Rom 4:5, Gal 5:4, Eph 2:8 | Barnes | STEP | Verse 5. But to him that worketh not . Who does not rely on his conformity to the law for his justification; who does not depend on his works; who seeks to be justified in some other way. The reference here is to the Christian plan of justification. But believeth . . On him . On God. Thus the connexion requires; for the discussion has immediate reference to Abraham, whose faith was in the promise of God. That justifieth the ungodly . This is a very important expression. It implies, (1.) that men are sinners, or are ungodly. (2.) That God regards them as such when they are justified, he does not justify them because he sees them to be, or regards them to be righteous; but knowing that they are in fact polluted. He does not first esteem them, contrary to fact, to be pure; but knowing that they are polluted, and that they deserve no favour, he resolves to forgive them, and to treat them as his friends. (3.) In themselves they are equally undeserving, whether they are justified or not. Their souls have been defiled by sin; and that is known when they are pardoned. God judges things as they are; and sinners who are justified, he judges not as if they were pure, or as if they had a claim; but he regards them as united by faith to the Lord Jesus; and In THIS RELATION he judges that they SHOULD be treated as his friends, though they have been, are, and always will be, personally undeserving . It is not meant that the righteousness of Christ is transferred to them so as to become personally theirs--for moral character cannot be transferred;--nor that it is infused into them, making them personally meritorious--for then they could not be spoken of as ungodly; but that Christ died in their stead, to atone for their sins, and is regarded and esteemed by God to have died; and that the results or benefits of his death are so reckoned or imputed to believers as to make it proper for God to regard and treat them as if they had themselves obeyed the law; that is, as righteous in his sight. (l) "his faith is counted"

Romans 4:5

Verse 5. But to him that worketh not. Who does not rely on his conformity to the law for his justification; who does not depend on his works; who seeks to be justified in some other way. The reference here is to the Christian plan of justification.

But believeth. Rom 3:26.

On him. On God. Thus the connexion requires; for the discussion has immediate reference to Abraham, whose faith was in the promise of God.

That justifieth the ungodly. This is a very important expression. It implies,

(1.) that men are sinners, or are ungodly.

(2.) That God regards them as such when they are justified, he does not justify them because he sees them to be, or regards them to be righteous; but knowing that they are in fact polluted. He does not first esteem them, contrary to fact, to be pure; but knowing that they are polluted, and that they deserve no favour, he resolves to forgive them, and to treat them as his friends.

(3.) In themselves they are equally undeserving, whether they are justified or not. Their souls have been defiled by sin; and that is known when they are pardoned. God judges things as they are; and sinners who are justified, he judges not as if they were pure, or as if they had a claim; but he regards them as united by faith to the Lord Jesus; and In THIS RELATION he judges that they SHOULD be treated as his friends, though they have been, are, and always will be, personally undeserving. It is not meant that the righteousness of Christ is transferred to them so as to become personally theirs--for moral character cannot be transferred;--nor that it is infused into them, making them personally meritorious--for then they could not be spoken of as ungodly; but that Christ died in their stead, to atone for their sins, and is regarded and esteemed by God to have died; and that the results or benefits of his death are so reckoned or imputed to believers as to make it proper for God to regard and treat them as if they had themselves obeyed the law; that is, as righteous in his sight.

(l) "his faith is counted" Hab 2:4

Galatians 5:4

Verse 4. Christ is become of no effect unto you. You will derive no advantage from Christ. His work in regard to you is needless and vain. If you can be justified in any other way than by him, then of course you do not need him, and your adoption of the other mode is, in fact, a renunciation of him. Tindal renders this, "Ye are gone quite from Christ." The word here used καταργεω means, properly, to render inactive, idle, useless; to do away, to put an end to; and here it means that they had withdrawn from Christ, if they attempted to be justified by the law. They would not need him if they could be thus justified; and they could derive no benefit from him. A man who can be justified by his own obedience, does not need the aid or the merit of another; and ff it was true, as they seemed to suppose, that they could be justified by the law, it followed that the work of Christ was in vain so far as they were concerned.

Whosoever of you are justified by the law. On the supposition that any of you are justified by the law; or if, as you seem to suppose, any are justified by the law. The apostle does not say that this had in fact ever occurred; but he merely makes a supposition. If such a thing should or could occur, it would follow that you had fallen from grace.

Ye are fallen from grace. That is, this would mount to apostasy from the religion of the Redeemer, and would be in fact a rejection of the grace of the gospel. That this had ever in fact occurred among true Christians the apostle does not affirm, unless he affirmed that men can in fact be justified by the law, since he makes the falling from grace a consequence of that. But did Paul mean to teach that? Did he mean to affirm that any man in fact had been, or could be, justified by his own obedience to the law? Let his own writings answer. See especially Rom 3:20. But unless he held that, then this passage does not prove that any one who has ever been a true Christian has fallen away. The fair interpretation of the passage does not demand that. Its simple and obvious meaning is, that if a man who had been a professed Christian should be justified by his own conformity to the law, and adopt that mode of justification, then that would amount to a rejection of the mode of salvation by Christ, and would be a renouncing of the plan of justification by grace. The two systems cannot be united. The adoption of the one is, in fact, a rejection of the other. Christ will be "a whole Saviour," or none. This passage, therefore, cannot be adduced to prove that any true Christian has in fact fallen away from grace, unless it proves also that man may be justified by the deeds of the law, contrary to the repeated declarations of Paul himself. The word "grace," here, does not mean grace in the sense of personal religion; it means the system of salvation by grace, in contradistinction from that by merit or by works--the system of the gospel.

(a) "no effect" Rom 9:31,32 (b) "fallen from grace" Heb 12:15

Ephesians 2:8

Verse 8. For by grace are ye saved. By mere favour. It is not by your own merit; it is not because you have any claim. This is a favourite doctrine with Paul, as it is with all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity. Rom 1:7, 3:24.

Through faith. Grace bestowed through faith, or in connexion with believing. Rom 1:17; Rom 4:17.

And that not of yourselves. That is, salvation does not proceed from yourselves. The word rendered that--τουτο--is in the neuter gender, and the word faith--πιστις --is in the feminine. The word "that," therefore, does not refer particularly to faith, as being the gift of God, but to the salvation by grace of which he had been speaking. This is the interpretation of the passage which is the most obvious, and which is now generally conceded to be the true one. See Bloomfield. Many critics, however, as Doddridge, Beza, Piscator, and Chrysostom, maintain that the word "that" τουτο refers to "faith," (πιστις;) and Doddridge maintains that such a use is common in the New Testament. As a matter of grammar this opinion is certainly doubtful, if not untenable; but as a matter of theology it is a question of very little importance. Whether this passage proves it or not, it is certainly true that faith is the gift of God. It exists in the mind only when the Holy Ghost produces it there, and is, in common with every other Christian excellence, to be traced to his agency on the heart. This opinion, however, does not militate at all with the doctrine that man himself believes. It is not God that believes for him, for that is impossible. It is his own mind that actually believes, or that exercises faith. Rom 4:3. In the same manner repentance is to be traced to God. It is one of the fruits of the operation of the Holy Spirit on the soul. But the Holy Ghost does not repent for us. It is our own mind that repents; our own heart that feels; our own eyes that weep--and without this there can be no true repentance. No one can repent for another; and God neither can nor ought to repent for us. He has done no wrong, and if repentance is ever exercised, therefore, it must be exercised by our own minds. So of faith. God cannot believe for us. We must believe, or we shall be damned. Still this does not conflict at all with the opinion, that if we exercise faith, the inclination to do it is to be traced to the agency of God on the heart. I would not contend, therefore, about the grammatical construction of this passage, with respect to the point of the theology contained in it; still it accords better with the obvious grammatical construction, and with the design of the passage to understand the word "that" as referring not to faith only, but to salvation by grace. So Calvin understands it, and so it is understood by Storr, Locke, Clarke, Koppe, Grotius, and others.

It is the gift of God. Salvation by grace is his gift. It is not of merit; it is wholly by favour.

(e) "are ye saved" 2Ti 1:9 (f) "and that not" Rom 4:16 (g) "of yourselves" Jn 6:44,65