This Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost, the day on which God the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Church.
This Gift was given that we might attain the great hope of the New Testament message - Transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ and participation in His Divine Life.
In His Lectures on Justification Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman articulates that prior to the Gospel the Law of God and the Heart of Man were at enmity with one another, and thus men were left unrighteous.
He states that a man could be made righteous in only one of two ways; either by God lowering or abolishing the law, or by God enabling us to actually fulfill the law.
The answer, says Newman, is not in the lowering or abolishing of the law, but in the raising up and remaking of man. [1] He provides a remarkable summary of the view that justification must result in an inward renewal that brings forth true righteousness:
not to have the Holy Law taken away, not to be merely accounted to have done what we have not done, not a nominal change, a nominal righteousness, an external blessing, but one penetrating inwards into our heart and spirit, joints and marrow, pervading us with a real efficacy, and wrapping us round in its fullness; not a change merely in God’s dealings towards us, like the pale and wan sunshine of a winter’s day, but (if we may seek it) the possession of Himself, of His substantial grace to touch and heal the root of the evil, the fountain of our misery, our bitter heart and its inbred corruption. As we can conceive God blessing nothing but what is holy, so all our notions of blessing center in holiness as a necessary foundation. He may bless, He may curse, according to His mercy or our deserts; but if He blesses, surely it is by making holy; if He counts righteous, it is by making righteous; if He justifies, it is by renewing; if He reconciles us to Him, it is not by annihilating the Law, but by creating in us new wills and new powers for the observance of it[2]
This fulfills God’s promise in the Old Covenant that he would give his people a new heart, replacing our heart of stone with a heart of flesh, and that he would put his Spirit within us, that we may walk in his ways and obey his commands.[3]
The justifying nature of the New Law of the Holy Spirit is “creative as well as living” and creates love in our hearts, for “love is said to be the fulfilling of the Law, or righteousness” and “it is, in fact, nothing else but the energy and the representative of the Spirit in our hearts.” [6] Newman then cites St. Paul, who says that “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given us”[7] and St. John, who said “He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.”[8] These scriptures point to the teaching that Love is “the perfection of religion” and “the fulfilling of the law.”[9] Newman denies that Christians are made righteous in a different sense than Christ himself is righteous. As Christ is perfectly righteous, it is perfect righteousness which is acceptable and pleasing to God; and so Scripture teaches that the very righteousness of the Son of God is applied to us.[10]
Newman presents a view of justification as the gift of Divine Love, in which the Holy Spirit is bestowed on the believer as the love of God, the gift of righteousness, the justification of man. In baptism we receive this gift of grace, the love of God in the Holy Spirit. This gift brings inward renewal and the promise of eternal life. This gift places the love of God within us as God’s gift of Himself for our salvation. This gift is our righteousness, cleansing what is past and enabling us to fulfill the Divine Law through Love. As Augustine said, “We abide in God and He in us…because He has given us of His Spirit…who is love.”[1] In Newman, we see that the justification of man comes through that faith which is formed by love. “Faith…is in the Gospel grafted on the love of God, and made to mould the heart of man into His image.”[2] Love is that which makes faith justifying[3], and love itself arises from the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is the true justifier. [4]
“Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest…
Font of life, Fire of love, The soul’s Anointing from above.”[5]
[1] Augustine of Hippo. (Ed. Philip Schaff, NPNF-1-III). On the Holy Trinity, Doctrinal Treatises, Moral Treatises, (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1887), p. 219.
[2] John Henry Newman, Lectures on justification (London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1838), p. 307.
[3] Ibid., p. 22.
[4] John Henry Newman, Lectures on justification (London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1838), p. 398.
[5] The (1928) Book of Common Prayer (Delray Beach, FL: Deus Publications), p. 544.
[1] Newman, J. H. (1838). Lectures on justification (35–36). London: J. G. & F. Rivington.
[2] Ibid., p. 36.
[3] Ezekiel 36:26-27
[4] 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, 6
[5] John Henry Newman, Lectures on justification (London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1838), p. 49.
[6] Ibid., p. 56.
[7] Romans 5:5
[8] 1 John 4:16
[9] John Henry Newman, Lectures on justification (London: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1838), p. 57.
[10] Ibid., p. 118.
[11] Ibid., p. 125.