ure, would be
seen through; and the only cure for human misery would be discerned
to be what cures universal sinfulness.

III. So we have next Paul's view of the remedy for man's sin. That is
stated in general terms in verses 21, 22. Into a world of sinful men
comes streaming the light of a 'righteousness of God.' That
expression is here used to mean a moral state of conformity with
God's will, imparted by God. The great, joyful message, which Paul
felt himself sent to proclaim, is that the true way to reach the
state of conformity which law requires, and which the
unsophisticated, universal conscience acknowledges not to have been
reached, is the way of faith.

The message is so familiar to us that we may easily fail to realise
its essential greatness and wonderfulness when first proclaimed. That
God should give righteousness, that it should be 'of God,' not only
as coming from Him, but as, in some real way, being kindred with His
own perfection; that it should be brought to men by Jesus Christ, as
ancient legends told that a beneficent Titan brought from heaven, in
a hollow cane, the gift of fire; and that it should become ours by
the simple process of trusting in Jesus Christ, are truths which
custom has largely robbed of their wonderfulness. Let us meditate
more on them till they regain, by our own experience of their power,
some of the celestial light which belongs to them.

Observe that in verse 22 the universality of the redemption which is
in Christ is deduced from the universality of sin. The remedy must
reach as far as the disease. If there is no difference in regard to
sin, there can be none in regard to the sweep of redemption. The
doleful universality of the covering spread over all nations, has
corresponding to it the blessed universality of the light which is
sent forth to flood them all. Sin's empire cannot stretch farther
than Christ's kingdom.

IV. Paul's view of what makes the Gospel the remedy.

In verses 21 and 22 it was stated generally that Christ was the
channel, and faith the condition, of righteousness. The personal
object of faith was declared, but not the special thing in Christ
which was to be trusted in. That is fully set forth in verses 24-26.
We cannot attempt to discuss the great words in these verses, each of
which would want a volume. But we may note that 'justified' here
means to be accounted or declared righteous, as a judicial act; and
that justification is traced in its ulti