Justification by faith

(3.) The Scripture which affirms that “by the deeds of the law no man can be justified,” affirms in like manner that by “faith we do not make void the law, but establish it;” that “the righteousness of the law is 222fulfilled in us;” that Christ “came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it,” and is the “end of the law for righteousness unto them that do believe.” And that the law must be fulfilled, or we cannot be justified, we shall prove afterwards. (4.) We are not hereon justified by the law, or the works of it, in the only sense of that proposition in the Scripture; and to coin new senses or significations of it is not safe. The meaning of it in the Scripture is, that only “the doers of the law shall be justified,” Rom. ii. 13; and that “he that does the things of it shall live by them,” chap. x. 5, — namely, in his own person, by the way of personal duty, which alone the law requires. But if we, who have not fulfilled the law in the way of inherent, personal obedience, are justified by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ unto us, then are we justified by Christ, and not by the law. J Owen