Section 1

Romans 8:34. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died; indeed rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

CHAP. 1.

These words are a triumphing challenge, uttered by the Apostle in the name of all the elect — for so he begins it in verse 33 foregoing: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. And then follow these words: Who shall condemn? (namely, God's elect.) It is Christ that died, etc. This challenge we find first published by Jesus Christ himself, our only champion, Isaiah 50 (a chapter made of and for Christ), verse 8: He is near that justifies me; who will contend with me? They were Christ's words there, and spoken of God's justifying him, and these are every believer's words here, intended of God's justifying them. Christ is brought in there uttering them as standing at the high priest's tribunal, when they spat upon him and buffeted him, as verses 4–5; when he was condemned by Pilate, then he exercised this faith on God his Father: He is near that justifies me. And as in that his condemnation he stood in our stead, so in this his hope of his justification he speaks in our stead also, and as representing us in both. And upon this the Apostle here pronounces, in like words, of all the elect: It is God that justifies; who shall accuse? Christ was condemned, indeed has died; who therefore shall condemn? Behold here the communion we have with Christ in his death and condemnation, indeed in his very faith: if he trusted in God, so may we, and shall as certainly be delivered. Observe we first from here by way of premise to all that follows:

That Christ lived by faith as well as we do.

In the first of John, verse 16, we are said to receive of his fullness grace for grace — that is, grace answerable and like to his, and so (among others) faith.

For explanation of this.

First, in some sense he had a faith for justification like to ours, though not a justification through faith as we have. He went not, indeed, out of himself to rely on another for righteousness, for he had enough of his own (he being the Lord our righteousness) — yet he believes on God to justify him, and had recourse to God for justification: He is near (says he) that justifies me. If he had stood in his own person merely and upon his own bottom only, there had been no occasion for such a speech; and yet consider him as he stood in our stead, there was — for what need of such a justification if he had not been some way near a condemnation? He therefore must be supposed to stand here (in Isaiah) at God's tribunal as well as at Pilate's, with all our sins upon him; and so the same prophet tells us, Isaiah 53:6: God made the iniquities of us to meet on him. He was now made sin and a curse, and stood not in danger of Pilate's condemnation only, but of God's too, unless he satisfied him for all those sins. And when the wrath of God for sin came thus in upon him, his faith was put to it to trust and wait on him for his justification, to take off all those sins together with his wrath from off him, and to acknowledge himself satisfied and him acquitted. Therefore in Psalm 22 (which was made for Christ when hanging on the cross, and speaks how his heart was taken up that while) he is brought in as putting forth such a faith as here we speak of, when he called God his God, 'My God, my God' — then, whereas to his sense God had forsaken him, 'Why have you forsaken me?' — indeed he helped his faith with the faith of the forefathers, whom upon their trust in him God had delivered: 'Our fathers trusted in you; they trusted and you did deliver them' — indeed, at verse 5 we find him laying himself at God's feet, lower than ever any man did: 'I am a worm' (says he) (which every man treads on and counts it a matter of nothing to kill) 'and no man,' as it follows — and all this because he bore our sins. Now his deliverance and justification from all these, to be given him at his resurrection, was the matter, the business he thus trusted in God for, even that he should rise again and be acquitted from them. So Psalm 16 (a psalm made also for Christ, when to suffer and to lie in the grave), verses 8–10: 'The Lord is at my right hand; I shall not be moved: therefore my heart is glad, my flesh also rests in hope' — or, as in the original, 'dwells in confident sureness' — 'you will not leave my soul in hell,' that is, under the load of these sins and your wrath laid on me for them, 'neither will you suffer your Holy One (in my body) to see corruption.' This is in substance all one with what is here said in this one word: 'He is near that justifies me,' for Christ's resurrection was a justification of him, as I shall hereafter show.

Neither, second, did he exercise faith for himself only, but for us also, and that more than any of us is put to it to exercise for himself; for he in dying and emptying himself trusted God with the merit of all his sufferings beforehand, there being many thousands of souls to be saved thereby a long while after, even to the end of the world. He died and entrusted all that stock into his Father's hands, to give it out in grace and glory as those for whom he died should have need. And this is a greater trust (considering the infinite number of his elect, as then yet to come) than any man has occasion to put forth for himself alone. God trusted Christ before he came into the world, and saved many millions of the Jews upon his bare word; and then Christ, at his death, trusts God again as much, both for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles that were to believe after his death. In Hebrews 2:12–15 it is made an argument that Christ was a man like us, because he was put to live by faith like as we are (which the angels do not), and to this end the Apostle brings in these words prophesied of him, as spoken by him of himself, 'I will put my trust in him,' as one proof that he was a man like to us. Now for what was it that he trusted God? By the context it appears to be this: that he should be the salvation of his brothers and children, and that he should have a seed and a generation to serve him, and raise up a church to God to praise him in. For this is made his confidence and the issue of his sufferings in that fore-cited Psalm 22, from verse 22 to the end.

How should the consideration of these things both draw us on to faith and encourage us therein, and raise up our hearts above all doubtings and withdrawings of spirit in believing! For in this example of Christ we have the highest instance of believing that ever was. He trusted God (as we have seen) for himself, and for many thousands besides, even for all his elect; and do you not have the heart to trust him for one poor soul? Indeed Christ thus trusted God upon his single bond, but we for our assurance have both Christ and God bound to us, even God with his surety Christ (for he is God's surety as well as ours). A double bond from two such persons — whom would it not secure? If God the Father and God the Son thus mutually trusted one another for our salvation, whom would it not induce to trust them both for one's own salvation, when as otherwise they must be damned that will not? 1. This example of Christ may teach and incite us to believe: for did Christ lay down all his glory and empty himself, and leave himself worth nothing, but made a deed of surrendering all he had into his Father's hands, and this in a pure trust that God would justify many by him (as it is in Isaiah 53) — and shall not we lay down all we have and part with whatever is dear to us beforehand, with the like submission, in a dependence and hope of being ourselves justified by him? And moreover 2. it may encourage us to believe: do you have the guilt of innumerable transgressions coming in and discouraging you from trusting in him? Consider but what Christ had (though not of his own): Christ was made (as Luther boldly, in this sense that we speak of him, speaks) the greatest sinner that ever was — that is, by imputation — for the sins of all God's chosen met in him, and yet he trusted God to be justified from them all and to be raised up from under the wrath due for them. Alas, you are but one poor sinner, and your faith has but a light and small load laid upon it, namely your own sins, which to this sum he undertook for are but as a unit to an infinite number: God laid upon him the iniquities of us all. Christ trusted God for his own acquittance from the sins of all the world, and when that was given him, he yet again further trusted him to acquit the world for his satisfaction's sake.

But you will say, Christ was Christ, one personally united to God, and so knew that he could satisfy him, but I am a sinful man. Well, but if you believe, and so are one of those who are one with Christ, then Christ speaking these words in the name both of himself and of his elect (as has been shown), you have the very same ground to utter them that he had, and all that encouraged him may embolden you, for he stood in your stead. It was only your and others' sins that put him in any danger of condemnation, and you see what his confidence beforehand was, that God would justify him from them all; and if he had left any of them unsatisfied for, he had not been justified, and moreover in performing his own part undertaken by him he performed yours also, and so in his being justified you were justified also. His confidence then may therefore be yours now — only his was in and from himself, but yours must be on him; yet so, as by reason of your communion with him in his both condemnation and justification, you may take and turn all that emboldened him to this his trust and confidence, to embolden you also in yours, as truly as he did for himself. Indeed in this you have now a further prop and encouragement to your faith than he then had, for now (when you are to believe) Christ has fully performed the satisfaction he undertook, and we now see Jesus crucified, acquitted, indeed crowned with glory and honor, as the Apostle speaks. But he, when he took up this triumph, was (as Isaiah here foretold and prophesied it of him) but as then entering upon that work. The prophet seeing the day of his arraignment and agony utters these words as his, showing what thoughts should then possess his heart when Pilate and the Jews should condemn him and our sins come in upon him: 'God is near that justifies me; who therefore shall contend with me?' But now this comes to be added to our challenge here, that Christ has died and is also risen again, that he was condemned and justified — who therefore shall condemn? may we say, and say much more.

But you will yet say, He knew himself to be the Son of God, but so do not I. Well, do you but cast yourself upon him, to be adopted and justified by him, with a giving up your soul to his saving you his own way, and (though you do not know it) the thing is done. And as for that (so great and usual) discouragement to poor souls from doing this, namely the greatness and multitudes of sins, this very example of his faith and the consideration of it may alone take off and help to remove it more than any I have ever met with; for he in bearing the sins of his elect did bear as great and infinitely more sins than yours, indeed all sorts of sins whatever, for some one of his elect or other (for he said upon it that all — that is, all sorts of — sins shall be forgiven to men, and therefore were first borne by him for them), and yet you see how confident beforehand he was and is now clearly justified from them all. And by virtue of his being justified from all sorts of sins, shall all sorts of sinners in and through him be justified also; and therefore why may you not hope to be from yours? Certainly for this very reason our sins, simply and alone considered, can be supposed no hindrance.

Thus we have met with one great and general encouragement at the very portal of this text, which comes forth to invite us before we have entered into it, and which will await upon us throughout all that shall be said, and have an influence into our faith, and help to direct it in all that follows.

CHAP. 2.

Faith and the supports of it, or rather Christ as by his death and resurrection, etc., he is the foundation of faith and the cause of our justification, is the main subject of these words; all which therefore to handle more largely is the intended subject of this discourse. And therefore as we have seen Christ's faith for us, so now let us see what our faith is to be towards him. Only take this along with you, for a right bounding of all that follows: that the faith (the object and support of which I would discourse of) is only faith as justifying — for justification was properly here the matter of Christ's faith for us, and is also answerably here held forth by Paul as that faith which believers are to have on him. Now faith is called justifying only as it has justification for its object and as it goes out to Christ for justification; so that all that shall be spoken must be confined to this alone, as the intention of the text. And concerning this, the text does two things:

1. It holds forth Christ the object of it: 'Who shall condemn? Christ has died, etc.' And he being the sole subject of those four particulars that follow as encouragements to faith must needs be therefore the object here set forth to our faith.

2. In Christ we have here all those four made things matter of triumph to believers, to assure them that they shall not be condemned but justified, in that Christ 1. died, 2. rose again, 3. is at God's right hand, 4. intercedes.

So that (for the general) I am to do two things, and therein I shall fulfill the text's scope.

1. Direct your faith to Christ as to its right object.

2. To encourage your faith from these several actions of Christ for us, and show how they all contain matter of triumph for faith in them, and also teach your faith how to triumph from each of them; and herein I am to keep close to the argument proposed, namely faith as justifying, or to show how faith seeking justification in Christ may be exceedingly raised from each of these particulars and supported by them as by so many pillars of it. So as although Christ's death, resurrection, etc., may fitly serve to encourage our faith in many other acts it uses to put forth (as in point of sanctification to be had from Christ, into which his death and resurrection have an influence), yet here we are limited to the matter of justification only, 'It is God that justifies; who shall condemn, seeing Christ has died?' and herein to show how his death, resurrection, etc., may and do afford matter of comfort and triumphing in point of justification, from all these. And thus you have the sum of these words and of my scope in this ensuing treatise.

CHAP. 3.

But before I come to encourage your faith from these, let me first direct and point your faith aright to its proper and genuine object, Christ. I shall do it briefly and only so far as it may be an introduction to the encouragements from these four particulars, the things mainly intended by me.

- 1. Christ is the object of our faith, in joint commission with God the Father. - 2. Christ is the object of faith, in opposition to our own humiliation, or graces, or duties. - 3. Christ is the object of faith, in a distinction from the promises.

First, Christ is the object of faith in joint commission with God the Father. So here: it is God that justifies, and Christ that died — they are both of them set forth as the foundation of a believer's confidence. So elsewhere, faith is called a believing on him (namely God) that justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5), and a believing on Christ (Acts 6). Therefore faith is to have an eye to both, for both do alike contribute to the justification of a sinner. It is Christ that paid the price, that performed the righteousness by which we are justified, and it is God that accepts of it and imputes it to us; therefore justification is ascribed to both. And this we have, Romans 3:24, where it is attributed to them both together: 'Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ' — where we see that God's free grace and Christ's righteousness do concur to our justification. Christ paid as full a price as if there were no grace shown in justifying us (for mercy abated Christ nothing), and yet that it should be accepted for us is as free grace, and as great, as if Christ had paid never a farthing. Now as both these meet to justify us, so faith in justification is to look at both these. So it follows in the next verse of that Romans 3:25: 'Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.' And though it be true that God justifying is the ultimate object of our faith (for Christ leads us by the hand — as the word is, Ephesians 2:18 — to God, and 1 Peter 1:21 we are said by Christ to believe on God who raised him, that so our faith and hope might be on God), yet so, as under the New Testament Christ is made the more immediate object of faith; for God dwelling in our nature is made more familiar to our faith than the person of the Father is, who is merely God. Under the Old Testament, when Christ was but in the promise and not as then come in the flesh, then indeed their faith had a more usual recourse to God who had promised the Messiah, of whom they then had not so distinct (but only confused) thoughts, though this they knew, that God accepted and saved them through the Messiah. But now under the New Testament, because Christ as mediator exists not only in a promise of God's but is come and manifest in the flesh, and is set forth by God (as the Apostle's phrase is) to transact all our businesses for us between God and us — hence the more usual and immediate address of our faith is to be made to Christ, who as he is distinctly set forth in the New Testament, so he is as distinctly to be apprehended by the faith of believers. 'You believe in God' (says Christ to his disciples, whose faith and opinion of the Messiah was till Christ's resurrection of the same elevation with that of the Old Testament believers) 'believe also in me: make me the object of your trust for salvation as well as the Father.' And therefore when faith and repentance come more narrowly to be distinguished by their more immediate objects, it is repentance towards God but faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21) — not but that God and Christ are the objects of both, but that Christ is more immediately the object of faith and God of repentance; so that we believe in God through believing in Christ first, and turn to Christ by turning to God first. And this is there spoken when they are made the sum of Christian doctrine and of the Apostle's preaching. And therefore the faith of some being much enlarged to the mercies of God and his free grace, and but in way of supposition to Christ, or in a taking for granted that all mercies are communicated in and through Christ, yet so as their thoughts work not so much upon nor are taken up about Christ — although this may be true faith under the New Testament, in that God and his free grace is the joint object of faith together with Christ and his righteousness, and the one cannot be without the other, and God oftentimes does more eminently pitch the stream of a man's thoughts in one channel rather than in another, and so may direct the course of a man's thoughts towards his free grace when the stream runs less towards Christ — yet it is not such a faith as becomes the times of the gospel; it is of an Old Testament strain and genius; whereas our faith now should in the more direct and immediate exercises of it be pitched upon Jesus Christ, that through him (first apprehended) our faith might be in God (as the ultimate object of it), as the Apostle speaks. And so much for the first.

The second is that Christ is to be the object of our faith in opposition to our own humiliation, or graces, or duties.

1. We are not to trust nor rest in humiliation, as many do who quiet their consciences from this, that they have been troubled. That promise 'Come to me, you that are weary and heavy laden, and you shall find rest' has been much mistaken, for many have understood it as if Christ had spoken peace and rest simply to that condition without any more ado, and so have applied it to themselves as giving them an interest in Christ; whereas it is only an invitation of such (because they are most apt to be discouraged) to come to Christ, in whom alone their rest is to be found. If therefore men will set down their rest in being weary and heavy laden and not come to Christ for it, they sit down beside Christ and will lie down in sorrow. This is to make John (who only prepared the way for Christ) to be the Messiah indeed (as many of the Jews thought) — that is, to think the eminent work of John's ministry (which was to humble and so prepare men for Christ) to be their attaining Christ himself. But if you be weary, you may have rest indeed, but you must come to Christ first; for as, if Christ had died only and not risen, we had been still in our sins (as it is 1 Corinthians 15:17), so though we die by sin, as stained by it (as Paul was in Romans 7:11–13 in his humiliation), yet if we do not attain to the resurrection of faith (so the work of faith is expressed, Colossians 3:12–13) we still remain in our sins.

Secondly, we are not to rest in graces or duties; they all cannot satisfy our own consciences, much less God's justice. If righteousness could have come by these, then Christ had died in vain, as Galatians 2 last. What a dishonor were it to Christ that they should share any of the glory of his righteousness? Were any of your duties crucified for you? Graces and duties are the daughters of faith, the offspring of Christ, and they may in time of need indeed nourish their mother, but not at first beget her.

In the third place, Christ's person, and not barely the promises of forgiveness, is to be the object of faith. There are many poor souls humbled for sin and taken off from their own bottom who, like Noah's dove, fly over all the word of God to spy out what they may set their foot upon, and eying therein many free and gracious promises holding forth forgiveness of sins and justification, they immediately close with them and rest on them alone, not seeking for or closing with Christ in those promises. Which is a common error among people, and is like as if Noah's dove should have rested upon the outside of the ark and not have come to Noah within the ark, where though she might rest for a while yet she could not ride out all storms but must needs have perished there in the end. But we may observe that the first promise that was given was not a bare word simply promising forgiveness or other benefits which God would bestow, but it was a promise of Christ's person as overcoming Satan and purchasing those benefits: 'The seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head.' So when the promise was renewed to Abraham, it was not a bare promise of blessedness and forgiveness, but of that seed, that is Christ (as Galatians 3:16), in whom that blessedness was conveyed: 'In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' So that Abraham's faith first closed with Christ in the promise, and therefore he is said to see Christ's day and to rejoice in embracing him. And so all the succeeding fathers (that were believers) did, more or less, in their types and sacraments, as appears by 1 Corinthians 10:1–2. And if they, then much more are we thus to look at Christ, to whom now he is made extant, not in promises only but is really incarnate, though now in heaven. Hence our sacraments (which are the seals added to the word of faith) do primarily exhibit Christ to a believer, and so (in him) all other promises (as of forgiveness, etc.) are ratified and confirmed by them. Now there is the same reason of them that there is of the promises of the gospel (for they preach the gospel to the eye as the promise does to the ear), and therefore as in them the soul is first to look at Christ and embrace him as tendered in them, and then at the promises tendered with him in them, and not to take the sacraments as bare seals of pardon and forgiveness — so (in like manner) in receiving of or having recourse to a promise (which is the word of faith) we are first to seek out for Christ in it as being the foundation of it, and so to take hold of the promise in him. Hence faith is still expressed by this its object, Christ, it being called faith on Christ. Thus Philip directs the eunuch, Acts 6:31: 'Believe on the Lord Jesus.' The promise is but the casket and Christ the jewel in it; the promise but the field and Christ the pearl hidden in it, and to be chiefly looked at. The promises are the means by which you believe, not the things on which you are to rest. And so, although you are to look at forgiveness as held forth in the promise, yet you are to believe on Christ in that promise to obtain this forgiveness. So Acts 26:18 it is said of believers by Christ himself: 'That they may obtain forgiveness of sins by faith which is on me.'

And to clear it further, we must conceive that the promises of forgiveness are not as the pardons of a prince, which merely contain an expression of his royal word for pardoning, so as we in seeking of it do rest upon and have to do only with his word and seal which we have to show for it; but God's promises of pardon are made in his Son, and are as if a prince should offer to pardon a traitor upon marriage with his child, in whom and with that pardon he offers in such a relation, so as all that would have pardon must first seek out for his child — and thus it is in the matter of believing. The reason of which is, because Christ is the grand promise, in whom all the promises are yes and amen (2 Corinthians 11:29), and therefore he is called 'the covenant' (Isaiah 49:8). So that, as it were folly for any man to think that he has an interest in an heiress's lands because he has got the writings of her estate into his hands (whereas the interest in the lands goes with her person and with the relation of marriage to her; otherwise, without a title to herself, all the writings will be fetched out of his hands again), so is it with all the promises — they hang all upon Christ, and without him there is no interest to be had in them. He that has the Son has life (1 John 5:12), because life is by God's appointment only in him, as verse 11. All the promises are as copyhold land, which when you would interest yourselves in, you inquire upon what lord it holds, and you take it up of him as well as get the evidences and deeds for it into your hands; the lord of it will be acknowledged for such in passing his right into your hands. Now this is the tenure of all the promises — they all hold on Christ, in whom they are yes and amen, and you must take them up of him. Thus the Apostles preached forgiveness to men, Acts 13:38: 'Be it known that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins.' And as they preached, so we are to believe, as the Apostle speaks, 1 Corinthians 15:11. And without this, to rest on the bare promise or to look to the benefit promised without eyeing Christ is not an evangelical but a Jewish faith, even such as the formalists among the Jews had, who without the Messiah closed with promises and rested in types to cleanse them, without looking to Christ the end of them and as proposed to their faith in them. This is to go to God without a mediator, and to make the promises of the gospel to be as the promises of the law — Nehushtan (as Hezekiah said of the bronze serpent), a piece of brass, vain and ineffectual. Like the waters of Bethesda, they heal not, they cleanse not, till this angel of the covenant come down to your faith in them. Therefore at a sacrament, or when you meet with any promise, get Christ first down by faith, and then let your faith request what it would have, and you may have what you will of him.

There are three sorts of promises, and in the applying of all these it is Christ that your faith is to meet with.

1. There are absolute promises, made to no conditions, as when Christ is said to come to save sinners, etc. Now in these it is plain that Christ is the naked object of them, so that if you apply not him you apply nothing, for the only thing held forth in them is Christ.

2. There are inviting promises, as that before mentioned: 'Come to me, you that are weary.' The promise is not to weariness but to coming to Christ; they are bidden to come to him if they will have rest.

3. There are assuring promises, as those made to such and such qualifications of sanctification, etc. But still what is it that is promised in them which the heart should only eye? It is Christ, in whom the soul rests and has comfort, and not in its grace; so that the sight of a man's grace is but a back door to let faith in at, to converse with Christ, whom the soul loves. Even as at the sacrament the elements of bread and wine are but outward signs to bring Christ and the heart together, and then faith lets the outward elements go and closes and treats immediately with Christ, to whom these let the soul in — so grace is an inward sign, and while men make use of it only as of a bare sign to let them in to Christ, and their rejoicing is not in it but in Christ, their confidence being pitched upon him and not upon their grace, while men take this course there is and will be no danger at all in making such use of signs. And I see not but that God might as well appoint his own work of the new creation within to be as a sign and help to communion with Christ by faith, as he did those outward elements, the works of his first creation — especially seeing that in nature the effect is a sign of the cause. Neither is it more derogatory to free grace or to Christ's honor for God to make such effects signs of our union with him, than it was to make outward signs of his presence.