SERMON LXXIV. CHRIST'S RESURRECTION THE CAUSE OF OUR JUSTIFICATION. SERM. ROм. iv. 25. Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our Justification. THE Apostle is here speaking of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and positively asserts two things concerning Him, much to be observed of all who hope to be saved by Him. The first is, "That He was delivered for our Rom. 8. 32. offences;" He was delivered by His Father, "Who spared not His Own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." He John 10. 18. was delivered by Himself of His Own accord; "No man," [Rom. 6. 23.] saith He, "taketh My life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." He was delivered both by His Father and Himself into the hands of the Jews; they delivered Him to Pilate the Roman governor; Pilate having unjustly condemned Him, delivered Him to the soldiers; the soldiers, after many horrid abuses put upon Him, crucified Him with two notorious malefactors that were justly condemned and executed for their crimes. Jesus Himself the Eternal Son of God was thus delivered up to death, even to the death of the Cross, and that doubtless for some sin too; for death is the wages only of sin, therefore where there is no sin there can be no death: but He could not be delivered for any sin of His Own, for He had none; and therefore as the Apostle here saith, "He was delivered for our offences," for the sins of mankind, as being of that nature in which He was so delivered. The malefactors which were crucified with Him suffered each man for his own sins; but He 1 suffered for the sins of other men, or rather for the sins of all men, and for ours among the rest. This the Prophet long ago foretold, or rather did not foretell, but spake of it as a thing already done, because it was as certain to be done as if it had been done already, and it was looked upon as done from the beginning of the world, because God then said it should be. Hence, I say, the Prophet speaking of Christ, saith," He was wounded for our transgressions, He Isa. 53. 5, 6. was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." This also is the constant language of the New Testament; "Christ died for our sins according to 1 Cor. 15. 3. the Scriptures." "He His Ownself bare our sins in His 1 Pet. 2. 24. Own body."" He suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, ch. 3. 18. that He might bring us to God." "He was made a curse Gal. 3. 13. for us." "He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem Tit. 2. 14. us from all iniquity." "He was made sin for us," or an 2 Cor. 5. 21. offering for our sins. "He was the propitiation for our 1 John 2.2. sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” There are many such places in God's Holy Word, whereby we are fully assured from Himself that His Son suffered death for us, that death which He had threatened against us as sinners, and which we therefore must have suffered in all our own persons if He had not suffered it in our stead. This I mentioned here, because it is necessary to our right understanding the other thing which the Apostle here asserts of our blessed Saviour, even that as "He was delivered for our offences, so He was raised again for our Justification," which is the thing I chiefly intend, and by His assistance shall endeavour at this time to explain, but could not so well have done it, unless I had premised at least so much concerning His death, upon which our Justification is principally founded. I know that several men have undertaken to explain this doctrine several ways; and although I do not deny but most of them may be brought at last to meet in the same thing; yet the way that some go is so intricate and obscure, and that which others take LXXIV. SERM. seems at least so remote to the truth itself, that it is no easy matter to bring them together. For my part, in this, as in all other points, I shall keep close to the doctrine of our Church, as being fully persuaded that she in this, as in all other doctrines, delivers to us the true sense of God's Word, according to the interpretation that Christ's Holy Catholic Church hath always put upon it, and therefore hath always taught and preached for this purpose; therefore I shall here consider two things: I. What the Scriptures mean by Justification, and how we are said to be justified. II. In what sense Christ is here said to be raised again for our Justification. 1. To understand the first, it will be first necessary to consider the term or word itself, which we must know is a judicial word, a word taken from courts of judicature, where a man is said to be justified when he is acquitted, or declared to be just and innocent of the crime or crimes laid to his charge, and so not liable to the punishments which by the law are due to such crimes; and therefore Justification is properly opposed to condemnation. So we find it often is in the Holy Scriptures themselves; as where it is said, if there be a controversy between men, that they come unto Deut. 25. 1. judgment, that the judges may judge them, then "they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked." In they והצדיקו את הצדיק והרשיעו את הרשע the original it is shall make the righteous to be righteous, and they shall make the wicked to be wicked,' that is, they shall declare or pronounce them to be so; and that is their justifying the one, and condemning the other. Hence the wise man Prov. 17.15. saith in the same words, "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are an abomination to the Lord." Where we see Justification and condemnation plainly opposed to one another; so they are Matt. 12.37. by Christ Himself, saying, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." To Rom. 8. 33, the same purpose is that of the Apostle, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" From whence it is evident that the Holy Ghost useth this word 'Justification' to 34. signify a man's being accounted or declared not guilty of the faults he is charged with, but in that respect a just or righteous person, and that too before some judge, who in our present case is the Supreme Judge of the world, Almighty God Himself. When He is pleased to discharge, or to declare a man free from the crimes that are laid against him, so as to account him a just or righteous person, then He is said to justify that man; and this is plainly the sense wherein our Church also useth this word in her Articles, for the title of the eleventh Article is thus, " Of the Justification of man," but the article itself begins thus, "We are accounted righteous before God;" which clearly shews, that in her sense, to be justified is the same with being accounted righteous before God; which I therefore observe that you may not be mistaken in the sense of the word, as it is used by the Church, and by the Holy Ghost Himself in His Holy Scriptures, like those who confound Justification and Sanctification together, as if they were one and the same thing: although the Scriptures plainly distinguish them; Sanctification being God's act in us, whereby we are made righteous in ourselves; but Justification is God's act in Himself, whereby we are accounted righteous by Him, and shall be declared to be so at the judgment of the Great Day. But as it is in Job; "How can man be justified with Job. 25. 4. God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?" How can he that is a sinner be accounted righteous by the most righteous Judge of the whole world? This, I confess, is a mystery which we should never have found out, nor so much as thought of, but that God Himself hath revealed it to us in His Own Word, which, as it is the only ground we have to believe it, so it is the only rule we must go by in explaining it to you. According to which, I shall endeavour to give you as clear an account of it as I can, in these following propositions : I. No man is by nature righteous in himself; this we are fully assured of by the Word of God, where we find that the first man God ever made sinned against Him by eating of the fruit which God had forbidden him to eat of; and that all men being then contained in him, all likewise sinned in SERM. him, and became liable and prone to do so in their own LXXIV. persons. He, by eating that forbidden fruit, poisoned his blood, and corrupted the whole nature of man, insomuch that all that ever did, or ever shall proceed naturally from him, are conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity, and therefore afterwards do nothing else by nature but conceive Rom. 5. 12. mischief and bring forth vanity, "For, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death passed Ps. 14. 3. upon all men, for that all have sinned." "They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy: there is none that Rom. 3. 10. doeth good, no not one." Or as St. Paul renders it, "There Eccles.7.20. is none righteous, no not one." "There is not one righteous, not one just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not." "For there is no man that sinneth not." "And if any man say that he hath no sin, he deceives himself, and the [Gal. 3.22.] truth is not in him." "For the Law hath concluded all Rom. 3. 19. under sin, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the 1 Kings. 8. 46. 1 John 1. 8. ver. 23. Gal. 3. 10. ch. 3. 22. one world may become guilty before God." "Because all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." And so are all under the curse which God hath denounced against every "that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them." But this no mere man ever yet did, or ever will do; and therefore none ever was or ever can be perfectly righteous in himself, while he is upon earth. And as the Scripture thus concludeth "all under sin," so all Prov. 20. 9. men find it true by their own experience; for "who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin ?" No man except Christ could ever truly say it; for all that have any sense of the difference between good and evil, cannot but be conscious to themselves that they have done evil, more evil than good, at least not so much good as they might and ought to have done since they came into the world. If I should ask all here present, one by one, whether they do not know themselves to have done something they ought not to have done, or else not to have done something which they ought, I dare say every man's conscience would force him to confess it; and whether we be sensible of it or no, sure this is the state of all mankind by nature. There never was a mere man upon the face of the earth free from sin, and I am |