the Spirit that we fulfil the conditions of the promise (Rom. 4:20, 21; 8:16; Eph. 1:13; 1 John 4:13; 5:10). This witness of the Spirit is not a new revelation [pg 845] from God, but a strengthening of faith so that it becomes conscious and indubitable.

True faith is possible without assurance of salvation. But if Alexander's view were correct, that the object of saving faith is the proposition: “God, for Christ's sake, now looks with reconciling love on me, a sinner,” no one could believe, without being at the same time assured that he was a saved person. Upon the true view, that the object of saving faith is not a proposition, but a person, we can perceive not only the simplicity of faith, but the possibility of faith even where the soul is destitute of assurance or of joy. Hence those who already believe are urged to seek for assurance (Heb. 6:11; 2 Peter 1:10).

Rom. 4:20, 21—“looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform”; 8:16—“The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God”; Eph. 1:13—“in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”; 1 John 4:13—“hereby we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit”; 5:10—“He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him.”This assurance is not of the essence of faith, because believers are exhorted to attain to it: Heb. 6:11—“And we desire that each one of you may show the same diligence unto the fulness of hope [marg.—‘full assurance’] even to the end”; 2 Pet. 1:10—“Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure.” Cf. Prov. 14:14—“a good man shall be satisfied from himself.”

There is need to guard the doctrine of assurance from mysticism. The witness of the Spirit is not a new and direct revelation from God. It is a strengthening of previously existing faith until he who possesses this faith cannot any longer doubt that he possesses it. It is a general rule that all our emotions, when they become exceedingly strong, also become conscious. Instance affection between man and woman.

Edwards, Religious Affections, in Works, 3:83-91, says the witness of the Spirit is not a new word or suggestion from God, but an enlightening and sanctifying influence, so that the heart is drawn forth to embrace the truth already revealed, and to perceive that it embraces it. “Bearing witness” is not in this case to declare and assert a thing to be true, but to hold forth evidence from which a thing may be proved to be true: God “beareth witness ... by signs and wonders” (Heb. 2:4). So the “seal of the Spirit” is not a voice or suggestion, but a work or effect of the Spirit, left as a divine mark upon the soul, to be an evidence by which God's children may be known. Seals had engraved upon them the image or name of the persons to whom they belonged. The “seal of the Spirit,” the “earnest of the Spirit,” the “witness of the Spirit,” are all one thing. The childlike spirit, given by the Holy Spirit, is the Holy Spirit's witness or evidence in us.

See also illustration of faith and assurance, in C. S. Robinson's Short Studies for S. S. Teachers, 179, 180. Faith should be distinguished not only from assurance, but also from feeling or joy. Instance Abraham's faith when he went to sacrifice Isaac; and Madame Guyon's faith, when God's face seemed hid from her. See, on the witness of the Spirit, Short, Bampton Lectures for 1846; British and For. Evan. Rev., 1888:617-631. For the view which confounds faith with assurance, see Alexander, Discourses on Faith, 63-118.

It is important to distinguish saving faith from assurance of faith, for the reason that lack of assurance is taken by so many real Christians as evidence that they know nothing of the grace of God. To use once more a well-worn illustration: It is getting into the boat that saves us, and not our comfortable feelings about the boat. What saves us is faith in Christ, not faith in our faith, or faith in the faith. The astronomer does not turn his telescope to the reflection of the sun or moon in the water, when he can turn it to the sun or moon itself. Why obscure our faith, when we can look to Christ?

The faith in a distant Redeemer was the faith of Christian, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Only at the end of his journey does Christian have Christ's presence. This representation rests upon a wrong conception of faith as laying hold of a promise or a doctrine, rather than as laying hold of the living and present Christ. The old Scotch woman's direction to the inquirer to “grip the promise” is not so good as the direction to “grip Christ.” Sir Francis Drake, the great English sailor, had for his crest an [pg 846]anchor with a cable running up into the sky. A poor boy, taught in a mission school in Ireland, when asked what was meant by saving faith, replied: “It is grasping God with the heart.”

The view of Charles Hodge, like that of Alexander, puts doctrine before Christ, and makes the formal principle, the supremacy of Scripture, superior to the material principle, justification by faith. The Shorter Catechism is better: “Faith in Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest on him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.” If this relation of faith to the personal Christ had been kept in mind, much religious despondency might have been avoided. Murphy, Natural Selection and Spiritual Freedom, 30, 31, tells us that Frances Ridley Havergal could never fix the date of her conversion. From the age of six to that of fourteen she suffered from religious fears, and did not venture to call herself a Christian. It was the result of confounding being at peace with God and being conscious of that peace. So the mother of Frederick Denison Maurice, an admirable and deeply religious woman, endured long and deep mental suffering from doubts as to her personal election.

There is a witness of the Spirit, with some sinners, that they are not children of God, and this witness is through the truth, though the sinner does not know that it is the Spirit who reveals it to him. We call this work of the Spirit conviction of sin. The witness of the Spirit that we are children of God, and the assurance of faith of which Scripture speaks, are one and the same thing, the former designation only emphasizing the source from which the assurance springs. False assurance is destitute of humility, but true assurance is so absorbed in Christ that self is forgotten. Self-consciousness, and desire to display one's faith, are not marks of true assurance. When we say: “That man has a great deal of assurance,” we have in mind the false and self-centered assurance of the hypocrite or the self-deceiver.

Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 231—“It has been said that any one who can read Edwards's Religious Affections, and still believe in his own conversion, may well have the highest assurance of its reality. But how few there were in Edwards's time who gained the assurance, may be inferred from the circumstance that Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Emmons, disciples of Edwards and religious leaders in New England, remained to the last uncertain of their conversion.” He can attribute this only to the semi-deistic spirit of the time, with its distant God and imperfect apprehension of the omnipresence and omnipotence of Christ. Nothing so clearly marks the practical progress of Christianity as the growing faith in Jesus, the only Revealer of God in nature and history as well as in the heart of the believer. As never before, faith comes directly to Christ, abides in him, and finds his promise true: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Mat. 28:20). “Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of faith Fall on the seeming void and find The Rock beneath.”

(d) That faith necessarily leads to good works, since it embraces the whole truth of God so far as made known, and appropriates Christ, not only as an external Savior, but as an internal sanctifying power (Heb. 7:15, 16; Gal. 5:6).

Good works are the proper evidence of faith. The faith which does not lead men to act upon the commands and promises of Christ, or, in other words, does not lead to obedience, is called in Scripture a “dead,” that is, an unreal, faith. Such faith is not saving, since it lacks the voluntary element—actual appropriation of Christ (James 2:14-26).

Heb. 7:15, 16—“another priest, who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life”; Gal. 5:6—“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love”; James 2:14, 26—“What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? Can that faith save him?... For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.”

The best evidence that I believe a man's word is that I act upon it. Instance the bank-cashier's assurance to me that a sum of money is deposited with him to my account. If I am a millionaire, the communication may cause me no special joy. My faith in the cashier's word is tested by my going, or not going, for the money. So my faith in Christ is evidenced by my acting upon his commands and promises. We may illustrate also by the lifting of the trolley to the wire, and the resulting light and heat and motion to the car that before stood dark and cold and motionless upon the track. [pg 847]Salvation by works is like getting to one's destination by pushing the car. True faith depends upon God for energy, but it results in activity of all our powers. Rom. 3:28—“We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” We are saved only by faith, yet this faith will be sure to bring forth good works; see Gal. 5:6—“faith working through love.” Dead faith might be illustrated by Abraham Lincoln's Mississippi steamboat, whose whistle was so big that, when it sounded, the boat stopped. Confession exhausts the energy, so that none is left for action.

A. J. Gordon, The First Thing in the World, or The Primacy of Faith: “David Brainard speaks with a kind of suppressed astonishment of what he observed among the degraded North American Indians; how, preaching to them the good news of salvation through the atonement of Christ and persuading them to accept it by faith, and then hastening on in his rapid missionary tours, he found, on returning upon his track a year or two later, that the fruits of righteousness and sobriety and virtue and brotherly love were everywhere visible, though it had been possible to impart to them only the slightest moral or ethical teaching.”

(e) That faith, as characteristically the inward act of reception, is not to be confounded with love or obedience, its fruit.

Faith is, in the Scriptures, called a work, only in the sense that man's active powers are engaged in it. It is a work which God requires, yet which God enables man to perform (John 6:29—ἔργον τοῦ Θεοῦ. Cf. Rom. 1:17—δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ). As the gift of God and as the mere taking of undeserved mercy, it is expressly excluded from the category of works upon the basis of which man may claim salvation (Rom. 3:28; 4:4, 5, 16). It is not the act of the full soul bestowing, but the act of an empty soul receiving. Although this reception is prompted by a drawing of heart toward God inwrought by the Holy Spirit, this drawing of heart is not yet a conscious and developed love: such love is the result of faith (Gal. 5:6). What precedes faith is an unconscious and undeveloped tendency or disposition toward God. Conscious and developed affection toward God, or love proper, must always follow faith and be the product of faith. So, too, obedience can be rendered only after faith has laid hold of Christ, and with him has obtained the spirit of obedience (Rom. 1:5—ὑπακοὴν πίστεως = “obedience resulting from faith”). Hence faith is not the procuring cause of salvation, but is only the instrumental cause. The procuring cause is the Christ, whom faith embraces.

John 6:29—“This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent”; cf. Rom. 1:17—“For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith”; Rom. 3:28—“We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law”; 4:4, 5, 16—“Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.... For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace”; Gal. 5:6—“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love”; Rom. 1:5—“through whom we received grace and apostleship, unto obedience of faith among all the nations.”

Faith stands as an intermediate factor between the unconscious and undeveloped tendency or disposition toward God inwrought in the soul by God's regenerating act, on the one hand, and the conscious and developed affection toward God which is one of the fruits and evidences of conversion, on the other. Illustrate by the motherly instinct shown in a little girl's care for her doll,—a motherly instinct which becomes a developed mother's love, only when a child of her own is born. This new love of the Christian is an activity of his own soul, and yet it is a “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22). To attribute it wholly to himself would be like calling the walking and leaping of the lame man (Acts 3:8) merely a healthy activity of his own. For illustration of the priority of faith to love, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:533, note; on the relation of faith to love, see Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:116, 117.

The logical order is therefore: 1. Unconscious and undeveloped love; 2. Faith in Christ and his truth; 3. Conscious and developed love; 4. Assurance of faith. Faith [pg 848]and love act and react upon one another. Each advance in the one leads to a corresponding advance in the other. But the source of all is in God. God loves, and therefore he gives love to us as well as receives love from us. The unconscious and undeveloped love which he imparts in regeneration is the root of all Christian faith. The Roman Catholic is right in affirming the priority of love to faith, if he means by love only this unconscious and undeveloped affection. But the Protestant is also right in affirming the priority of faith to love, if he means by love a conscious and developed affection. Stevens, Johannine Theology, 368—“Faith is not a mere passive receptivity. As the acceptance of a divine life, it involves the possession of a new moral energy. Faith works by love. In faith a new life-force is received, and new life-powers stir within the Christian man.”

We must not confound repentance with fruits meet for repentance, nor faith with fruits meet for faith. A. J. Gordon, The First Thing in the World: “Love is the greatest thing in the world, but faith is the first. The tree is greater than the root, but let it not boast: ‘if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee’ (Rom. 11:18). Love has no power to branch out and bear fruit, except as, through faith, it is rooted in Christ and draws nourishment from him. 1 Pet. 1:5—‘who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time’; 1 Cor. 13:13—‘now abideth faith, hope, love’; Heb. 10:19-25—‘draw near ... in fulness of faith ... hold fast the confession of our hope ... provoke unto love and good works’; Rom. 5:1-5—‘justified by faith ... rejoice in hope ... love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts’; 1 Thess. 1:1, 2—‘work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope.’ Faith is the actinic ray, hope the luminiferous ray, love the calorific ray. But faith contains the principle of the divine likeness, as the life of the parent given to the child contains the principle of likeness to the father, and will insure moral and physical resemblance in due time.”

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 112—“ ‘The love of the Spirit’ (Rom. 15:30) is the love of the Spirit of Christ, and it is given us for overcoming the world. The divine life is the source of the divine love. Therefore the love of God is ‘shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us’ (Rom. 5:5). Because we are by nature so wholly without heavenly affection, God, through the indwelling Spirit, gives us his own love with which to love himself.” A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 286, 287, points out that in 2 Cor. 5:14—“the love of Christ constraineth us”—the love of Christ is “not our love to Christ, for that is a very weak and uncertain thing; nor even Christ's love to us, for that is still something external to us. Each of these leaves a separation between Christ and us, and fails to act as a moving power within.... Not simply our love to Christ, nor simply Christ's love to us, but rather Christ's love in us, is the love that constrains. This is the thought of the apostle.” The first fruit of this love, in its still unconscious and undeveloped state, is faith.

(f) That faith is susceptible of increase.

This is evident, whether we consider it from the human or from the divine side. As an act of man, it has an intellectual, an emotional, and a voluntary element, each of which is capable of growth. As a work of God in the soul of man, it can receive, through the presentation of the truth and the quickening agency of the Holy Spirit, continually new accessions of knowledge, sensibility, and active energy. Such increase of faith, therefore, we are to seek, both by resolute exercise of our own powers, and above all, by direct application to the source of faith in God (Luke 17:5).

Luke 17:5—“And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.” The adult Christian has more faith than he had when a child,—evidently there has been increase. 1 Cor. 12:8, 9—“For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom ... to another faith, in the same Spirit.” In this latter passage, it seems to be intimated that for special exigencies the Holy Spirit gives to his servants special faith, so that they are enabled to lay hold of the general promise of God and make special application of it. Rom. 8:26, 27—“the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity ... maketh intercession for us ... maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God”; 1 John 5:14, 15—“And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.”Only when we begin to believe, do we appreciate our lack of faith, and the great need of its increase. The little beginning of light makes known the greatness of the surrounding darkness. Mark 9:24—“I believe; help thou mine unbelief”—was the utterance of one who recognized both the need of faith and the true source of supply.

[pg 849]

On the general subject of Faith, see Köstlin, Die Lehre von dem Glauben, 13-85, 301-341, and in Jahrbuch f. d. Theol., 4:177 sq.; Romaine on Faith, 9-89; Bishop of Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 1-40; Venn, Characteristics of Belief, Introduction; Nitzsch, System of Christ. Doct., 294.

IV. Justification.

1. Definition of Justification.

By justification we mean that judicial act of God by which, on account of Christ, to whom the sinner is united by faith, he declares that sinner to be no longer exposed to the penalty of the law, but to be restored to his favor. Or, to give an alternative definition from which all metaphor is excluded: Justification is the reversal of God's attitude toward the sinner, because of the sinner's new relation to Christ. God did condemn; he now acquits. He did repel; he now admits to favor.

Justification, as thus defined, is therefore a declarative act, as distinguished from an efficient act; an act of God external to the sinner, as distinguished from an act within the sinner's nature and changing that nature; a judicial act, as distinguished from a sovereign act; an act based upon and logically presupposing the sinner's union with Christ, as distinguished from an act which causes and is followed by that union with Christ.

The word “declarative” does not imply a “spoken” word on God's part,—much less that the sinner hears God speak. That justification is sovereign, is held by Arminians, and by those who advocate a governmental theory of the atonement. On any such theory, justification must be sovereign; since Christ bore, not the penalty of the law, but a substituted suffering which God graciously and sovereignly accepts in place of our suffering and obedience.

Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1100, wrote a tract for the consolation of the dying, who were alarmed on account of sin. The following is an extract from it: “Question. Dost thou believe that the Lord Jesus died for thee? Answer. I believe it. Qu. Dost thou thank him for his passion and death? Ans. I do thank him. Qu. Dost thou believe that thou canst not be saved except by his death? Ans. I believe it.”And then Anselm addresses the dying man: “Come then, while life remaineth in thee; in his death alone place thy whole trust; in naught else place any trust; to his death commit thyself wholly; with this alone cover thyself wholly; and if the Lord thy God will to judge thee, say, ‘Lord, between thy judgment and me I present the death of our Lord Jesus Christ; no otherwise can I contend with thee.’ And if he shall say that thou art a sinner, say thou: ‘Lord, I interpose the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between my sins and thee.’ If he say that thou hast deserved condemnation, say: ‘Lord, I set the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between my evil deserts and thee, and his merits I offer for those which I ought to have and have not.’ If he say that he is wroth with thee, say: ‘Lord, I oppose the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between thy wrath and me.’ And when thou hast completed this, say again: ‘Lord, I set the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between thee and me.’ ” See Anselm, Opera (Migne), 1:686, 687. The above quotation gives us reason to believe that the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith was implicitly, if not explicitly, held by many pious souls through all the ages of papal darkness.

2. Proof of the Doctrine of Justification.

A. Scripture proofs of the doctrine as a whole are the following:

Rom. 1:17—“a righteousness of God from faith unto faith”; 3:24-30—“being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ... the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.... We reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law ... justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumsion through faith”; Gal. 3:11—“Now that no man is justified by the law before God, is evident: for, The righteous shall live by faith; and the law is not of faith; but, He that doeth them shall live in them”; Eph. 1:7—“in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace”; [pg 850] Heb. 11:4, 7—“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous.... By faith Noah ... moved with godly fear, prepared an ark ... became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith”; cf. Gen. 15:6—“And he believed in Jehovah; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness”; Is. 7:9—“If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established”; 28:16—“he that believeth shall not be in haste”; Hab. 2:4—“the righteous shall live by his faith.”

Ps. 85:8—“He will speak peace unto his people.” God's great word of pardon includes all else. Peace with him implies all the covenant privileges resulting therefrom. 1 Cor. 3:21-23—“all things are yours,” because “ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.” This is not salvation by law, nor by ideals, nor by effort, nor by character; although obedience to law, and a loftier ideal, and unremitting effort, and a pure character, are consequences of justification. Justification is the change in God's attitude toward the sinner which makes all these consequences possible. The only condition of justification is the sinner's faith in Jesus, which merges the life of the sinner in the life of Christ. Paul expresses the truth in Gal. 2:16, 20—“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law ... I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.”

With these observations and qualifications we may assent to much that is said by Whiton, Divine Satisfaction, 64, who distinguishes between forgiveness and remission: “Forgiveness is the righting of disturbed personal relations. Remission is removal of the consequences which in the natural order of things have resulted from our fault. God forgives all that is strictly personal, but remits nothing that is strictly natural in sin. He imparts to the sinner the power to bear his burden and work off his debt of consequences. Forgiveness is not remission. It is introductory to remission, just as conversion is not salvation, but introductory to salvation. The prodigal was received by his father, but he could not recover his lost patrimony. He could, however, have been led by penitence to work so hard that he earned more than he had lost.

“Here is an element in justification which Protestantism has ignored, and which Romanism has tried to retain. Debts must be paid to the uttermost farthing. The scars of past sins must remain forever. Forgiveness converts the persistent energy of past sin from a destructive to a constructive power. There is a transformation of energy into a new form. Genuine repentance spurs us up to do what we can to make up for time lost and for wrong done. The sinner is clothed anew with moral power. We are all to be judged by our works. That Paul had been a blasphemer was ever stimulating him to Christian endeavor. The faith which receives Christ is a peculiar spirit, a certain moral activity of love and obedience. It is not mere reliance on what Christ was and did, but active endeavor to become and to do like him. Human justice takes hold of deeds; divine righteousness deals with character. Justification by faith is justification by spirit and inward principle, apart from the merit of works or performances, but never without these. God's charity takes the will for the deed. This is not justification by outward conduct, as the Judaizers thought, but by the godly spirit.” If this new spirit be the Spirit of Christ to whom faith has united the soul, we can accept the statement. There is danger however of conceiving this spirit as purely man's own, and justification as not external to the sinner nor as the work of God, but as the mere name for a subjective process by which man justifies himself.

B. Scripture use of the special words translated “justify” and “justification” in the Septuagint and in the New Testament.

(a) δικαιόω—uniformly, or with only a single exception, signifies, not to make righteous, but to declare just, or free from guilt and exposure to punishment. The only O. T. passage where this meaning is questionable is Dan. 12:3. But even here the proper translation is, in all probability, not “they that turn many to righteousness,” but “they that justify many,” i. e., cause many to be justified. For the Hiphil force of the verb, see Girdlestone, O. T. Syn., 257, 258, and Delitzsch on Is. 53:11; cf. James 5:19, 20.

O. T. texts: Ex. 23:7—“I will not justify the wicked”; Deut. 25:1—“they [the judges] shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked”; Job 27:5—“Far be it from me that I should justify you”; Ps. 143:2—“in thy sight no man living is righteous”; Prov. 17:15—“He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the righteous, Both of them alike are an abomination to Jehovah”; Is. 5:23—“that justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him”; 50:8—“He is near that justifieth me”; 53:11—“by the knowledge of [pg 851]himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and he shall bear their iniquities”; Dan. 12:3—“and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever” (“they that justify many,” i. e., cause many to be justified); cf. James 5:19, 20—“My brethren, if any among you err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.”

The Christian minister absolves from sin, only as he marries a couple: he does not join them,—he only declares them joined. So he declares men forgiven, if they have complied with the appointed divine conditions. Marriage may be invalid where these conditions are lacking, but the minister's absolution is of no account where there is no repentance of sin and faith in Christ; see G. D. Boardman, The Church, 178. We are ever to remember that the term justification is a forensic term which presents the change of God's attitude toward the sinner in a pictorial way derived from the procedure of earthly tribunals. The fact is larger and more vital than the figure used to describe it.

McConnell, Evolution of Immortality, 134, 135—“Christ's terms are biological; those of many theologians are legal. It may be ages before we recover from the misfortune of having had the truth of Christ interpreted and fixed by jurists and logicians, instead of by naturalists and men of science. It is much as though the rationale of the circulation of the blood had been wrought out by Sir Matthew Hale, or the germ theory of disease interpreted by Blackstone, or the doctrine of evolution formulated by a legislative council.... The Christ is intimately and vitally concerned with the eternal life of men, but the question involved is of their living or perishing, not of a system of judicial rewards and penalties.” We must remember however that even biology gives us only one side of the truth. The forensic conception of justification furnishes its complement and has its rights also. The Scriptures represent both sides of the truth. Paul gives us the judicial aspect, John the vital aspect, of justification.

In Rom. 6:7—ὁ γὰρ ἀποθανὼν δεδικαίωται ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας = “he that once died with Christ was acquitted from the service of sin considered as a penality.” In 1 Cor. 4:4—οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐμαυτῷ σύνοιδα. ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐν τούτῳ δεδικαίωμαι = “I am conscious of no fault, but that does not in itself make certain God's acquittal as respects this particular charge.” The usage of the epistle of James does not contradict this; the doctrine of James is that we are justified only by such faith as makes us faithful and brings forth good works. “He uses the word exclusively in a judicial sense; he combats a mistaken view of πίστις, not a mistaken view of δικαιόω”; see James 2:21, 23, 24, and Cremer, N. T. Lexicon, Eng. trans., 182, 183. The only N. T. passage where this meaning is questionable is Rev. 22:11; but here Alford, with א, A and B, reads δικαιοσύνην ποιησάτω.

N. T. texts: Mat. 12:37—“For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned”; Luke 7:29—“And all the people ... justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John”; 10:29—“But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?” 16:15—“Ye are they that justify yourselves in the sight of men; but God knoweth your hearts”; 18:14—“This man went down to his house justified rather than the other”; cf. 13 (lit.) “God, be thou propitiated toward me the sinner”; Rom. 4:6-8—“Even as David also pronounceth blessing upon the man, unto whom God reckoneth righteousness apart from works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin”; cf. Ps. 32:1, 2,—“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no guile.”

Rom. 5:18, 19—“So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous”; 8:33, 34—“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?” 2 Cor. 5:19, 21—“God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses.... Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God [God's justified persons] in him”; Rom. 6:7—“he that hath died is justified from sin”; 1 Cor. 4:4—“For I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord” (on this last text, see Expositor's Greek Testament, in loco).

James 2:21, 23, 24—“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar?... Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.... Ye see that by works [pg 852]a man is justified, and not only by faith.” James is denouncing a dead faith, while Paul is speaking of the necessity of a living faith; or, rather, James is describing the nature of faith, while Paul is describing the instrument of justification. “They are like two men beset by a couple of robbers. Back to back each strikes out against the robber opposite him,—each having a different enemy in his eye” (Wm. M. Taylor). Neander on James 2:14-26—“James is denouncing mere adhesion to an external law, trust in intellectual possession of it. With him, law means an inward principle of life. Paul, contrasting law as he does with faith, commonly means by law mere external divine requisition.... James does not deny salvation to him who has faith, but only to him who falsely professes to have. When he says that ‘by works a man is justified,’ he takes into account the outward manifestation only, speaks from the point of view of human consciousness. In works only does faith show itself as genuine and complete.” Rev. 22:11—“he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still”—not, as the A. V. seemed to imply, “he that is just, let him be justified still”—i. e., made subjectively holy.

Christ is the great Physician. The physician says: “If you wish to be cured, you must trust me.” The patient replies: “I do trust you fully.” But the physician continues: “If you wish to be cured, you must take my medicines and do as I direct.” The patient objects: “But I thought I was to be cured by trust in you. Why lay such stress on what I do?” The physician answers: “You must show your trust in me by your action. Trust in me, without action in proof of trust, amounts to nothing” (S. S. Times). Doing without a physician is death; hence Paul says works cannot save. Trust in the physician implies obedience; hence James says faith without works is dead. Crane, Religion of To-morrow, 152-155—“Paul insists on apple-tree righteousness, and warns us against Christmas-tree righteousness.” Sagebeer, The Bible in Court, 77,78—“By works, Paul means works of law; James means by works, works of faith.” Hovey, in The Watchman, Aug. 27, 1891—“A difference of emphasis, occasioned chiefly by the different religious perils to which readers were at the time exposed.”

(b) δικαίωσις—is the act, in process, of declaring a man just,—that is, acquitted from guilt and restored to the divine favor (Rom. 4:25; 5:18).

Rom. 4:25—“who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification”; 5:18—“unto all men to justification of life.” Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 367, 368—“Raised for our justification” = Christ's death made our justification possible, but it did not consummate it. Through his rising from the dead he was able to come into that relationship to the believer which restores the lost or interrupted sonship. In the church the fact of the resurrection is perpetuated, and the idea of the resurrection is realized.

(c) δικαίωμα—is the act, as already accomplished, of declaring a man just,—that is, no longer exposed to penalty, but restored to God's favor (Rom. 5:16, 18; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16). Hence, in other connections, δικαίωμα has the meaning of statute, legal decision, act of justice (Luke 1:6; Rom. 2:26; Heb. 9:1).

Rom. 5:16, 18—“of many trespasses unto justification ... through one act of righteousness”; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16—“justified in the spirit.” The distinction between δικαίωσις and δικαίωμα may be illustrated by the distinction between poesy and poem,—the former denoting something in process, an ever-working spirit; the latter denoting something fully accomplished, a completed work. Hence δικαίωμα is used in Luke 1:6—“ordinances of the Lord”; Rom. 2:26—“ordinances of the law”; Heb. 9:1—“ordinances of divine service.”

(d) δικαιοσύνη—is the state of one justified, or declared just (Rom. 8:10; 1 Cor. 1:30). In Rom. 10:3, Paul inveighs against τὴν ἰδίαν δικαιοσύνην as insufficient and false, and in its place would put τὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην,—that is, a δικαιοσύνη which God not only requires, but provides; which is not only acceptable to God, but proceeds from God, and is appropriated by faith,—hence called δικαιοσύνη πίστεως or ἐκ πίστεως. “The primary signification of the word, in Paul's writings, is therefore that state of the believer which is called forth by God's act of acquittal,—the state of the believer as justified,” that is, freed from punishment and restored to the divine favor.

[pg 853]

Rom. 8:10—“the spirit is life because of righteousness”; 1 Cor. 1:30—“Christ Jesus, who was made unto us ... righteousness”; Rom. 10:3—“being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:542—“The ‘righteousness of God’ is the active and passive obedience of incarnate God.” See, on δικαιοσύνη, Cremer, N. T. Lexicon, Eng. trans., 174; Meyer on Romans, trans., 68-70—“δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ (gen. of origin, emanation from) = rightness which proceeds from God—the relation of being right into which man is put by God (by an act of God declaring him righteous).”

E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 304—“When Paul addressed those who trusted in their own righteousness, he presented salvation as attainable only through faith in another; when he addressed Gentiles who were conscious of their need of a helper, the forensic imagery is not employed. Scarce a trace of it appears in his discourses as recorded in the Acts, and it is noticeably absent from all the epistles except the Romans and the Galatians.”

Since this state of acquittal is accompanied by changes in the character and conduct, δικαιοσύνη comes to mean, secondarily, the moral condition of the believer as resulting from this acquittal and inseparably connected with it (Rom. 14:17; 2 Cor. 5:21). This righteousness arising from justification becomes a principle of action (Mat. 3:15; Acts 10:35; Rom. 6:13, 18). The term, however, never loses its implication of a justifying act upon which this principle of action is based.

Rom. 14:17—“the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”; 2 Cor. 5:21—“that we might become the righteousness of God in him”; Mat. 3:15—“Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”; Acts 10:35—“in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him”; Rom. 6:13—“present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” Meyer on Rom. 3:23—“Every mode of conception which refers redemption and the forgiveness of sins, not to a real atonement through the death of Christ, but subjectively to the dying and reviving with him guaranteed and produced by that death (Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Hofmann), is opposed to the N. T.,—a mixing up of justification and sanctification.”

On these Scripture terms, see Bp. of Ossory, Nature and Effects of Faith, 436-496; Lange, Com., on Romans 3:24; Buchanan on Justification, 226-249. Versus Moehler, Symbolism, 102—“The forgiveness of sins ... is undoubtedly a remission of the guilt and the punishment which Christ hath taken and borne upon himself; but it is likewise the transfusion of his Spirit into us”; Newman, Lectures on Justification, 68-143; Knox, Remains; N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 310-372.

It is a great mistake in method to derive the meaning of δίκαιος from that of δικαιοσύνη, and not vice versa. Wm. Arnold Stevens, in Am. Jour. Theology, April, 1897—“δικαιοσύνη, righteousness, in all its meanings, whether ethical or forensic, has back of it the idea of law; also the idea of violated law; it derives its forensic sense from the verb δικαιόω and its cognate noun δικαίωσις; δικαιοσύνη therefore is legal acceptableness, the status before the law of a pardoned sinner.”

Denney, in Expos. Gk. Test., 2:565—“In truth, ‘sin,’ ‘the law,’ ‘the curse of the law,’ ‘death,’ are names for something which belongs not to the Jewish but to the human conscience; and it is only because this is so that the gospel of Paul is also a gospel for us. Before Christ came and redeemed the world, all men were at bottom on the same footing: Pharisaism, legalism, moralism, or whatever it is called, is in the last resort the attempt to be good without God, to achieve a righteousness of our own, without an initial all-inclusive immeasurable debt to him; in other words, without submitting, as sinful men must submit, to be justified by faith apart from works of our own, and to find in that justification, and in that only, the spring and impulse of all good.”

It is worthy of special observation that, in the passages cited above, the terms “justify” and “justification” are contrasted, not with the process of depraving or corrupting, but with the outward act of condemning; and that the expressions used to explain and illustrate them are all derived, not from the inward operation of purifying the soul or infusing into it righteousness, but from the procedure of courts in their judgments, or of offended persons in their forgiveness of offenders. We conclude that these terms, wherever [pg 854] they have reference to the sinner's relation to God, signify a declarative and judicial act of God, external to the sinner, and not an efficient and sovereign act of God changing the sinner's nature and making him subjectively righteous.

In the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, session 6, chap. 9 is devoted to the refutation of the “inanis hæreticorum fiducia”; and Canon 12 of the session anathematizes those who say: “fidem justificantem nihil aliud esse quam fiduciam divinæ misericordiæ, peccata remittentis propter Christum”; or that “justifying faith is nothing but trust in the divine mercy which pardons sins for Christ's sake.” The Roman Catholic doctrine on the contrary maintains that the ground of justification is not simply the faith by which the sinner appropriates Christ and his atoning work, but is also the new love and good works wrought within him by Christ's Spirit. This introduces a subjective element which is foreign to the Scripture doctrine of justification.

Dr. E. G. Robinson taught that justification consists of three elements: 1. Acquittal; 2. Restoration to favor; 3. Infusion of righteousness. In this he accepted a fundamental error of Romanism. He says: “Justification and sanctification are not to be distinguished as chronologically and statically different. Justification and righteousness are the same thing from different points of view. Pardon is not a mere declaration of forgiveness—a merely arbitrary thing. Salvation introduces a new law into our sinful nature which annuls the law of sin and destroys its penal and destructive consequences. Forgiveness of sins must be in itself a gradual process. The final consequences of a man's sins are written indelibly upon his nature and remain forever. When Christ said: ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee’, it was an objective statement of a subjective fact. The person was already in a state of living relation to Christ. The gospel is damnation to the damnable, and invitation, love and mercy to those who feel their need of it. We are saved through the enforcement of law on every one of us. Forgiveness consists in the removal from consciousness of a sense of ill-desert. Justification, aside from its forensic use, is a transformation and a promotion. Sense of forgiveness is a sense of relief from a hated habit of mind.” This seems to us dangerously near to a denial that justification is an act of God, and to an affirmation that it is simply a subjective change in man's condition.

E. H. Johnson: “If Dr. Robinson had been content to say that the divine fiat of justification had the manward effect of regeneration, he would have been correct; for the verdict would be empty without this manward efficacy. But unfortunately, he made the effect a part of the cause, identifying the divine justification with its human fruition, the clearance of the past with the provision for the future.” We must grant that the words inward and outward are misleading, for God is not under the law of space, and the soul itself is not in space. Justification takes place just as much in man as outside of him. Justification and regeneration take place at the same moment, but logically God's act of renewing is the cause and God's act of approving is the effect. Or we may say that regeneration and justification are both of them effects of our union with Christ. Luke 1:37—“For no word from God shall be void of power.” Regeneration and justification may be different aspects of God's turning—his turning us, and his turning himself. But it still is true that justification is a change in God and not in the creature.

3. Elements of Justification.

These are two: