CHRIST JUSTIFIED

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit             1Timothy 3:16

e are no more justified by the voice of the law, or of him that judges according to it, by a mere pardon of sin, than Adam, our first surety, was justified by the law, at the first point of his existence, before he had fulfilled the obedience of the law, or had so much as any trial whether he would fulfill it or not.  If Adam had finished his course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified… He would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and accordingly would have been adjudged to the reward of it.

            So Christ, our Surety, (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are actually justified), was not justified until he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the commandments through all trials, and then in his resurrection he was justified.  When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, I Peter 3:18, then he that was manifest in the flesh was JUSTIFIED IN THE SPIRIT.  When God justified HIM in raising HIM from the dead, He not only released Him from His humiliation for sin, and acquitted Him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted Him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what He had done.   And indeed the justification of the believer is no other than his being justified with Christ this head and surety of all believers.

            As Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our Surety, so when after this suffering He was raised from the dead, He was therein justified, not as a private person, but as the Surety and Representative of all that should believe on Him.

COPIED