JUSTIFICATION BY WORKS IMPOSSIBLE

by Francis Wayland

These words express the conclusion at which the apostle arrives after a full investigation into the character and condition of man.

In the previous portion of his Epistle, he had exposed the universal and intense sinfulness both of the Jews and Gentiles, and the utter inexcusableness of both, inasmuch as all had sinned against clear and adequate light. He sums up the
argument in the words of the text — "Therefore by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

By the term "deeds of the law," we are to understand those deeds which the law commands. By " flesh " is meant human nature, the whole race of man. The word "justified" is susceptible of two meanings. It may indicate that he who is accused is declared innocent of crime, "rectus in curia,'' as by a judicial tribunal, when he has been proved guilty of no wrong. Secondly, it may mean, to be treated as though he were just, although he be not innocent ; as, for instance, when a man is freely pardoned, all proceedings against him being quashed, and he is restored to the standing of a just man. It is in this sense that the word is used, when men, who by acknowledgment are guilty, are declared to be justified by faith. The text evidently uses the word in the former of these two significations. It speaks of justification through the deeds of the law, that is, through the doing of those deeds which the law requires. If a man does all that the law requires, he may manifestly plead the law in justification. He may demand that it declare him innocent on his own merits. It can have no further demand upon him, and he is as free of it as though it had never existed. The assertion of the text, then, is, that our whole race, and, of course, every individual of it, is incapable of ever being justified on the ground of having kept the requirements of the moral law of God.

This assertion of the apostle may be easily illustrated by a brief reference to some of those declarations of the Scriptures which we have previously considered.

     1. The Bible declares that the moral law, under which we have been created, commands us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This, as we have reason to suppose, is the law which is extended over the whole moral universe. Sin is the transgression of this law. The wages of sin — that is, what it deserves — is death. Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, are upon every soul of man that doeth evil. This law is declared to be holy and just, and good ; that is, in perfect harmony with the
attributes of the most high God.

     2. The Scriptures assert that man is destitute of that love which the law of God requires ; and that, in the place of it, he cherishes a spirit of enmity to his Maker. " I know you," saith Christ, '; that ye have not the love of God in you." We
do not like to retain God in our knowledge. Nay, more : " the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Instead of being filled with the love of man, we are declared to be filled with envy, deceit, malignity, and every evil passion." The constitution of civil society every where proceeds upon the assumption that men are selfish, faithless, violent, and cruel, and laws are every where made to counteract these hateful tendencies.

     3. The Scriptures go farther, and reveal to us our moral condition with still greater precision. They teach us that the conditions of our probation were made contingent upon the obedience or disobedience of our first parents. They disobeyed God, and their character became sinful. The conditions of our probation became thus less favorable, so that we find man every where a sinner as soon as he begins to act under moral responsibility. Thus we see that sin is not an accident to which a part of mankind are exposed, but a universal fact in human nature. " By one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death has passed upon all men, in that all have sinned."

Such are the declarations of Scripture, and to the truth of them our own consciousness bears undoubted testimony. As soon as any one of us begins to compare himself with the law under which he is created, or even with the imperfect moral standard held forth by his own conscience, he acknowledges
himself a sinner, coming short of the praise of God. Nor does any one find himself alone in this condition. He is surrounded by just such beings, an inhabitant of a world lying in wickedness. Examples of sin abound on every side. Men find their passions too powerful for the control of conscience ; they are led captive by sin, and are clearly destitute of those affections which are justly required of us by our
Father who is in heaven. So deeply rooted is the conviction of our universal sinfulness, that if a man, in any age or country, should believe himself entirely free from sin, we should either look upon him as a superhuman being, or else, by universal consent, pronounce him insane.

And, if any man entertain any remaining doubt on this subject, we would suggest a single practical test, by which he may easily satisfy himself. Let him reflect upon the character of God, and our relations and obligations to him, as they are revealed in the Scriptures, or even indicated by natural religion. Let him form some conception of the love, the veneration, the obedience, which such a creature should exercise towards such a Creator, and then let him honestly make the attempt to exercise these affections. Let him retire from the business of the world, enter his closet, and hold with his Creator such communion as is meet for a child of the dust to hold with his Father in heaven ; and let him maintain this
temper through life. Let any man fairly make this experiment, and I think he will have but little reason to entertain a doubt respecting the moral character of his heart. With the apostle, he will exclaim in despair, " The law is holy, but I am
carnal, sold under sin."

Now, such being the statements of the Scriptures respecting the law of God and the moral character of man, the conclusion in the text is irresistible. The law requires that he love God with all his heart. How can it declare him guiltless, when he has not the love of God in him, much less when his mind is at enmity with God ? The law declares that the wages, the equitable desert of sin, is death. How can it, in the same breath, declare him, who is by acknowledgment a sinner, innocent, and therefore deserving of eternal life ? You see that these two assertions are absolute contradictions. If the law justly require us to love God with all our heart, and we are at enmity with him, we must be under condemnation. In this direction, then, there is no possibility of escape. Every
mouth must be stopped, and the whole world lie guilty before God.

So much as this, I think, has, with different degrees of distinctness, been very generally conceded. Men, both pagan and Christian, confess themselves sinners, if they admit a single moral principle. Hence the universality of the feeling of human guiltiness, and the dread of the judgments of God, as the desert of transgression. But here the question arises — Are there not some means in our power by which we may make reparation for our sins, so that, although we are guilty, we may yet, by our own doings, escape the condemnation to which we
are exposed ?' Since we cannot be justified on the ground of innocence, may we not by our own merits, or sacrifices, present a claim to be treated as just, and thus inherit everlasting life?

This question, from the beginning, has deeply agitated the human soul. The confession of sinfulness is the unbidden utterance of every man's conscience. The agitated spirit was hence impelled to devise some means by which the consciousness of guilt might be removed and the fear of retribution allayed. The first expedient, which seems universally to have suggested itself, was the offering of expiatory victims. Hence, among the fathers of our race, sacrifices were numbered among the duties of almost daily observance. Thus Abel offered to God of the firstlings of his flocks. Job, when his children had been feasting, offered a sacrifice for each one of them. Abraham, wherever he pitched his tent in his pastoral migrations, builded an altar, and offered upon it a victim. Thus, when, by the command of God, the Jewish theocracy was established, almost all things were purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there was no remission. Morning and evening the sacrifice smoked upon the altar for the daily offences of the people, while the trespass of every individual was acknowledged
by an expiatory offering. The idea shadowed forth in all these observances was the same. The worshipper acknowledged that he was a sinner. He offered, as a victim, the most valuable thing that he possessed, in the place of himself, in the
hope that the Deity would accept of the substitute, and that the wrath which he had incurred might be appeased by the immolation of a brute.

This idea, however, was by no means confined to the children of Abraham. It seems to have been as universal as our race itself. You all remember the hecatomb offered by the Greeks, when they desired to appease the wrath of
Apollo whose priest, Agamemnon, their king, had insulted ; and throughout the whole range of classical poetry, from the epic of Homer to the lyrics of Horace, nothing more frequently meets us than allusions to sacrifices intended to render placable the gods when offended by the past, or to propitiate their favor when their aid was deemed specially needful for the future. Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, Juno, Minerva, and Mars, had each his appropriate offerings and appointed priesthood, and each was worshipped with mingled feelings of doubt or confidence, and, it may possibly be, in some cases, with some imperfect sentiment of solemn adoration.

But this feeling of the human heart did not even thus exhaust itself. On occasions of more than usual solemnity, and in times of unwonted emergency, even human victims were sometimes offered up. Such was the case in seasons of wasting pestilence, always supposed to be an indication of the divine displeasure. Sometimes a captive, taken in battle, was deemed a sufficient atonement. At other times, the choicest specimen of humanity that the nation could select was doomed to bleed upon the altar. Thus the history of the early age of the Hebrew commonwealth records the sad narrative of the sacrifice of Jephtha's daughter ; and Grecian tragedy has selected for one of its most affecting representations the intended offering up of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon.

But such an expedient as this inevitably loses its efficacy as soon as man listens to the voice of his own consciousness. He then feels that guilt is a personal thing, an affection of the spirit, and that he himself is a sinner. It is he, in his own
person, that must answer at the bar of offended justice. Guilt cannot be transferred to a brute, nor can it at will be laid upon the conscience of another. The brute has no moral life ; it can neither keep the law nor break it, and can never assume the responsibility which belongs solely to an immortal spirit. Hence the worshipper returned from the sacrifice unsatisfied and unblessed. The Jew, though performing the rites appointed by the Most High, confessed that it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. The pagan retired from the flowing libation and the smoking hecatomb bearing about within him a conscience still burdened with the guilt of unpardoned sin. The controversy between the spirit and its Creator was still unadjusted. The power of sin remained unbroken within him, and his soul was, as before, self-condemned and despairing.

And hence it came to pass that, long before the time of Christ, confidence in the whole system of sacrifices was rapidly passing away, before the progress of intellectual culture. I do not say that sacrifices were not offered. Unless this had
been done, the nations had sunk into atheism. They had, however, lost all moral power over the minds of thinking men. The educated classes externally conformed to the popular belief for the sake of enforcing upon the common people the notion of a superintending Providence. The common people worshipped as their fathers had worshipped before them. At the era of the introduction of Christianity, the moral efficacy of such sufferings had ceased, and their inability to restore peace to a wounded spirit was universally felt.

This, however, belongs to a time that has passed away. A reference to it is, however, not without its utility, inasmuch as it reveals to us a universal human sentiment, and illustrates the course of action to which that sentiment so generally led.

Another view of this subject has been frequently taken by those who have been conscious of the guilt of sin. They have supposed that reparation to the violated law might be made by repentance and reformation. This idea would naturally suggest itself to a thoughtful mind, earnestly inquiring for reconciliation with God. It has at all times sought to ingraft itself upon Christianity, and thus render needless the atoning sacrifice of Christ. As the consequences, both theoretical and practical, which result from it, are important, I will examine it with as much care as the remaining time allotted to this discourse will allow.

The doctrine in question is, I suppose, essentially this: Although man be a sinner, as the word of God declares him to be, yet, by repentance and reformation, he may make such reparation as will entitle him to be treated as just or innocent ; and thus he may become justified by the works of the law.

Repentance is the temper of mind which is appropriate to a moral agent who has done wrong. If a man have violated a good and righteous law, it becomes him to regret his action, to take the blame of it upon himself, to acknowledge the justice
of the law, and submit himself, without reserve, to its enactments. He dislikes the act, not on account of the consequences which follow it, but on account of its own essential turpitude.

Repentance towards God is nothing other than the exercise of these tempers of mind in view of our relations to him. We have sinned against him, and violated his holy law. If we repent, we regret our fault sincerely, and without reserve ; we
take the blame of our conduct upon ourselves ; we abhor ourselves for our wrong doing, and acknowledge the equity of the law which condemns us. " Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." Now, if I understand the doctrine which we are considering, it declares that he who exercises this temper of mind is thereby justified, and, on this ground, may claim to be treated as though he had been innocent.

On this subject I would offer a few obvious considerations.

     1. If this doctrine be true, it must proceed upon an entire change of the moral law. The law which the Scriptures have revealed is, that the wages of sin is death. This is its equitable desert. To declare, however, that if a man repents of his sin, he is entitled to justification, is to introduce another law, and to declare not that sin of itself is deserving of death, but only sin unrepented of. Now, I ask, where do we find the authority for announcing such a law ? Revelation does not
teach it. The laws of civil society do not present any analogies which would lead us to believe it true. No government on earth could be administered upon this principle. I know well that the Scriptures abundantly promise that he who repents of his sins shall find mercy ; but to me they seem with the utmost precision to declare that repentance is not the procuring cause of pardon, and that it can give the offender no claim to the remission of sins. "We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." "He hath made him to be sin (a sin-offering) for us, who himself knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God " (righteous in the sight of God) " in him." Pardon for the race of man having thus been made possible by the work of the Messiah, it is freely offered to all who will repent and believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Repentance itself has no power to justify us; it is only the condition on which the atonement of Christ is made available to the sinner.

     2. This doctrine would, as it seems to me, lead to new views of divine justice. If a sinner can claim justification at the hands of God in virtue of repentance, then there would seem but little distinction to exist between innocence and guilt. He who had kept the whole law without fault, and he who had broken every commandment through life, and at last repented of his sins, would both stand in the same moral condition before God ; both, on the ground of their own doings, being entitled to be treated as innocent. Now, if this be true, the desert of sin could not be death, but only of sin unrepented of. Sin repented of, and innocence, would both deserve the same treatment. I cannot persuade myself that the Scriptures present this view of our relations to God.

     3. If this doctrine be true, we should, I think, believe that God himself entertained no moral displeasure against sin, but only against sin unrepented of. The announcement of his law would seem to be, that holiness and sin repented of were equally lovely in his sight, inasmuch as they were by his law entitled to the same reward. The Deity would thus seem to entertain less abhorrence to sin than the penitent himself. The penitent acknowledges that his whole life has been morally loathsome ; that, on account of it, he deserves to suffer the penalty of the law ; while, upon this supposition, God is represented as assuring him that there is nothing deserving of punishment in sin, but only in unrepented sin ; and that now, since he has repented, he may make the same claim to justification
as if he had ever been innocent. I by no means suppose that these sentiments are entertained by those who believe the doctrine in question. I merely assert that these are the consequences to which, as it seems to me, the doctrine by necessity leads.

And, lastly, were this the law of the divine dispensation, I think that it would defeat its own object ; for, were this the law, repentance would be impossible.

Repentance can only arise from a conviction of the moral turpitude of sin ; it is an abhorrence of the act purely on account of its moral wrong. But, upon the supposition in question, sin itself is not wrong, or odious in the sight of God,
but only sin unrepented of. But, if the act itself be not morally detestable, of what is there for us to repent ? We are to be penitent not for the act, but for our impenitence, while penitence itself is impossible, because the act is not in itself
worthy of condemnation.

As soon as we abstract from an act its desert of the displeasure of God, there is no need of any change of mind towards it ; and sorrow for it cannot possibly exist. It may be said that we may be sorry for the consequences ; but then this is not repentance, nor is it at all a moral exercise. To expect that this would justify us, would be to declare that a man should be treated as innocent, as soon as he became afraid of the consequences of his crime.

To me, then, the Scriptures seem to assert that repentance can offer no atonement for sin. If the law be holy, and just, and good, it is holy, and just, and good, that it be enforced. If a man repent of his sins, this is right, and he shall have the advantage of it ; but under a system of law, this can make no reparation for past transgression. The man confesses that the law is just ; but this confession does not render it less just. He acknowledges that he deserves to perish: but this does not alter his desert. He still deserves the just award of his past guilt. " Therefore, by the deeds of the law can no flesh be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

Such seems to me to be the result to which revelation leads us, considered as a system of law. Such was the dispensation under which we were originally created. But the conditions of this form of probation were violated originally by
our first parents, and they have been violated by their descendants ever since. Hence, were there in the Scriptures no other announcement, the Bible would be to us nothing else than a sentence of universal condemnation. But, blessed be God ! it contains something else than condemnation. It is an offer of universal pardon to the race of man, through the mediation of Him who " loved us, and gave himself for us." As the conditions of our first probation were rendered void,
and the commandment, which was ordained unto life, was found to be unto death, God provided for us a second probation, established upon better promises. " God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This is the great message of eternal love to the lost and perishing race of man. It is in virtue of this atonement, made by the Messiah, that pardon and eternal life are now freely offered to every penitent believer.

To reveal this great and astonishing truth is the great design of revealed -religion. Natural religion intimated to us our sin, and dimly foreshadowed the doom of our transgression. But from natural religion itself, — merely a system of
law, — no news of reconciliation could proceed. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ alone that brings life and immortality to light. It is by Jesus Christ that we are justified from all things from which we could not be justified by the law of Moses. For the announcement of this great central truth, the whole previous history of our world was one magnificent preparation. For this end, empires arose, flourished, and fell. To prepare the way for the Desire of all nations, seers foresaw, and prophets foretold ; " for the testimony to Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." And when the second Adam, he who was thus, by his life and death, to change the terms of our probation, appeared, the blind saw, the lepers were cleansed, the dead were raised, the elements were stilled, and malignant spirits were obedient to his all-powerful word. All things, material and spiritual, did homage to him, " the brightness of the Father's glory," who had come by himself to purge away our sins.

Although, then, by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified, though of ourselves we are helpless and undone, yet we may not despair, " for our help is laid upon one that is mighty," one who is able to save to the uttermost every one
that believeth. " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The way of life is just as open to us as the way of death. The blessed message to every one of us is, "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the fountain of the water of life freely." If, then, any of us should finally perish, it will not be because we are sinners, nor because we
had ruined ourselves, but, in addition to all this, because we have rejected the gift of eternal life freely offered to us in the gospel.

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