I. We read in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of St. Paul, a good deal of the doctrine of justification by faith. Now, is there any distinction between this doctrine of justification, between this blessing of justification, and the blessing of pardon? Is pardon synonymous with justification? I take it that, while justification always involves pardon, and while in the case of an individual sinner it is never separated from pardon, and the pardoned man is always justified, and the justified man is always pardoned, while in the processes of God's grace to an individual soul, these are never found apart, yet theologically they are to be carefully distinguished. The type and symbol of a justified man is not Joshua simply washed, but Joshua clothed, and clothed in such garments, so fair in holiness, so perfect in their beauty, that we may put into his mouth the song in which the Church, under God's mercy, breaks out into the jubilant language of thanksgiving and praise, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with garments of salvation."
II. "Peace with God." It is undeniable that there is such a thing as peace which does not arise from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is: (1) The peace of ignorance. There are men who know nothing of the law of God; they know nothing of the nature of God; they have never been roused to spiritual anxiety or to spiritual inquiry. Their hopes are of the vaguest and dreamiest kind; or they are simply those hopes of which we hear much in the present day, resting upon the great mercy of God, as if somehow or other we are all to get back to God at last whether we die in Christ or not. (2) And then there is the peace of the Pharisee. He lives and dies in the buckram of his self-righteousness. He thanks God that he is not as other men are. He is going to heaven perfectly satisfied with himself, or perhaps, just trusting a little to Christ to make up the balance which he may think is against him. Therefore we should ask, not only, "Have you peace?" but "Upon what is that peace resting?"
J. C. Miller, Penny Pulpit,No. 717, new series.
I. The common meaning which is put upon the word justifiedmay not be all that St. Paul intended by it, nor all that we need to see in it. But it must have a great worth. God accounts me righteous, He justifies me, He does not account me that which in my proper legitimate state, as united to Christ, I am not; He treats me as that which, in this my proper and reasonable state, I am. The justified man is not onlyone who is acquitted, not onlyone who is set down as righteous, but one who, in the strictest sense, has become, or has been made, righteous.
II. And thus we are able to feel the force of the next words, "Being justified by faith." God is the Justifier, He who accounts man righteous and makes him righteous, and man is justified or made righteous by faith. He believes the witness which God has given of Himself in His Son, and therefore he has faith in God, faith in what He has done, faith in what He is. He is righteous only by this faith, for only by it does he claim any relation to Him who is righteous, only by it can he ascend out of his own nature. Having faith in God, he becomes a true man; otherwise he possesses only the torments of a man with the instincts and pleasures of an animal.
III. Being justified by faith, we have peace.Peace must come by rising into life. To suppose that this peace is something won by a certain momentary act of belief, and thenceforth guaranteed to the believer as his treasure and property, is to subvert the whole doctrine.
IV. The great question which every man asks is, How can I be at peace with God? The answer St. Paul makes is, "God has made peace with thee, through Jesus Christ." In Him He has manifested to thee what He is; in Him He sees thee. Thou mayest see God in Him; thou mayest rise thyself to be a new creature in Him. For thou art not what thou supposest thyself to be a separate atom in the universe, a creature who has no relation to any other. Thou hast wonderful affinities with all these beings about thee; and when thou art driven by thy wretchedness and despair of thyself to trust in Him who has taken thy nature upon Him, thou wilt find out that secret as well as the secret of thy own emancipation.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 1.
References: Romans 5:1. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. ix., No. 510; vol. xxv., No. 1456; Expositor,1st series, vol. ix., p. 215; Church of England Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 83; Ibid.,vol. xiii., p. 123; E. Johnson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 234; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 235; Homiletic Quarterly.,vol. iii., p. 376; W. Hay Aitken, Around the Cross,p. 65; Archbishop Magee, Sermons at Bath,pp. 63, 88.