alings with Abraham are for ever in his imagination witnessing
against the law's {24} limitation, and a similar witness is kept up all
along: so that St. Paul can take out of one of the books of Moses his
very central statement of the principle of faith[24].

In what has just been said justifying faith has been treated as if it
were simply, as it is really, faith in God; whereas in St. Paul's
language the object of justifying faith is constantly 'Jesus[25].' The
explanation of this is that in Jesus Christ God has manifested His
character as Father, and has come near to men, 'reconciling the world
unto Himself,' by the atonement wrought through His incarnate Son, and
giving conspicuous evidence of His saving power by raising Him from the
dead[26]. Thus, if Jesus is the proximate object of justifying faith,
it is Jesus as manifesting the Father, Jesus as God incarnate; and St.
Peter is strictly interpreting St. Paul when he represents the object
of Christ's sacrifice and resurrection in the phrase, 'that your faith
and hope might be in God[27].' The faith of the Christian is the old
faith of Abraham and Habakkuk, the faith in the Lord {25} Jehovah only
now made manifest in a new and completer manner, in a more intimate
relation to human life, and with a more winning appeal to the human
heart.

iii.

Now that we have gained a general idea of what St. Paul meant by
justification by faith, as opposed to justification by works of law, we
are in a position to deal with a number of questions which have been
famous in ecclesiastical history. Does justification mean being made
righteous, or being reckoned for righteous? if it means the latter, how
can God reckon us as being what in fact we are not? Again, what is the
relation of this justification to sanctification? are these two stages,
of which the first is over before the second can begin? Again, what is
the relation of justification to Church membership? is justification a
purely individual process or fact, of which membership in the Church
or, what comes to the same thing, reception of the sacraments, is a
merely secondary and strictly unessential consequence?

The answers to these questions are all connected with one another.
Justification, to begin with, is a judicial or, as it is called,
'forensic' {26} word. It expresses the verdict of acquittal. The use
of the word in the Bible made this quite indisputable[28]. Thus God
justifies whenever He refuses to co