Concerning man, the purpose of the Law was two-fold: manifest guilt (Rom 3:20, 21; Gal 3:10) and direct one to the sin solution (Gal 5:24, 25)! -NC
Romans 8:4: “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” By the righteousness of the law, is not meant the righteousness of the ceremonial law, though that was fulfilled by Christ; but of the moral law, which requires holiness of nature, righteousness of life, and death in case of disobedience; active righteousness, or obedience to the precepts of the law, is designed here. This is what the law requires; obedience to the commands of it is properly righteousness; and by Christ's obedience to it we are made righteous, and this gives the title to eternal life: now this is said to be "fulfilled in us"; this is not fulfilled by us in our own persons, nor can it be; could it, where would be the weakness of the law? man might then be justified by it, and so the grace of God, and the righteousness of Christ, must be set aside: there never was any mere man that could fulfil it; for obedience to it must not only be performed perfectly, but with intenseness of mind and spirit; a man must be sinless in thought, word, and deed; and this would be to put man upon a level with Adam in a state of innocence, and the angels in heaven: nor is this to be understood of any righteousness inherent in man.
“Internal holiness is never called the righteousness of the law; and could it be thought to be righteousness, it can never be reckoned the whole righteousness of the law: and though it is a fruit of Christ's death, it is the work of the Spirit, and is neither the whole, nor any part of our producing justification: but this is to be understood of the righteousness of the law fulfilled by Christ, and imputed to us; Christ has fulfilled the whole righteousness of the law, all the requirements of it; this he has done in the room and stead of his people; and is imputed to them, by virtue of a federal union between him and them, he being the head, and they his members; and the law being fulfilled by him, it is reckoned all one as it was fulfilled in, or if by them; and hence they are personally, perfectly, and legally justified; and this is the end of Christ's being sent, of sin being laid on him, and condemned in him. The descriptive character of the persons, who appear to be interested in this blessing, is the same with that in Romans 8:1.” —John Gill
What more perplexes a godly person than the very thought of God changing His mind (which He never needs to do—NC)? What difficulty greater than the notion that He could, as it were, unsay or undo what He had previously laid sown? Plus, I think there ought to be great delicacy in dealing with souls where we find there is a godly jealousy as to this, even though it may be ignorance, and not without prejudice. But still it was the evident fact, that what God set up for a specific purpose in Israel (the Law—NC) never fully reflected His own mind (nor was it intended so, he wanted to reveal all His mind through Christ and Paul—NC). Eternal truth, breaking through the clouds and shadows of Judaism, shone out in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and is now verified in experience as well as faith by the Spirit’s work in believers.
In a word, it was never the purpose of God to reveal Himself and bring out all His mind in connection with the Jews (because He knew most would not accept Christ—NC), but with the Church. Christianity and not Judaism is the expression of the Father’s heart and mind. The Lord Jesus Himself, properly speaking, is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15); and Christianity is the practical present result. It is the application of the life, mind and affections of the Lord Jesus to the heart and walk of those who are brought to the Father; and this, founded on His work and correspondent to His place in heaven by the Spirit sent down.
All through the Jewish system, as well as before it, there were souls waiting for the “Seed,” the Messiah (Gal 3:16); and the only persons that ever honored God in the Jewish system were those who, by faith, were above the system. Those alone walked blameless (but not sinless—NC) in the various ordinances of the law who looked for the Messiah. It was this expectation, given by the Spirit of God, which lifted them above the earthly thoughts, the groveling desires, and the selfish nature. It raised them above themselves, if one may say so, as well as above their fellows—those only honored God even in the outward ordinances of Israel.
It is the same principle now as ever, but in a spiritual way; because nothing is more certain than that the righteousness of the eternal law of God (the whole will of God revealed—NC) is fulfilled in the saint of God, the Christian. But how is it fulfilled? Never by endeavoring to keep the law; it cannot be fulfilled in that way. In point of fact, as we know, the very men that were thus “zealous for the law” (Act 21:20) themselves were the greatest and bitterest enemies of the Lord Jesus. We know it was fleshly pride as to the law which blinded them into the delusion that even our blessed Lord Himself did not sufficiently honor it. We easily gather that Paul was taxed with the same reproach. Stephen too was stoned to death because of this fertile and fatal practice.
So that we may lay it down as a fixed point, that the men who put the ordinances, or the outward regulations of God, in the place of God and the Lord Jesus Himself, are men that never keep it (Mat 15:9); even as Stephen told the Jews that they received the law by the disposition of angels (Act 7:53), and had not kept it. These were the men whose voices were the loudest about it to those who really honored God in the law as well as in the faith of the Messiah. Take every believer—I do not say on every occasion; for there is, sad to say, the danger of our old nature working, and that nature neither believes in the Lord Jesus, but is a lawless, Christ-denying thing; the flesh is enmity against God Himself, and that nature working its own way always dishonors God.
But take the born again Christian—not when he is yielding to the old man (which all occasionally do—NC); take him where, in truth alone, so to speak, we can rightly think of a believer as such—in the exercise of his faith, in the manifestation of the new life which the grace of God has given him; and what is the character of his life? It cleaves to the Father, it delights in His Word, it loves His will, and it is attracted by whatever manifest Him. All proves that the believer loves the Father in heart and soul, loves Him better than himself, for he hates his old life (Jhn 12:25; Luk 14:26), and is ready to own, just so far as faith is in operation, his own folly, his frequent and shameful failure, while he seeks to justify and cleave to his Father, and delights to make Him known.
How comes this? It is that divine principle of resurrection, new-creation life, and the energy of the indwelling Spirit of God manifesting the life of the Lord Jesus, acting in the new man which enjoys each thing that flows from and manifests the Father, and is the exercise of the new nature which we derive from our Father. Again, the believer, just in proportion as he has the Lord Jesus before his soul, walks in the Spirit according to the will of the Father. If he has not the Lord Jesus before him, it is as if he had no new nature; life there is, but it is only Christ Jesus who maintains, manifests and brings it out, giving it its full exercise and scope.
The believer’s heart goes out towards misery, yea, towards poor guilty and lost sinners. Flesh despises and hates, or is indifferent; but the new nature, under the Spirit’s power, goes out in compassion and desire for another’s blessing. There, I say, is love again; and thus you have the two great moral principles: love to God, and love to man. The believer, and the believer alone, walks in them; if he has the risen Lord Jesus in his eye, he has them in his heart, and the Holy Spirit strengthens him to walk accordingly. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Ro 13:10).
It is thus that the “righteousness of the law is fulfilled” (“in” but not by us, but Christ—NC) in those who walk after the Spirit (putting the law behind and moving forward to the Lord Jesus—NC). The Spirit of God is careful to show it is fulfilled in them that walk after Him, not in such as only stand for the law. “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Gal 5:16; Ro 8:3, 4).
The attempt to mix the forms and Spirit of grace with the old ways of Judaism, would only end—not in mending Judaism nor in preserving Christianity, but—in the ruin of both. What Satan aimed at was to mingle the old Jewish ordinances with Christian truth (Mat 9:17), and this precisely has been the issue in the history of Christendom.
—J N Darby
MJS daily devotional for September 20
"Do not be afraid of the Father’s training school. He both knows His scholars, as to what they are, and He knows for what service they are to be fitted. A jeweler will take more pains over a gem than over a piece of glass; but the one he takes most pains over is longest under discipline and most severely dealt with. Once finished, however, the burnish never tarnishes, the brightness never dims. So with us. If we are placed, at times, as in a furnace, it is not merely for earthly service, but for eternity. May you so appreciate the plans of your Father that you can triumphantly glory in the love that subjects you to such discipline, though the trial itself be sharp and to the flesh hard to bear.”
—James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905)
Romans 8:4: “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” By the righteousness of the law, is not meant the righteousness of the ceremonial law, though that was fulfilled by Christ; but of the moral law, which requires holiness of nature, righteousness of life, and death in case of disobedience; active righteousness, or obedience to the precepts of the law, is designed here. This is what the law requires; obedience to the commands of it is properly righteousness; and by Christ's obedience to it we are made righteous, and this gives the title to eternal life: now this is said to be "fulfilled in us"; this is not fulfilled by us in our own persons, nor can it be; could it, where would be the weakness of the law? man might then be justified by it, and so the grace of God, and the righteousness of Christ, must be set aside: there never was any mere man that could fulfil it; for obedience to it must not only be performed perfectly, but with intenseness of mind and spirit; a man must be sinless in thought, word, and deed; and this would be to put man upon a level with Adam in a state of innocence, and the angels in heaven: nor is this to be understood of any righteousness inherent in man.
“Internal holiness is never called the righteousness of the law; and could it be thought to be righteousness, it can never be reckoned the whole righteousness of the law: and though it is a fruit of Christ's death, it is the work of the Spirit, and is neither the whole, nor any part of our producing justification: but this is to be understood of the righteousness of the law fulfilled by Christ, and imputed to us; Christ has fulfilled the whole righteousness of the law, all the requirements of it; this he has done in the room and stead of his people; and is imputed to them, by virtue of a federal union between him and them, he being the head, and they his members; and the law being fulfilled by him, it is reckoned all one as it was fulfilled in, or if by them; and hence they are personally, perfectly, and legally justified; and this is the end of Christ's being sent, of sin being laid on him, and condemned in him. The descriptive character of the persons, who appear to be interested in this blessing, is the same with that in Romans 8:1.” —John Gill
"The Righteousness of the Law”
What more perplexes a godly person than the very thought of God changing His mind (which He never needs to do—NC)? What difficulty greater than the notion that He could, as it were, unsay or undo what He had previously laid sown? Plus, I think there ought to be great delicacy in dealing with souls where we find there is a godly jealousy as to this, even though it may be ignorance, and not without prejudice. But still it was the evident fact, that what God set up for a specific purpose in Israel (the Law—NC) never fully reflected His own mind (nor was it intended so, he wanted to reveal all His mind through Christ and Paul—NC). Eternal truth, breaking through the clouds and shadows of Judaism, shone out in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and is now verified in experience as well as faith by the Spirit’s work in believers.
In a word, it was never the purpose of God to reveal Himself and bring out all His mind in connection with the Jews (because He knew most would not accept Christ—NC), but with the Church. Christianity and not Judaism is the expression of the Father’s heart and mind. The Lord Jesus Himself, properly speaking, is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15); and Christianity is the practical present result. It is the application of the life, mind and affections of the Lord Jesus to the heart and walk of those who are brought to the Father; and this, founded on His work and correspondent to His place in heaven by the Spirit sent down.
All through the Jewish system, as well as before it, there were souls waiting for the “Seed,” the Messiah (Gal 3:16); and the only persons that ever honored God in the Jewish system were those who, by faith, were above the system. Those alone walked blameless (but not sinless—NC) in the various ordinances of the law who looked for the Messiah. It was this expectation, given by the Spirit of God, which lifted them above the earthly thoughts, the groveling desires, and the selfish nature. It raised them above themselves, if one may say so, as well as above their fellows—those only honored God even in the outward ordinances of Israel.
It is the same principle now as ever, but in a spiritual way; because nothing is more certain than that the righteousness of the eternal law of God (the whole will of God revealed—NC) is fulfilled in the saint of God, the Christian. But how is it fulfilled? Never by endeavoring to keep the law; it cannot be fulfilled in that way. In point of fact, as we know, the very men that were thus “zealous for the law” (Act 21:20) themselves were the greatest and bitterest enemies of the Lord Jesus. We know it was fleshly pride as to the law which blinded them into the delusion that even our blessed Lord Himself did not sufficiently honor it. We easily gather that Paul was taxed with the same reproach. Stephen too was stoned to death because of this fertile and fatal practice.
So that we may lay it down as a fixed point, that the men who put the ordinances, or the outward regulations of God, in the place of God and the Lord Jesus Himself, are men that never keep it (Mat 15:9); even as Stephen told the Jews that they received the law by the disposition of angels (Act 7:53), and had not kept it. These were the men whose voices were the loudest about it to those who really honored God in the law as well as in the faith of the Messiah. Take every believer—I do not say on every occasion; for there is, sad to say, the danger of our old nature working, and that nature neither believes in the Lord Jesus, but is a lawless, Christ-denying thing; the flesh is enmity against God Himself, and that nature working its own way always dishonors God.
But take the born again Christian—not when he is yielding to the old man (which all occasionally do—NC); take him where, in truth alone, so to speak, we can rightly think of a believer as such—in the exercise of his faith, in the manifestation of the new life which the grace of God has given him; and what is the character of his life? It cleaves to the Father, it delights in His Word, it loves His will, and it is attracted by whatever manifest Him. All proves that the believer loves the Father in heart and soul, loves Him better than himself, for he hates his old life (Jhn 12:25; Luk 14:26), and is ready to own, just so far as faith is in operation, his own folly, his frequent and shameful failure, while he seeks to justify and cleave to his Father, and delights to make Him known.
How comes this? It is that divine principle of resurrection, new-creation life, and the energy of the indwelling Spirit of God manifesting the life of the Lord Jesus, acting in the new man which enjoys each thing that flows from and manifests the Father, and is the exercise of the new nature which we derive from our Father. Again, the believer, just in proportion as he has the Lord Jesus before his soul, walks in the Spirit according to the will of the Father. If he has not the Lord Jesus before him, it is as if he had no new nature; life there is, but it is only Christ Jesus who maintains, manifests and brings it out, giving it its full exercise and scope.
The believer’s heart goes out towards misery, yea, towards poor guilty and lost sinners. Flesh despises and hates, or is indifferent; but the new nature, under the Spirit’s power, goes out in compassion and desire for another’s blessing. There, I say, is love again; and thus you have the two great moral principles: love to God, and love to man. The believer, and the believer alone, walks in them; if he has the risen Lord Jesus in his eye, he has them in his heart, and the Holy Spirit strengthens him to walk accordingly. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law” (Ro 13:10).
It is thus that the “righteousness of the law is fulfilled” (“in” but not by us, but Christ—NC) in those who walk after the Spirit (putting the law behind and moving forward to the Lord Jesus—NC). The Spirit of God is careful to show it is fulfilled in them that walk after Him, not in such as only stand for the law. “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Gal 5:16; Ro 8:3, 4).
The attempt to mix the forms and Spirit of grace with the old ways of Judaism, would only end—not in mending Judaism nor in preserving Christianity, but—in the ruin of both. What Satan aimed at was to mingle the old Jewish ordinances with Christian truth (Mat 9:17), and this precisely has been the issue in the history of Christendom.
—J N Darby
MJS daily devotional for September 20
"Do not be afraid of the Father’s training school. He both knows His scholars, as to what they are, and He knows for what service they are to be fitted. A jeweler will take more pains over a gem than over a piece of glass; but the one he takes most pains over is longest under discipline and most severely dealt with. Once finished, however, the burnish never tarnishes, the brightness never dims. So with us. If we are placed, at times, as in a furnace, it is not merely for earthly service, but for eternity. May you so appreciate the plans of your Father that you can triumphantly glory in the love that subjects you to such discipline, though the trial itself be sharp and to the flesh hard to bear.”
—James Hudson Taylor (1832-1905)
