had been demonstrated
to be a failure, He brought forth His secret--the righteousness of God.

This was Christianity; this was the sum and issue of the mission of
Christ--the conferring upon man, as a free gift, of that which is
indispensable to his blessedness, but which he had failed himself to
attain. It is a divine act; it is grace; and man obtains it by
acknowledging that he has failed himself to attain it and by accepting
it from God; it is got by faith only. It is "the righteousness of God,
by the faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe."

60. Those who thus receive it enter at once into that position of
peace and favor with God in which human felicity consists and which was
the goal aimed at by Paul when he was striving for righteousness by the
law. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." It is a
sunny life of joy, peace and hope which those lead who have come to
know this gospel. There may be trials in it; but, when a man's life is
reposing in the attainment of its true end, trials are light and all
things work together for good.

61. This righteousness of God is for all the children of men--not for
the Jews only, but for the Gentiles also. The demonstration of man's
inability to attain righteousness was made, in accordance with the
divine purpose, in both sections of the human race; and its completion
was the signal for the exhibition of God's grace to both alike. The
work of Christ was not for the children of Abraham, but for the
children of Adam. "As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made
alive." The Gentiles did not need to undergo circumcision and to keep
the law in order to obtain salvation; for the law was no part of
salvation; it belonged entirely to the preliminary demonstration of
man's failure; and, when it had accomplished this service, it was ready
to vanish away. The only human condition of obtaining God's
righteousness is faith; and this is as easy for Gentile as Jew.

This was an inference from Paul's own experience. It was not as a Jew,
but as a man, that he had been dealt with in his conversion. No
Gentile could have been less entitled to obtain salvation by merit than
he had been. So far from the law raising him a single step toward
salvation, it had removed him to a greater distance fro