Prevalent Errors on Justification Considered.
Note:
I. The notion that the spirit may receive an honourable discharge at the great day on the ground of obedience to the law. It is an opinion which exists, indeed, in floating, formless hopes, rather than in the shape of clear and lighted thought; yet it is sufficiently defined and powerful to sway the existence of vast multitudes. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." No law can acquit a man who is convicted of its violation; if we should receive acquittal, it must be on another principle.
II. A more prevalent theory is that which supposes that sorrow for the past and amendment for the future will be accepted as the ground of justification. But the law "requireth that which is past." The law would still say, "Pay me that thou owest." We should still be in hopeless debt. For this additional reason amendment would not justify. There could be no justification, filling the soul with soft and sure delight after the tears of sorrow and the struggles for amendment, like the clear shining after rain.
III. Another prevalent opinion is, that justification is wrought by Christ, along with certain co-operative actions of the creature. What is the truth? The oracles of God declare the truth as to the provision that is made for our justification. We are assured that the sinner is justified by Jesus Christ alone. We must "submit" to the righteousness of God." We must submit to enter an ark which we could not build, which we may not navigate, but which we must only enter in powerless dependence on unseen love and grace. The work of saving man, like the work of creating man, is Divine throughout. Other religions represent it as man's work towards God; our religion as God's work toward man.
C. Stanford, Central Truths,p. 99.
References: Romans 10:3. W. Cunningham, Sermons,p. 213; Homilist,3rd series, vol. ix., p. 282; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 264.