necessitates a distinction between the life of Christ here and the life of Christ above. He therefore says:―“The life which He had in this world as such He laid down, and never took it again as such. … He took life again, but not the life He lived here in the flesh, to which I still rightly say sin attached, not as if He had any in Himself, but as made sin and bearing it, and that is what is said” (p. 118, note). Now, one word of Christ destroys all this reasoning:―“Therefore doth my Father love Me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again” (John x. 17). We now turn to C.S. He says:―
“I must confess, I do not see how God would be righteous in reckoning the breaker of the law righteous because another kept it; nor do I see this taught in Scripture, far from it. But through the precious atoning death and justifying resurrection of Jesus, I do see how God is perfectly righteous in justifying the believer. The law could not be made more honourable than by the death of Jesus Christ the Lord. God did not justify sin, but punished it in His Son. The sentence was executed to the utmost. The old creation thus came for ever to an end in the grave of Christ: but in the resurrection of Christ, God gives me a new life in perfect everlasting righteousness. Now, though He could not be righteous in any way in justifying my old man, yet He is everlastingly gloriously righteous in justifying me as a new creature in Christ risen from the dead. And being thus justified in the risen Christ, He gives me His Holy Spirit for positive righteousness of life and walk. (See Rom. viii.) So that whilst on the human plan, as put under law, I should only break it; yet, on this Divine plan, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
—Justification in a Risen Christ, by C. Stanley, p. 11.
It is no part of our purpose—for the time allotted to a lecture will not permit it—to enter upon a refutation of all these unscriptural teachings.
Dr. Tregelles has done this in his Five Letters on
