“By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Shall we say,
Then we will do away with the law? That is what every confirmed criminal
thinks. Persistent law-breakers would gladly do away with the law which
declares them guilty and will not say that wrong is right. But the law
of God can not be abolished, for it is the statement of the will of God.
Rom. 2:18. In very fact it is the life and character of God. “The law is
holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” Rom. 7:12. We read
the written law, and find in it our duty made plain. But we have not
done it; therefore we are guilty. “All have sinned, and come short of
the glory of God.” “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Rom.
3:23, 12. Moreover, there is not one who has strength to do the law, its
requirements are so great. Then it is very evident that no one can be
justified by the works of the law, and it is equally evident that the
fault is not in the law, but in the individual. Let the man get Christ
in the heart by faith, and then the righteousness of the law will be
there also, for Christ says, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea,
Thy law is within My heart.” Ps. 40:8. He who would throw away the law
because it will not call evil good, would reject God because He “will by
no means clear the guilty.” Ex. 34:7. But God will remove the guilt,
will make the sinners righteous, that is, in harmony with the law, and
then the law which before condemned them will witness to their
righteousness.
[Sidenote: “The Faith of Christ.”]
Much is lost, in reading the Scriptures, by not noting exactly what they
say. Here we have literally, “the faith of Christ,” just as in Rev.
14:12 we have “the faith of Jesus.” He is the Author and Finisher of
faith. Heb. 12:2. God has “dealt to every man the measure of faith”
(Rom. 12:3), in giving Christ to every man. “Faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17), and Christ is the Word.
All things are of God. It is He who gives repentance and forgiveness of
sins.
There is, therefore, no opportunity for any one to plead that his faith
is weak. He may not have accepted and made use of the gift, but there is
no such thing as “weak faith.” A man may be “weak in faith,” that is,
may be afraid to depend on faith, but faith itself is as strong as the
Word of God. There is no faith but the faith of Christ; everything else
professing to be faith is a spurious article. Christ alone is righteous;
He has overcome the world, and He alone has power to do it; in Him
dwelleth all the fulness of God, because the law—God Himself—was in His
heart; He alone has kept and can keep the law to perfection; therefore,
only by His faith,—living faith, that is, His life in us,—can we be made
righteous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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