Alexander Campbell The Christian System: CS - 45-Remission of Sins õ Proposition 02

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Alexander Campbell The Christian System: CS - 45-Remission of Sins õ Proposition 02


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PROP. II.--The apostolic converts were addressed by their

teachers as justified persons.

We know that none but innocent persons can be legally justified; but it is not in the forensic sense this term is used by the Apostles. Amongst the Jews it imported no more than pardoned; and when applied to Christians, it denoted that they were acquitted from guilt--discharged from condemnation, and accounted as righteous persons in the sight of God.

Paul, in Antioch in Pisidia, assured the Jews, that in or by Jesus all that believed were justified from all things, (certainly here it is equivalent to pardoned from all sins,) from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. The disciples are said to be justified by faith.10 By favor or grace.11 In or by the blood of Christ.12 By the name of the Lord Jesus.13 By works.14 It is God who justifies.15

Christians are said to be justified by God, by Christ, by favor, by faith, by the blood of Jesus, by the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of God--also by works. Pardon and acquittal are the prominent ideas in every application of the term. God is the justifier. Jesus also, as his Messiah, justifies, and the Spirit declares it. As an act of favor it is done, by the blood of Jesus as the rightful and efficient cause--by the faith as the instrumental cause--by the name of Jesus the Lord as the immediate and connecting cause, and by works, as the demonstrative and conclusive cause. Nothing is more plain from the above testimonies than that all Christians are declared to be justified under the Reign of Jesus Christ.