6. Relation of Justification to Faith. A. We are justified by faith, rather than by love or by any other grace: (_a_) not because faith is itself a work of obedience by which we merit justification,—for this would be a doctrine of justification by works; (_b_) nor because faith is accepted as an equivalent of obedience,—for there is no equivalent except the perfect obedience of Christ; (_c_) nor because faith is the germ from which obedience may spring hereafter,—for it is not the faith which accepts, but the Christ who is accepted, that renders such obedience possible; but (_d_) because faith, and not repentance, or love, or hope, is the medium or instrument by which we receive Christ and are united to him. Hence we are never said to be justified διὰ πίστιν, = on account of faith, but only διὰ πίστεως, = through faith, or ἐκ πίστεως, = by faith. Or, to express the same truth in other words, while the grace of God is the efficient cause of justification, and the obedience and sufferings of Christ are the meritorious or procuring cause, faith is the mediate or instrumental cause. Edwards, Works, 4:69‐73—“Faith justifies, because faith includes the whole act of unition to Christ as a Savior. It is not the nature of any other graces or virtues directly to close with Christ as a mediator, any further than they enter into the constitution of justifying faith, and do belong to its nature”; Observations on Trinity, 64‐67—“Salvation is not offered to us upon any condition, but freely and for nothing. We are to do nothing for it,—we are only to take it. This taking and receiving is faith.” H. B. Smith, System, 524—“An internal change is a _sine qua non_ of justification, but not its meritorious ground.” Give a man a gold mine. It is _his_. He has not to work _for_ it; he has only to work _it_. Working _for_ life is one thing; working _from_ life is quite another. The marriage of a poor girl to a wealthy proprietor makes her possessor of his riches despite her former poverty. Yet her acceptance has not _purchased_ wealth. It is hers, not because of what she is or has done, but because of what her husband is and has done. So faith is the condition of justification, only because through it Christ becomes ours, and with him his atonement and righteousness. Salvation comes not because our faith saves us, but because it links us to the Christ who saves; and believing is only the link. There is no more merit in it than in the beggar’s stretching forth his hand to receive the offered purse, or the drowning man’s grasping the rope that is thrown to him.