The life and work of St. Paul

462 THE LIFE AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
attempting to arrange in the pigeon-holes of our logical
formulae the incom-
prehensible mysteries encircling that part of it which has alone been opened
for our learning:
1. We may, then, pronounce with reasonable certainty that in
"
memorable thesis of the Epistle, God's righteousness," which, in the
this
first
instance, means a quality of God, is an expression which St. Paul uses to
express the imputation of this righteousness by free bestowal upon man, so
that man can regard it as a thing given to himself a righteousness which
proceeds from God and constitutes a new relation of man towards Him
justification of man, a declaration of man's innocence an acquittal from guilt
through Christ given by free grace the principle, ordained by God himself,
which determines the religious character of the race, and by which the
religious consciousness of the individual is conditioned.1
2. And when St. Paul says that this " righteousness of God " springs
"from faith," he does not mean that faith is in any way the meritorious
cause of it, for he shows that man is justified by free grace, and that this
justification has its ground in the spontaneous favour of God, and its cause
in the redemptive work of Christ 2 but what he means is ;
that faith is the
receptive instrument 3 of it the personal appropriation of the reconciling
love of God, which has once for all been carried into effect for the race by
the death of Christ.
3. Lastly, when he says that this righteousness of God is being revealed
in the Gospel " from faith to faith," he implies the truth, which finds frequent
illustration in his writings, that there are ascensive degrees and qualities of
Christian faith. 4
Leaving out of sight the dead faith (fides informis) of the
of God's
schoolmen, its lowest stage (i.) is the being theoretically persuaded
favour to us in Christ on higher grounds than those of sensuous perception
and ordinary experience, namely, because we have confidence in God (assensus
fiducia}. In a higher stage (ii.) it has touched the inmost emotions of the
1
Pfleiderer, Paulinism, i. 178. "The acceptance wherewith God receives us into
His favour as if we were righteous it consists in the forgiveness of sins and the imputation
of the righteousness of Christ " "
(Calvin). Faith taketh hold of Christ, and hath
Him enclosed, as the ring doth the precious stone. And whosoever shall be found having
this confidence in Christ apprehended in the heart, him will God accept for
"
righteous
(Luther). [See, too, the twelve ancient authorities quoted in the Homily on the
"
salvation of mankind.] The righteousness wherewith we shall be clothed in the world
to come ia both perfect and inherent ; that whereby here we are justified is perfect, but
not inherent-ythat whereby we are sanctified, inherent, but not perfect " (Hooker, Serm.
ii. 3). " The righteousness which God gives and which he approves " (Hodges). " The very
righteousness of God Himself . . . imputed and imparted to men in Jesus Christ (Jer,
xxiii. 6 ; xxxiii. 16) ... who ... is made righteousness to us (1 Cor. L 30) . . .so
that we may be not only acquitted by God, but may become the righteous of God in Him
(2 Cor. v. 21) " (Bishop Wordsworth).
2 The Tridentine decree speaks of God's glory and eternal life as the final, of God as
the efficient, of Christ as the meritorious, of baptism as the instrumental, and of God's
righteousness as the formal cause of justification.
3
Spyavoj/ \rfim.Kov. We are justified per, not propter fidem (Acts x. 1, 2).
"From faith to faith," i.e., "which begins in faith and ends in faith, of which|
faith is the beginning, middle, and end " (Baur, who compares 6o>x.i) fwijs e f7jv, 2 Cor. i',.
16). In the first stage the Glavbe passes into Trent,