we 'win
Christ.' Possessing Him, we possess it. It is not only 'imputed,' as our
fathers delighted to say, but it is 'imparted.' And because it is the
gift of God in Christ, it was in Paul's view received by faith. He
expresses that conviction in a double form in our text. It is 'through
faith' as the channel by which it passes into our happy hands. It is 'by
faith,' or, more accurately, 'upon faith,' as the foundation on which it
rests, or the condition on which it depends. Our trust in Christ does
bring His life to us to sanctify us, and the plain English of all this
blessed teaching is--if we wish to be better let us trust Christ and get
Him into the depths of our lives, and righteousness will be ours. That
transforming Presence laid up in 'the hidden man of the heart,' will be
like some pungent scent in a wardrobe which keeps away moths, and gives
out a fragrance that perfumes all that hangs near it.

But all which we have been saying is not to be understood as if there
was no effort to be made, in order to receive, and to live manifesting,
the 'righteousness which is of God.' There must be the constant
abandonment of self, and the constant utilising of the grace given. The
righteousness is bestowed whenever faith is exercised. The hand is never
stretched out and the gift not lodged in it. But it is a life's aim to
possess the 'righteousness which is of God by faith,' because that gift
is capable of indefinite increase, and will reward the most strenuous
efforts of a believing soul as long as life continues.

III. Paul's life's aim stretches beyond this life.

Shall we be chargeable with crowding too much meaning into his words, if
we fix on his remarkable expression, 'be found in Him,' as containing a
clear reference to that great day of final judgment? We recall other
instances of the use of the same expression in connections which
unmistakably point to that time. Such as 'being clothed we shall not be
found naked,' or 'the proof of your faith . . . might be found unto praise
and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ,' or 'found of
Him in peace without spot, blameless.' In the light of these and similar
passages, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that this 'being
found' does include a reference to the Apostle's place after death,
though it is not confined to that. He thinks of the searching eye of the
Judge taking keen account, piercing through all disguises, and wistfully
as well as penetra