"Joy in God."
Men cherish the most diverse, varied feelings towards God. Some are haters of God, regarding him as their enemy. Others are indifferent to God, utterly forgetting him, acting as though he were not. Others, again, have go far a just apprehension of God that they fear him, standing in awe of his righteous authority. And there are those who love God and rejoice in him. These last are they who appreciate the privileges which have been prepared for the true believers in Christ, the true people of God.
I. Observe THE ELEMENT OF SPIRITUAL JOY. It is joy in God. In God, as their Father, their all-sufficient and eternal Portion. In God, as faithful to his promises, as gracious and benevolent, as wise to guide and strong to keep and save. This is the daily exclamation of the Christian, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God."
II. There is mentioned THE CAUSE FOR JOY.
1. This is to be found in reconciliation. There is no joy in hostility or estrangement; but, when those who have been alienated are brought into harmony, peace brings gladness to the souls of reunited friends. Remembering what momentous issues depend upon our friendship with our Creator and Judge, we may well regard reconciliation with him as matter for gladness and glorying.
2. But this reconciliation takes effect when it is received. God provides it; man accepts it. Man's acceptance does not procure, but it appropriates, the blessing. Alas! men may live in a dispensation of peace, of reconciliation, but may know nothing by experience of this joy, for want of receptive faith.
III. The text reminds us of THE BRINGER OF SPIRITUAL JOY. It is "through our Lord Jesus Christ" that we have received the reconciliation. The Mediator between God and man secures to us this greatest of boons, and, with it, all other good things that can truly enrich and bless us. In the context the apostle magnifies the grace of Christ. We are summoned to recognize in him the means through which true joy becomes possible to us, becomes our possession and inheritance.
IV. It is well to think of THE FRUITS AND EFFECTS OF JOY IN GOD.
1. Joy is strength for service. "The joy of the Lord is your strength."
2. Joy is comfort in outward afflictions and tribulation. "We rejoice, glory, in tribulation also." It is the Christian only who can say this.
3. Joy is attractive to others. The happiness of the Christian often produces a most beneficial impression upon those who remark it, and who ask for an explanation of the fact.
4. Joy is an anticipation of heaven. For we are assured that the faithful servant shall be welcomed into "the joy of his Lord."
Grace abounding.
This passage seems to trace the course of two mighty rivers. The one has its source in the Law; the stream is sin and trespass. As it proceeds it is distinguished by abundance (and is said to reign, to dominate the landscape), and it flows at last into the black ocean of death. The other has its source in Divine grace; the stream is righteousness. And it becomes even more abundant than the other; it flows irresistibly, victoriously, until it is lost in the sea of life eternal There is a well-known spot in Switzerland, where the Rhone, after issuing from the Lake of Geneva, is joined by the turbid, tawny waters of the Arve, which, after flowing for some distance side by side with the blue waters from the lake, speedily stain and spoil them. The verses before us reverse this scene, for they represent the stream of righteousness as overpowering and purifying the river of sin; where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly.
I. THE ABUNDANCE OF SIN. Sin, in the course of ages, multiplied, abounded, exceeded, overflowed. We have many instances of this in the early history of our race. The abundance of iniquity occasioned the Deluge. The exceeding vileness of Sodom occasioned the overthrow of the cities of the plain. The sins of Israel occasioned the Captivity. As for the Gentile world, the apostle, at the opening of this Epistle, exhibits the crimes, vices, and horrible sins of the nations in such an appalling manner that we do not wonder at his denunciation of the wrath of God against those who do such things. Yet, as Christians, we feel that there is nothing which so amazingly displays the exceeding sinfulness of sin as the crucifixion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sin of humanity culminated when it brought the holy Saviour to the cross. The greatness of the ransom paid proved the awful nature of the captivity from which men could only at such a price be delivered. In explaining the abundance of sin, it is necessary to refer to the many and various forms which sin assumes; to the reproductive power with which, as a principle of action, it is endowed; to its widespread dominion; to its lengthened sway over mankind.
II. THE SUPERABUNDANCE OF GRACE. Mighty as is sin, the grace of God is mightier still. It is as a breeze which overflows the pestilential air of a city; as the tide of the ocean, which enters a vast harbour and overflows and sweeps away accumulated pollutions. Its victorious superabundance must be explained by referring to its omnipotent Author and Bestower, God; to its Divine channel, Christ, the Mediator; to its appointed means, the gospel, at once the wisdom and the power of God; and to its Agent, the Holy Spirit of God. If we look at sin alone, it appears invincible, beyond all human power to deal with; but when we regard the Divine provision of grace, we can understand how even sin may be vanquished and utterly overcome.
HOMILIES BY C.H. IRWIN
Justification and its consequences.
Here side by side are the most solemn, the most terrible, and the most glorious certitudes of our religion. There is a God. With that God we are not naturally at peace. Enmity toward God means sin; and the wages of sin is death. But how to make peace with him? Blessed be his Name, Christ has died that we might live. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." Emnity and death—the results of sin, to which all are condemned; for all have sinned. Reconciliation and life—the results of the obedience and death of Christ. These verses put before us how this wondrous transformation may be effected; how, being dead, we may be made alive; how, being enemies of God, we may be reconciled and have peace with him.
I. THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION. The words in the original mean, "being reckoned [or, 'held'] as just." We do not make ourselves just. Neither by this act are we made just, made perfect in holiness. That is the object of sanctification, and is not completed until we have put off this mortal. If we should say that when we are justified we are made perfectly righteous, that would be the same thing as saying that no Christian commits sin—a doctrine contrary to the Word of God and to the experience of individuals. Paul complained that the evil he would not, that he did. No; justification neither implies that we make ourselves just, nor, on the other hand, that we are made just. It implies that we are reckoned just in God's sight so far as regards the penalty of the Law. He declares that the Law is satisfied in regard to us. Manifestly, this is the grace of God. How could we satisfy the Law? "By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified." "In thy sight," exclaims David, "shall no man living be justified." It is by grace alone. We can now point to the cross and say, "He died for me!" Christ's own words are, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." This is the exact parallel of justification by faith. Just as the simple act of turning the faint and weary eyelids toward that brazen serpent restored the dying Hebrews in the wilderness, so it is still possible for all of us, even for such as are most dead in trespasses and sins, to look with the eye of faith toward Calvary and say, "Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died." And by that death he paid our debt. "He was delivered for our offences." This is justification. Instead of being debtors to do the whole Law, we plead its fulfilment by our Substitute, accepted by God, while we become at the same time the servants of righteousness. The Law has been fulfilled by a perfect righteousness, and the penalty of a broken Law can no longer be inflicted upon those who appropriate that righteousness as theirs. Thus justification is the free grace of God shown in a complete pardon of all our sin. We are reconciled to God by the death of his Son; we have received the Spirit of adoption, and are made heirs of eternal life. All this justification secures for us in its very nature.
II. THE MEANS OR INSTRUMENT OF JUSTIFICATION. In plain and unequivocal language we are here told that by faith we must be justified in order to have peace with God. This is the grand central truth of the New Testament. If it be removed, what message does the gospel bring? "If righteousness come by the Law," says St. Paul, "then Christ is dead in vain" (Galatians 2:21). Christ's whole life of doing and suffering, and his awful death, would be a cruel superfluity—the more cruel because superfluous, if by any other means fallen man could procure acceptance in God's sight. Paul cautions the Romans against any other way of justification. "A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law" (Romans 3:28). And when the Galatians showed a tendency to depart from this doctrine, under the influence of Judaizing teachers, in the strongest terms the apostle censures them: "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel" (Galatians 1:6). He addresses them as foolish; accuses them of returning to the beggarly elements; and says he is afraid lest he has bestowed upon them labour in vain. The theory of justification by works, therefore, is not one on which nothing has been said, or which has been left doubtful. It is distinctly condemned by the apostle as inconsistent with and prejudicial to the spirit of Christianity. When Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, a self- righteous Pharisee, came to Jesus by night, how did the great Master feed this hungry soul? Did he tell him to go and do some work of merit? No. The way, and the only way, to eternal life which Jesus pointed out to him was faith. If good works were of any avail, here was a man whose training had abundantly fitted him for doing good works. But from the Saviour himself he was to learn that he, a master in Israel, knew not the way into the kingdom of God. Yet are there not many professing Christians who rest their hope of an entrance into that kingdom upon their own righteousness? Are there not many the language of whose heart is, "I have kept all the commandments from my youth up; I have lived a pure life; I have been regular in attendance on the ordinances of God; I have no fear"? Such was the language of the rich young man; and Jesus said to him, "One thing thou lackest." We must guard, too, against the notion that, if we believe, our faith is the ground on which we are justified. It is hard, indeed, to see how such a notion could arise, in the face of all that the Scriptures teach against justification by works. For to make faith the ground of our justification—the propter quod, to use a legal phrase—is to put faith in the position of a meritorious work. And that such has no efficacy for justification has been abundantly shown. Faith is merely the means or instrument by which we lay hold on the justifying righteousness of Christ. Suppose a man owed you a sum of money, and that, in the days when imprisonment for debt was legal, he had been imprisoned till the debt should be paid. Another man comes and pays the debt. You give him a receipt, and he takes that to the prisoner, who is by it set free. How absurd it would be for any one to say that it was this debtor's act of taking the receipt that cancelled his obligation! Precisely similar is it to say that the act by which we take hold of the great atonement is that which gives us acceptance with God. We are justified by means of our faith, and not because of it. But without that act of believing, the atonement is not ours, peace with God is not ours. By faith we lay hold of justification; by faith we take hold of the promises—promises for the life that now is, and the promise of a better and unending life in the many mansions of the Father's house. "We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (verse 2).
III. THE EFFECT OF JUSTIFICATION. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." This peace with God has a twofold aspect. It concerns God's relation to us and our relation to God.
1. Peace with God as it affects God's relation to us. At first God was at peace with man, until man sinned and thus became at enmity with God. And while God hates sin and must reward it, he willeth not the death of the sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wicked way and live. All through the ages, God, like a loving Father, has been seeking to bring back the wanderers, to reconcile his erring children to himself. At last he sent his own Son. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins." If that Propitiation has any meaning at all, it is that God's attitude toward those who accept it is one of peace. "For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God" (John 16:27). Thus faith is the means by which we take hold of Christ—our Substitute, our Reconciliation. And therefore, being clothed upon with his righteousness, we are received into the adoption of children. Being justified, we are restored to that blissful state of sonship toward God which made Eden the untroubled garden in which the Father came and walked at eventide. Once more God walks with us. He will be to us a Father, and we are to him as his children. What a gift this is that, weak and sinful though we are, yet we can think of God with calm assurance, being reconciled to him by the death of his Son!
2. Peace with God as it concerns our relation to God.
"Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm."
To those who rest their faith in Christ when in trouble, he will appear as he did to his disciples on the sea, and they will hear through the gloom a voice calling to them, "It is I: be not afraid!"