First righteousness, after, peace.' Now I need not do more than in a sentence remind you of the basis upon which the thoughts in the text, and all right understanding of Christ's work on an individual, repose, and that is that without righteousness no man can either be at peace with God or with himself. Not with God--for however shallow experience may talk effusively and gushingly about a God who is all mercy, and who loves and takes to His heart the sinner and the saint alike; such a God drapes the universe in darkness, and if there are no moral distinctions which determine whether a man is in amity or hostility with God, then the pillared firmament itself is rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble.' No, no, brethren; it sounds very tender and kindly; at bottom it is the cruellest thing that you can say, to say that without righteousness a man can please God. The sun is in the heavens, and whether there be mist and fog down here, or the bluest of summer skies, the sun is above. But its rays coming through the ethereal blue are warmth and blessedness, and its rays cut off by mists are dim, and itself turned into a lurid ball of fire. It cannot be--and thank God that it cannot--that it is all the same to Him whether a man is saint or sinner.
I do not need to remind you that in like manner righteousness must underlie peace with oneself. For it is true to-day, as it was long "generations ago, according to the prophet, that the wicked is like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters throw up mire and dirt,' and, on the other hand, the promise is true still and for ever; O that thou hadst hearkened unto me, then had thy peace been like a river,' because thy righteousness' will be like the waves of the sea.' For ever and ever it stands true that for peace with God, and for a quiet heart, and a nature at harmony with itself, there must be righteousness.
Well, then, Jesus Christ comes to bring to a man the righteousness without which there can be no peace in his life. And that is the meaning of the great word which, having been taken for a shibboleth and test of a falling or a standing Church,' has been far too much ossified into a mere theological dogma, and has been weakened and misunderstood in the process. Justification by faith; that is the battle-cry of Protestant communities. And what does it mean? That I shall be treated as righteous, not being so? That I shall be forgiven and acquitted? Yes, thank God! But is that all that it means, or is that the main thing that it means? No, thank God! for the very heart of the Christian doctrine of righteousness is this, that if, and as soon as, a man puts his trembling trust in Jesus Christ as his Saviour, then he receives not merely pardon,which is the uninterrupted flow of the divine love in spite of his sin, nor an accrediting him with a righteousness which does not belong to him, but an imparting to him of that new life, a spark from the central fire of Christ's life, the new man which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.' Do not suppose that the great message of the gospel is merely forgiveness. Do not suppose that its blessed gift is only that a man is acquitted because Christ has died. All that is true. But there is something more than that which is the basis of that other, and that is that by faith in Jesus Christ, I am so knit to Him--He that is joined to the Lord' being one spirit'--as that there passes into me, by His gift, a life which is created after His life, and is in fact cognate and kindred with it.
No doubt it is a mere germ, no doubt it needs cultivating, development, carefully guarding against gnawing insects and blighting frosts. But the seed which is implanted, though it be less than the least of all seeds, has in itself the promise and the potency of triumphant growth, when it will tower above all the poisonous shrubs and undergrowth of the forest, and have the light of heaven resting on its aspiring top. Here is the great blessing and distinctive characteristic of Christian morality, that it does not say to a man: First aim after good deeds and so grow up into goodness,' but it starts with a gift, and says,' Work from that, and by the power of that. "I make the tree good,"says Jesus to us, do you see to it that the fruit is good.' No doubt the vegetable metaphor is inadequate, because the leaf is wooed from out the bud, and grows green and broad, and takes no care,' but that effortless growth is not how righteousness increases in men. The germ is given them, and they have to cultivate it. First, there must be the impartation of righteousness, and then there comes to the man's heart the sweet assurance of peace with God, and he has within him a conscience like a sea at rest, imaginations calm and fair.' First, King of righteousness; after that, King of peace.'
Now if we keep firm hold of this sequence, a great many of the popular objections to the gospel, as if it were merely a means of forgiveness and escape, and a system of reconciliation by some kind of forensic expedient, fall away of themselves, and a great many of the popular blunders that Christian people make fall away too. For there are good folks to whom the great truth that God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing to them their trespasses,' and welcoming them to all the fulness of an overflowing love, has obscured the other truth thai; there is no peace for a Christian man continuous through his life, unless equally continuous through his life are his efforts to work out in acts the new nature which he has received.
Thus my text, by the order in which it places righteousness and peace, not only illuminates the work of Christ upon each individual soul, but comes with a very weighty and clear direction to Christian people as to their course of conduct. Are you looking for comfort? Is what you want to get out of your religion mainly the assurance that you will not go to hell? Is the great blessing that Christ brings to you only the blessing of pardon, which you degrade to mean immunity from punishment? You are wrong. First of all, King of righteousness'--let that which is first of all in His gifts be first of all in your efforts too; and do not seek so much for comfort as for grace to know and to do your duty, and strength to cast off the unfruitful works of darkness,' and to put on the armour of light.' The order which is laid down in my text was laid down with a different application, by our Lord Himself, and ought to be in both forms the motto for all Christian people. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things'--comfort, sense of reconciliation, assurance of forgiveness, joyful hope, and the like, as well as needful material good--shall be added unto you.'
And now, secondly, my text gives the order of,
