His holiness, and
His righteousness includes both[12]. It needed the severe requirement
of the atoning sacrifice, as well as {140} the free gift of forgiveness
and new life, to prove or exhibit it.

And if God's righteousness shows itself first of all in a simple act of
justification of sinners--in simply forgiving men or pronouncing them
righteous, irrespective of what they are in themselves at the moment,
if only they will take God at His word--three points have to be borne
in mind. First, that the mere offer of forgiveness is put in the
forefront because this readiness on our part to be treated as helpless
sinners is the annihilation of the one great obstacle to our
reconciliation with God--the proud independence which led the Jews, and
has led men since their day, to resent being dealt with by mere mercy,
and to want to justify themselves. If the Christian character is to
grow aright, it must have its root in an utter acknowledgement that we
owe to God our power even to make a beginning in His service: that we
can run the way of His commandments, because, and only because, He by
His own act has set our hearts at liberty.

Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!

{141}

To many really good Christians this sort of language has come to have
an unreal sound because they have been surfeited with it, and because
it has been associated with a very one-sided Christianity. But, for
all that, the moral necessity remains that we should dig out of its
last refuges the claim of human independence, if the Christian
character is to grow healthily. In other words, the only root of
Christian thankfulness and progress is the recognition that our
spiritual life rests at its basis on a pure act of the divine bounty in
accomplishing our redemption from sin and giving us the forgiveness of
all our sins.

Secondly, it must be borne in mind that our forgiveness through the
sacrifice is only the first step towards fellowship with God. It is
only the removal of the preliminary obstacle which guilt had raised
against actual admittance into the life of God. The language of the
New Testament refuses to allow us to separate the forgiveness of our
sins from our admission into the 'body of Christ' by baptism[13], or,
in other words, our incorporation into the life of the redeemed people,
the new Israel. For the faith {142} which acce