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Justification (in the full sense of the word) is the holding righteous, not merely the not holding guilty. The man who is justified is not merely not condemned, he is actually accounted to be righteous. And the apostle, in the text, connects the former with the death, the latter with the resurrection, of Christ. By that, the record of our sins is blotted out from God's book; by this, there is conveyed to us our title to a place in His eternal and glorious kingdom. Why is our justification thus associated with the Resurrection, as our forgiveness is with the Passion? In answer, remember that there are three moments in the act of redemption as manifested in time, and that these are severally embodied in the nativity, the passion, and the resurrection of Christ. Now —

1. Man is alienated from God, and the question is how shall he be set at one with God? The method which God devised was the personal union of Deity and humanity in the Word made flesh. And thus the mystery of the Incarnation marks the first step in this Divine process of restitution.

2. But the union of the human race with God in the unity of the Incarnate Son, is merely inchoate and partial, while there remains the barrier of sin. And therefore, "God sending His own Son in the flesh, and for sin" (i.e., as a sin offering), "condemned sin in the flesh." Christ died for us, and we in Him; and at His death "our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." And thus the Incarnation and the Atonement are each the necessary complement of the other. The Incarnation was necessary that the Atonement might be effected as it was effected: the Atonement was necessary to carry out the work of the Incarnation.

3. But are we at liberty to stop here? Shall we say that the Consummatum est of Calvary marked the completion and close of our redemption, as it symbolised that of our Redeemer's atoning sacrifice? Not so. By His act of self-immolation Christ threw down the barriers of sin; by it He continually is and will be throwing them down until all things are put under His feet. And therefore He "was delivered for our offences." But the very act by which those barriers were thrown down impaired the personal union of God and man in Christ. For, although neither the soul nor the body of the Saviour during their temporary separation ceased to be in union with the Divine Word, yet, as Pearson says, "As far...as humanity consists in the essential union of the parts of human nature, so far the humanity of Christ upon His death did cease to be, and consequently He ceased to be man." Accordingly, the great sacrifice of the Cross removed the obstacle to carrying out the process of restitution initiated in the Incarnation, at the price of partially reversing the Incarnation itself. The work of redemption had indeed gone a step forward, but it had also gone a step backward. A remedy had been provided for sin, but the remedy had left results which needed a further remedy.

4. And then came the Resurrection, which not only set its seal to the Incarnation and the Atonement, but completed the work of both.

(1) Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power," and the Incarnation itself began anew when God "raised up Jesus again"; as it is written, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee."(2) As the atonement on the Cross, by the condemnation of sin in the flesh, purchased for man the non-imputation of sin, and cleared the way for the imputation to him of righteousness — so, from the Incarnation restored and perfected in our risen Lord, flows forth to His redeemed and believing people, both the imputation and also the reality of positive righteousness. Conclusion: In speaking as I do of the power of His resurrection, I am not merely using the language of technical theology, but that of Holy Scripture itself. We are told that baptized and believing Christians were crucified with Christ, died with Him, were planted together in the likeness of His death, were buried with Him by baptism into death, are dead unto sin — and then, on the Other hand, that God brought us to life with Christ, and raised us up with Him, and seated us together with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that we may now reckon ourselves "to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." So again, the same apostle who tells us all this, also says, "that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified" — the word is here used in its negative sense — "by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." And in like manner St. Peter tells us that "Baptism doth now save us...by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," and opens his Epistle with a triumphant burst of thanksgiving (1 Peter 1:3, 4).

(Bp. Basil Jones.)

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KJV: Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

WEB: Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone,