means to be accounted or declared righteous, as a judicial act; and
that justification is traced in its ultimate source to God's
'grace,'--His own loving disposition--which bends to unworthy and
lowly creatures, and is regarded as having for the medium of its
bestowal the 'redemption' that is in Christ Jesus. That is the
channel through which grace comes from God.

'Redemption' implies captivity, liberation, and a price paid. The
metaphor of slaves set free by ransom is exchanged in verse 25 for a
sacrificial reference. A propitiatory sacrifice averts punishment
from the offerer. The death of the victim procures the life of the
worshipper. So, a propitiatory or atoning sacrifice is offered by
Christ's blood, or death. That sacrifice is the ransom-price through
which our captivity is ended, and our liberty assured. As His
redemption is the channel 'through' which God's grace comes to men,
so faith is the condition 'through' which (ver. 25) we make that
grace ours.

Note, then, that Paul does not merely point to Jesus Christ as
Saviour, but to His death as the saving power. We are to have faith
in Jesus Christ (ver. 22). But that is not a complete statement. It
must be faith in His propitiation, if it is to bring us into living
contact with His redemption. A gospel which says much of Christ, but
little of His Cross, or which dilates on the beauty of His life, but
stammers when it begins to speak of the sacrifice in His death, is
not Paul's Gospel, and it will have little power to deal with the
universal sickness of sin.

The last verses of the passage set forth another purpose attained by
Christ's sacrifice; namely, the vindication of God's righteousness in