as fashioned by the creative word. The solution is readily given. Christian reason replies that if holy angels are active in perfect obedience to the divine law they will continue to be rightous; if the primeval family had without faltering honored the command of God they would have become confirmed in their original righteousness. Revelation sustains the reply: He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.'

The Christian problem does not relate to persons who are innocent and occupy a normal judicial position before God. The solution, however, has to meet the moral necessities arising from moral law. Law demands both that men occupy the right judicial position, and that they acquire righteous character.

2. Another conceivable question is: how shall a man guilty of transgression obtain forgiveness? assuming that the act of transgression has not vitiated nor weakened his moral constitution, assuming also that he possesses the requisite mental and moral ability to lead a life conformable to the divine law? The question under this form would emerge should we concede the claim of Pelagianism. According to Pelagius the transgression of the primeval family was an external act, like a blow dealt by the hand, which did not vitiate the ethical integrity of human nature. The dynamic relation of Adamic nature to God is right; but by the accident of transgression the individual Adam lapsed into a false judicial position. Though

2

2

1 1 John iii. 7.

Says Pelagius in the first Book of his work on Free Will: Omne bonum ac malum, quo vel laudabiles, vel vituperabiles sumus non nobiscum oritur, sed agitur a nobis."- Quoted by Aug. on Original Sin, Bk. II., ch. 14.

his constitution continued to be right and good he became subject to condemnation because of a wrong external act. The judicial position of the first man through the evil influence of his example comes to be the judicial position of all men. To the question: how may a man guilty of transgression obtain forgiveness? the answer on the basis of the Pelagian theory would be: if released from the penalty due to his transgression, a man at once resumes his normal judicial position at the bar of divine law. A new creation in Christ is not necessary. All he needs is the remission of the penalty. Then he is righteous before God; and if he will put forth the moral ability with which he is endowed, he will commend himself to divine approval.

Pelagianism asserts one aspect of judicial truth which the Christian doctrine of justification includes. The transgressor is under condemnation, and needs forgiveness; in order to stand approved at the bar of God the penalties of transgression must be remitted.

3. There is a third conceivable question: how may a person inheriting a vitiated nature, and subject to death, become just before God? assuming that he has committed no act of transgression in thought, word or deed, assuming also that if created anew in Christ he will have the ability perfectly to conform to the divine law? This question is applicable to infants who die in their infancy. If we answer it on the basis of the evangelical Protestant doctrine concerning the fall of the Adamic race, we may say: it is necessary that the infant dying in infancy be 'delivered out of the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son,' in other words, necessary that by the agency of the Holy Spirit the infant be set in

right ethical and judicial relation to God, and thus be emancipated from the state of condemnation common to the fallen race.

Inasmuch as infants dying in infancy have committed no sin in feeling or thought, in word or deed, their justification before God does not include the remission of the penalties of transgression. If set by the Spirit in right relation to God in Christ, they have by virtue of this right ethical and judicial relation the power, as personality develops into conscious volition, to choose and to act as the law of God requires. Kept by the Spirit, they live in the Spirit.

The necessity to be set by divine grace in positively right relation to God is a valid necessity, and has to be met by the Christian doctrine of justification.

4. The actual problem challenging Christianity differs from each of these conceivable questions; but it is not solved by repudiating the element of truth which each comprehends. Instead, the element of truth in each is recognized, and it enters into the Christian solution of the problem.

Though men are by nature sinful and under condemnation, the original relation of mankind to God is not abolished. Violated and distorted it is, nevertheless it asserts its formative power and its claims. So far forth the relation of the fallen race to God is akin to the relation in which the primeval family stood before the fall. Though depraved, men retain the latent capacity of positive obedience to God's law; and this latent capacity must become actual righteousness.

Further, inasmuch as all adults, and all children who have come to the age of moral accountability, have become

transgressors, they are subject to the penalties of transgressors. So far forth there is truth in the doctrine of Pelagius. It is necessary that the penalties, being inseparable from the commission of sin, be remitted. Otherwise the transgressor abides under condemnation, suffering the inalienable penalties of sin.

Inasmuch as transgressors are by nature depraved as well as in fact guilty, and predisposed to manifold forms of wrong-doing, the simple remission of penalties does not meet all the conditions of the problem. It is necessary also that they occupy both ethically and judicially an approved relation to God, in order that in the full sense. of the term they may be righteous. Neither forgiveness nor the objective translation from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light can suffice; it is equally necessary that they bear the fruit of holy living. 'Every branch that beareth not fruit is taken away, and cast into the fire, and it is burned.'

§ 346.

The Christian doctrine of justification is the solution of a threefold problem:

How can the guilt of sin be remitted? or, how can the transgressor be delivered from condemnation?

How can a man by nature sinful, in whom the law of sin is the controlling force, stand approved at the bar of divine law?

How may actual obedience to the will of God become possible?

Christianity makes answer to this threefold question by saying that transgressors obtain forgiveness, they are judicially approved, and they meet the demands of God's will by faith in Jesus Christ.

Faith in Christ has negative and positive force. On

the one hand it obtains the release of the transgressor from all the penalties of sin; on the other it puts him in an attitude before the bar of law, approved by the judgment of God.

1. Acknowledging and accepting Jesus Christ by true faith, the transgressor stands approved before God. He occupies the judicial position which is positively right. His relation to Christ meets the claims of Christ. Meeting the claims of Christ his position answers the requirements of divine law. All have sinned, all come short of the glory of God; yet through faith in Jesus Christ all are justified freely by the grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.'

The question arises: how is it that by faith in Jesus Christ the transgressor stands approved at the bar of God? The answer is that the mediatorship of the incarnate Son has in His relation to the Adamic race met the twofold demand of law.

In the first place law, the embodiment and expression of God's will enjoins obedience, perfect conformity to its requirements. Such an obedience, without flaw or defect, the Son of Man fulfilled. He became the ideal Man, not only by honoring under a normal form the authority of His Father in all the relations of human life, but also by unfolding in His character all the original possibilities of the Adamic race. The will of God immanent in humanity as well as the will of God expressed by formal command was by Him asserted, actualized and glorified. He says: I do always the things that are pleasing to the Father." As confirmatory of this utterance came the voice of the

'Rom. iii. 22-24.

2 John viii. 29.