Righteousness and the Truth in Jesus

Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. PHILIPPIANS 3:8–9

This chapter takes up the most controversial part of MacDonald’s teaching after his hope for the salvation of all, and it must be read with care. Three sermons belong together here: The Truth in Jesus, from the second series, and Justice and Righteousness, from the third. In them MacDonald set out what he believed about how Christ saves us, and he set it against the teaching of most of the churches of his day. He did so with great passion, and at times with scorn. It is only fair to let him speak, and then to weigh what he said.

The truth is a person

MacDonald began, in The Truth in Jesus, with Paul’s phrase about the truth as it is in Jesus. He argued that the truth of the gospel is not first of all a set of statements about Christ but Christ Himself, living and present. To believe in Christ is to trust Him and obey Him, not to accept a theory about what He did. He wrote at length against Christians who, in his view, put their faith in a doctrine — in the finished work of Christ, in His merits, in the atonement, in the blood He shed — rather than in the living Lord. He was bitterly grieved to be accused of denying the atonement, and he insisted that he believed in the atoner, as he put it, “with my whole heart, and soul, and strength, and mind.” What he rejected was a particular explanation of the atonement, which he believed was not in the New Testament.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. JOHN 14:6

In Justice he gave a short statement of his own belief, and it is worth hearing in his words. “I believe in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, my elder brother, my lord and master.” He believed that Christ has a right to his absolute obedience; that Christ died that he might die like Him, to every ruling power but the will of God; and that Christ is his Saviour from himself and from everything God does not love. The atonement, for MacDonald, meant the making of sinners one with God by making them like Christ.

Justice and mercy

The sermon Justice takes as its text a verse from the sixty-second Psalm: unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for Thou renderest to every man according to his work. MacDonald noticed that the Psalmist does not say that justice belongs to God because He rewards every man according to his work, but that mercy does. From this he argued that justice and mercy in God are not two things to be balanced against each other but one. He believed that God punishes sin, and punishes it severely; but he insisted that all God’s punishment is for the sake of healing. “Punishment is for the sake of amendment and atonement.” And he drew the conclusion that God’s first concern is not to punish sin but to end it: “Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin.”

Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work. PSALM 62:12

From this conviction MacDonald rejected the teaching that Christ, on the cross, bore the punishment due to sinners in their place, so that God could justly forgive them. He thought it made God unjust twice over: unjust to Christ, by punishing the innocent, and unjust to the law, by letting the guilty go. In the sermon Righteousness he wrote, “To lay the pain upon the righteous in the name of justice is simply monstrous.”

Righteousness, not a robe

The sermon Righteousness, on Paul’s words in Philippians 3, carries the argument further. MacDonald believed that the righteousness Paul longed for — the righteousness which is of God by faith — is a real righteousness that God works in the believer, the same righteousness that Christ had by His faith in the Father. He therefore rejected, with great vehemence, the teaching that the righteousness of Christ is credited, or imputed, to the believer, so that God treats the sinner as righteous for Christ’s sake. He thought it a legal fiction that let men be called good without being made good, and he wrote: “Pray God I have no righteousness imputed to me. Let me be regarded as the sinner I am; for nothing will serve my need but to be made a righteous man, one that will no more sin.” In The Last Farthing he spoke of imputed righteousness with the same scorn.

He read the great text of 2 Corinthians 5:21 — He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him — to mean that God gave Christ to be treated as a sinner by sinful men, killed and cast out, so that we might be made truly righteous in Him. He read the faith of Abraham, which was counted to him for righteousness, as Abraham’s own trust in God reckoned as the righteous thing it was.

What he was against

To read MacDonald fairly, it is important to see what he feared. He feared a religion that would let a man feel safe while remaining selfish, dishonest and unkind — a faith in a transaction rather than in a Person, which left the heart unchanged. He had seen such religion, and he hated it. He feared, too, a picture of God as an angry ruler who must be bought off before He can love, and he believed that such a picture drove people from God. Against both he set the God who is like Jesus, who will make His children good, and who will settle for nothing less.

Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 1 JOHN 3:7

Weighing it

It must be said plainly that on these points MacDonald stands outside the faith that evangelical Christians — and the Reformers before them, and a long line of the church’s teachers before them — have found in Scripture. His fears were real, and many preachers have deserved his rebuke. But the remedy he chose was to reject truths that the New Testament teaches clearly.

The New Testament does teach that Christ died in the place of sinners and bore the penalty of their sin. The prophet foresaw a servant on whom the Lord would lay the iniquity of us all, who would be wounded for our transgressions. Paul says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; that God set Him forth as a propitiation, to declare His righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus; and that God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin. Peter says that He bare our sins in His own body on the tree, the just for the unjust. These are not the words of a mere example, nor of a death inflicted only by men. They are the words of a substitute, given by the Father and freely offering Himself.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. ISAIAH 53:5–6

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. ROMANS 3:26

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:21

MacDonald thought this made God unjust. But the cross is not God punishing a third party. It is God Himself, in the person of the Son, bearing what we deserved. The Son was not unwilling; the Father did not love Him less. Love and justice meet at the cross, not because justice gives way, but because love pays.

The New Testament also teaches that the sinner is justified — declared righteous — by faith, apart from his works, and that this rests on the righteousness of Christ given to him. Paul speaks of God who justifies the ungodly, of the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works, and of being found in Christ, not having his own righteousness. MacDonald was right that this is not a fiction that leaves the sinner as he was: those whom God justifies, He also sanctifies, and no one is justified who is not also being made new. But the order matters. The sinner is accepted first, for Christ’s sake, and then made good; he is not made good in order to be accepted. To remove the first is to leave the anxious sinner with nothing to stand on but his own progress.

Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works. ROMANS 4:6

What, then, may the evangelical reader learn from MacDonald here? A great deal, if he reads with discernment. MacDonald is right that faith is trust in a living Person, not in a formula. He is right that a gospel which leaves the heart unchanged is no gospel at all. He is right that God will not be content until His children are holy, and that the justified are called to be righteous indeed. He is right that God is not reluctant to love us and does not need to be persuaded. The reader who holds fast to the substitution of Christ and to justification by faith alone will find MacDonald a sharp and salutary goad against a faith that has gone comfortable. But he should not follow him into denying what Christ has done for us, because only what Christ has done for us can make us what MacDonald longed for us to be.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Is your faith in a living Christ, or in a set of ideas about Him? Read John 14:1–11 and speak to Him directly.

2. MacDonald feared a faith that leaves the heart unchanged. Has your faith changed the way you live? Name one change it has made, and one it still needs to make.

3. Read Isaiah 53 and 2 Corinthians 5:14–21 slowly. Give thanks for the One who bore your sins.

4. Read Romans 3:21–26 and 4:1–8. Rest on the righteousness that God gives freely in Christ.

5. Ask God to make you righteous indeed, not only in His sight but in your life, because you have been accepted in His Son.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, You are the truth, and You are my Saviour.

Thank You that You were wounded for my transgressions, and that the Lord laid on You the iniquity of us all.

Thank You that I am found in You, not having my own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of God by faith.

Now make me righteous in all my ways, true in my words and pure in my heart, that I may be like You, because I am Yours. Amen.