The new righteousness.
The apostle was justified in his boasting in the gospel, because of the high end it was the means of securing—nothing less than the salvation of men. This salvation it is his aim, in this Epistle, to set in its true light. It is a moral, a spiritual deliverance; an enfranchisement of the soul; an opening of the prison doors; a healing radical, thorough, and lasting. A righteous God can only be reconciled with sinful, disobedient men by communicating to them his own righteousness. The inner nature, the spiritual being, the moral character, is the sphere of the great salvation which Christ brings, which the gospel announces. There are in this verse three ideas.
I. FAITH. Like his Divine Easter, Paul insisted strenuously upon the importance, the necessity, of faith. This is a sign of the spirituality of our religion, which begins with the heart, and works from within outwardly. But Scripture gives no countenance to the mystical doctrine that faith is a mere sentiment, having no definite object. On the contrary, it reveals God and his promises, and especially his Son and the truth relating to him, as the objects of faith. Paul's aim, like that of every Christian teacher, was to awaken faith; and to this end he made known the glad tidings, that those who heard them might have an appropriate object upon which to place their confidence. If we are to believe, we must have something worthy of belief; if we are to trust, it must be in One who has a just claim upon our trust. Christianity responds to this requirement, and satisfies the desire of the soul for a sufficient ground and a suitable object for faith, in offering salvation through the Divine mercy extended through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
II. RIGHTEOUSNESS. This Epistle may be said to be chiefly concerned with two themes—sin and righteousness; the sin being man's, and the righteousness God's. It shows us how the Divine righteousness becomes man's. It is faith which is the link that attaches the human soul to the just and holy Lord; the wing by which man soars from the foul atmosphere of sin into the clear and upper air of fellowship with God. The gospel, says the text, reveals the righteousness of God. It does this, first, by making known the perfect obedience of Christ, who "fulfilled all righteousness," and was "obedient unto death." It does this, further, by declaring the reason of Christ's unmerited sufferings and death. These, which, superficially regarded, seem rather opposed to the belief in the justice of God's government, are, to the Christian's mind, the highest illustration of that justice. Though innocent and holy, our Lord, becoming the Representative and Redeemer of the race whose nature he assumed, submitted for our sake to the pains and the death he did not deserve. He thus displayed, not merely the heinousness of human sin, which brought him to the shameful cross; not only the magnitude of the world's sin, the penalty of which he thus accepted and endured; but the righteousness of God, which, in the very act of providing for the pardon of the sinner, most signally and effectively condemned the sin itself. Nowhere does sin appear so sinful as in the cross of Christ, where righteousness stands in striking and sublime contrast with iniquity, revealing in all its enormity the evil which it vanquishes and slays. Christ not only revealed, he also imparted, the righteousness of God. And this in two ways—by righteously forgiving, acquitting, and accepting the penitent believer in his Son; and by infusing into him a new principle of righteousness. Thus Christianity at once provides that man may be right and just with God, and that he may possess the righteousness of impulse, habit, and principle, which will produce righteousness of action in his relations with his fellow-men.
III. LIFE. "The just by faith"—such is the teaching alike of the prophet and of the apostle—"shall live." This life is opposed to spiritual death; it is the special gift of God in Christ; it is the effective principle of renewed and hallowed activity. It includes within itself the fulness of all spiritual blessings. It is the beginning and the earnest of immortality; it is "the eternal life."
PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. The highest good must be sought from God, and from him only; in him alone are righteousness and life.
2. To the revelation of God in and by Christ must correspond the approach of the soul to him by faith. This is the way of God's own appointment, marked by God's wisdom, and proved by actual experience to be divinely efficacious.