Romans 5

## Chapter Eleven Of Justification SECTION 1 THOSE whom God effectually calls he also freely justifies,(1) not by infusing righteousness into them but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, to them, as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them,(2) they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.(3) SECTION 2 FAITH, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness is the sole instrument of justification;(4) yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love.(5) (1) Romans 8:30; 3:24. (2) Romans 4:5-8; 2 Corinthians 5:19,21; Romans 3:22,24,25,27,28; Titus 3:5,7; Ephesians 1:7; Jeremiah 23:6; 1 Corinthians 1:30,31; Romans 5:17-19. (3) Acts 10:44; Galatians 2:16; Philippians 2:9; Acts 13:38,39; Ephesians 2:7,8. (4) John 1:12; Romans 3:28; 5:1. (5) James 2:17,22,26; Galatians 5:6. We come now to the sections which instruct us on the nature and reality of justification.

He who lives not in the due performance of every Christian duty, whatever faith he may profess, is either a vile hypocrite, or a scandalous Antinomian. [ Romans 5 ] ROMANS 5: 1 Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; The effects of justification by faith, peace with God, Romans 5:1. The joyous hope of eternal glory, Romans 5:2. Glorying in tribulations, Romans 5:3. And gaining thereby patience, experience, and hope, Romans 5:4. And having the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, Romans 5:5. The state of the world when Christ died for it, Romans 5:6-10. Jesus Christ is an atonement, Romans 5:11. Sin and death entered into the world by Adam's transgression, and all became guilty before God, Romans 5:12-14. God's grace in sending Christ into the world to save fallen man, Romans 5:15-19. The law is brought in to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin, Romans 5:20. The grace of Christ is to be as extensive in its influences and reign, as sin has been in its enslaving and destructive nature, Romans 5:21.

2. To show how justly the Divine grace is founded on the obedience of Christ, in correspondence to the dispensation Adam was under, and to the consequences of his disobedience: if this disobedience involved all mankind in death, it is proper that the obedience of Christ should be the cause not only of reversing that death to all mankind, but also of other blessings which God should see fit (through him) to bestow on the world. 3. It serves to explain, and set in a clear view, the difference between the law and grace. It was the law which, for Adam's one transgression, subjected him and his posterity, as included in him when he transgressed, to death, without hopes of a revival. It is grace which restores all men to life at the resurrection; and, over and above that, has provided a gracious dispensation for the pardon of their sins; for reducing them to obedience; for guarding them against temptations; supplying them with strength and comfort; and for advancing them to eternal life. This would give the attentive Jew a just notion of the law which himself was under, and under which he was desirous of bringing the Gentiles. The order in which the apostle handles this argument is this: - 1. He affirms that death passed upon all men by Adam's one transgression, Romans 5:12. 2. He proves this, Romans 5:13, Romans 5:14 : 3. He affirms there is a correspondence between Adam and Christ; or between the παραπτωμα, offense, and the χαρισμα, free gift, Romans 5:14.

(2) As only believers possess the true secret of patience under trials, so, although "not joyous but grievous" in themselves (Hebrews 12:17), when trials divinely sent afford them the opportunity of evidencing their faith by the grace of patience under them, they should "count it all joy" (Romans 5:3, 4; and see James 1:2, 3). (3) "Hope," in the New Testament sense of the term, is not a lower degree of faith or assurance (as many now say, I hope for heaven, but am not sure of it); but invariably means "the confident expectation of future good." It presupposes faith; and what faith assures us will be ours, hope accordingly expects. In the nourishment of this hope, the soul's look outward to Christ for the ground of it, and inward upon ourselves for evidence of its reality, must act and react upon each other (Romans 5:2 and Romans 5:4 compared). (4) It is the proper office of the Holy Ghost to beget in the soul the full conviction and joyful consciousness of the love of God in Christ Jesus to sinners of mankind, and to ourselves in particular; and where this exists, it carries with it such an assurance ## of final salvation as cannot deceive (Romans 5:5). (5) The justification of sinful men is not in virtue of their amendment, but of "the blood of God's Son"; and while this is expressly affirmed in Romans 5:9, our reconciliation to God by the " death of His Son," affirmed in Romans 5:10, is but a variety of the same statement.

should be sent to Caesar in Italy," etc. The Latin Vulgate and the Arabic also read "he" instead of "we."] In his argument it stands opposed to "the grace of God, and the gift by grace," (Romans 5:15) to "justification," by the forgiveness of "many offences," (Romans 5:16) to the reign of the redeemed in eternal life, (Romans 5:17) and to "justification of life," (Romans 5:18.) To all these, the words "death," (Romans 5:12,17) and "judgment," (ro 5:16,18) stand opposed. These are the benefits which result from the work of Christ; and these benefits stand opposed to the evils which sin has introduced; and as it cannot be supposed that these benefits relate to temporal life, or solely to the resurrection of the body, so it cannot be that the evils involved in the words "death," "judgment," etc., relate simply to temporal death. The evident meaning is, that the word "death," as here used by the apostle, refers to the train of evils which have been introduced by sin. It does not mean simply temporal death; but that group and collection of woes, including temporal death, condemnation, and exposure to eternal death, which is the consequence of transgression. The apostle often uses the word death, and to die, in this wide sense, Romans 1:32; 6:16; 7:5,10,13,24; 8:2,6,13; 2 Colossians 2:16; 7:10; Hebrews 2:14. In the same sense the word is often used elsewhere, John 8:51; 11:26; 1 John 5:16,17; Revelation 2:11; 20:6, etc. etc.