pts forgiveness is the
same identical quality which corresponds with all the later movement of
the new life. God's free gift of grace is not forgiveness only, but
forgiveness and new life; it is 'forgiveness of sins and an inheritance
among them that are sanctified by faith that is in Christ[14].' St.
Paul does not contemplate, or contemplates only to repudiate, a faith
which accepts forgiveness and stops there--indifferent to actual
holiness or baptismal incorporation. For it would be no real faith at
all. The preliminary justification or acquittal is simply and solely
to serve as a basis for the life of consecration and glory. The stages
of justification and sanctification are separable in idea but not in
fact. The refusal to proceed from the threshold of the acquittal into
the palace of the new life would expel even from the threshold; even as
the failure of the unthankful servant to behave as one should behave
who has been excused the debt he could not pay, cancelled all his
acquittal and left him with the weight of the old debt rolled back upon
him to his destruction.

Lastly, and in one word, it must never be left out of sight that even
the initial movement of {143} faith, the taking Christ at His word and
believing His promises, involves the element of moral allegiance. His
gracious person and character attract even while the boon is being
accepted, and a new motive enters into life. Justifying faith at its
very root is a faith which yields allegiance to its object.

ii.

To a Jew, and to almost all races when St. Paul wrote, the idea of an
expiatory sacrifice for sin seemed natural and obvious. But for the
special Christian doctrine of expiation the basis is to be found in the
memorable chapter liii of the 'later Isaiah.' That great prophet of
the captivity is assuring Israel of their restoration to their own
land. This restoration is to follow on the due punishment of her
sins--'She hath received of the Lord's hands double for all her sins.'
And the restored people is to be, before all else, a righteous
people--'all righteous'--a people of God's favour, because they are
living according to God. But there is so much sin still remaining in
them as to make it necessary that the new life of the recovered people
should be based on a great act of {144} propitiation. The Righteous
Servant of Jehovah, who is, at starting, the idealized people itself,
but who comes to be represented as an individual ac