Start your Christian walk with the Gospel, then move to "bigger and better things" like Law-keeping?

Can a Christian progress through sanctification by striving to keep every jot and tittle of the Law? Does he only need Christ and the Gospel to start his walk of faith?

I never would have said I believed quite this way. However, as I look back to what I believed and practiced before a year and a half ago when I started an extensive study of soteriology and Christ as the foundation (I Cor. 3:11), I cannot say that I had the centrality of the Gospel nailed down in my theology and orthopraxy.

I would point to verses like I John 5:2, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments." See, there it is! We must strive after law-keeping. However, I ignored the whole context of Scripture, which places Christ at the foundation. From the heart, we must pursue Him, love Him, follow Him, take His yoke upon us, emulate His example of humble and sacrificial service in laying down His life for those who were unlovely and unloving toward Him. When we follow Christ, we will keep the law as a result. But we don't place law-keeping at the center of our focus. True, we do search the Scriptures diligently to discern God's leading; this is how He speaks to us -- through His inspired, sufficient and authoritative Word. But when we look at Scripture, we see Christ at the beginning, middle, and end -- He is the center and foundation, the end-all and be-all of the Word and of our lives.

Philippians 1:27 says, "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel." Later, Paul writes:

For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. ... But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead (Phil. 3:3, 7-11).

Although I would not have admitted it, I was similar to a Pharisee who trusted in myself, that I was righteous (Lk. 18:9). I went about to establish my own righteousness (Rom. 10:3), rather than repudiating everything wrought in me or performed by me, trusting in Christ's righteousness alone. I had even memorized this passage in Philippians, and I was familiar with the various Scriptures that call us to renounce everything in ourselves and take hold of the righteousness of Christ alone by faith alone. But I still did not count Christ as the precious pearl of great price for whom I should give up everything else to follow Him (Mt. 13:46, Lk. 14:26-33).

I wasted so much time when I did not think much, speak much, and love much of Christ. I did not realize how monstrous, grievous, and enraging my sin against God is and how much I had been forgiven because God had placed my sins upon Christ, He became the curse for me, and He drank down the ferocious wrath and judgment of God that should have been poured upon me for my sin. I loved little because, I fancied in my mind, I had been forgiven little (Lk. 7:47).

Now I desire to make much of Christ and to see Him worshipped in my life, my family, my community, and throughout the world, as He ought to be worshipped. This means living day-by-day in sacrificial service with gratitude to Him (Rom. 12:1). God alone is glorious and worthy. I think frequently about how I can prioritize this mission of proclaiming His glory and calling upon all men to comprehensively repent and trust in Christ alone. What am I doing? Not enough. What can I do? Obviously, of myself, I can do nothing (Jn. 15:5). But may God embolden me to be more faithful and diligent as an ambassador for Christ throughout life, by His strength and wisdom alone.

Packer and Beeke: Faith is not the ground of justification, but rather the instrument of receiving and resting in the person and work of Christ alone

“When Paul paraphrases this verse [Gen. 15:6] as teaching that Abraham’s faith was reckoned for righteousness (Rom. 4:5, 9, 22), all he intends us to understand is that faith—decisive, whole-hearted reliance on God’s gracious promise (vss. 18ff)—was the occasion and means of righteousness being imputed to him. There is no suggestion here that faith is the ground of justification.”
-J.I. Packer (quoted by Dr. Joel R. Beeke in “Justification by Faith Alone,” pp. 56-57)

“… Habakkuk 2:4 … quoted in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38, is ultimately fulfilled in the righteousness that comes by faith in the gospel of Christ, for which the law itself teaches us to look (Romans 3:21-22; 10:4). Paul’s explanation of Habakkuk has inspired not only Martin Luther but countless other believers to place their faith in a righteousness not their own, but that of Jesus Christ who is called ‘THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ (Jeremiah 23:6).”
-Dr. Joel R. Beeke, “The Relation of Faith to Justification” (in the book, “Justification by Faith Alone,” pp. 57-58)

Theodore Beza: Christ's righteousness and perfection is imputed to us freely when we rest in Him and receive Him by faith

Truly, all that is in Jesus Christ, that is to say, all the righteousness and perfection (in Him there was no sin and moreover He has fulfilled all the righteousness of the Law), is placed to our account and gifted to us as if it were our own, provided that we embrace Him by faith.

-Theodore Beza, “Faith and Justification”

John Robbins: The doctrine of Christ's perfect, extrinsic, objective, imputed righteousness--forensic justification--ended 1,000 years of stagnation

For a thousand years, because of the church's doctrine of justification as an internal grace rather than the objective, external, legal declaration of a sinner's innocence by God, men had looked inside themselves for the grace that merited salvation. The more devout retreated to monasteries and convents to find their salvation in their interior lives. Some sat on poles, some beat their bodies bloody, and some made pilgrimages to "holy" places. The church had lost the message of the Gospel, that men are saved by a righteousness wholly outside of themselves—the righteousness of Christ. By his perfect life, innocent and substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection, Christ had fulfilled the demands of God's law on behalf of all who believed in him. It is to Christ that one must look for salvation, said Luther, not inside oneself. Once the religious subjectivism of the medieval church was eliminated in Protestant countries, the energy consumed by desperately seeking and earning salvation was turned outward, and a thousand years of intellectual, political, social, economic, and religious stagnation ended.

God is inflexibly just, and His law makes inexorable demands that Christ satisfied

In my studies of justification and atonement over the past few months, I have come to the following summarizing conclusion: We must take the highest and most exalted view of God's glorious, holy character, and His perfect, eternal, immutable Law. Our understanding of every area of life--economics and history, no less than soteriology and ecclesiology--must begin with the assumption that God is absolutely sovereign over every square inch of reality, and His Word is sufficient for all areas of life and thought.

We exalt Christ, the cross, and the Gospel, when we affirm that God's Law-Word makes demands on every speck of our existence--physical and material, as well as spiritual and intellectual. God is sovereign over all individuals and entire nations, no less than over churches and families. Furthermore, we are utterly incapable of rendering satisfaction to His requirements of perfect, perpetual, and personal obedience in every word, thought, deed, and motive. We must utterly renounce all confidence in ourselves and place all faith alone in the person and work of Christ alone, the very God of very God and very man of very man: His work of active obedience secures a perfect righteousness that is imputed to us, the spotless garment in which we must be clothed, as the ground of our acceptance with God; through His passive obedience, our sins are reckoned to Christ at God's sovereign tribunal, and Christ has paid the penalty for every violation.

"Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:" (Philippians 3:8-9).

"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Romans 10:10).

Christ has removed our guilt, or liability to punishment that accrues to our violations of God's Law; He has appeased God's wrath through the provision of the Father's great love in sending His Son to drink down every drop of divine justice; He has reconciled us to God by bearing our sins in His own body; and He has redeemed us out of bondage to sin, condemnation, Satan, the world, and death. Christ alone satisfies God's righteous standards through His penal substitutionary atonement, as the Father did not spare Him so that He could spare us.

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is now seated at God's right hand, ruling as the Prince of the kings of the earth, and making intercession day-by-day as the Advocate for His people. Having performed His priestly function of offering Himself to God as a perfect, spotless sacrifice of infinite value when He shed His own blood and died for us, Christ rose again to ascend into glory and reign as the exalted Victor over history and throughout all eternity.

"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:9-11).

"And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (Revelation 1:5-6).

Lyrics: The spotless robe of Christ's righteousness

“AND CAN IT BE”
(CHARLES WESLEY)
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine!
Alive in him, my living head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown through Christ my own.

“THE SOLID ROCK”
(EDWARD MOTE)
When he shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in him be found,
Dressed in his righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

“WE TRUST IN YOU, OUR SHIELD”
(EDITH CHERRY)
We trust in you, O Captain of salvation—
In your dear name, all other names above:
Jesus our righteousness, our sure foundation,
Our prince of glory and our king of love.

“O MYSTERY OF LOVE DIVINE”
(THOMAS GILL)
Our load of sin and misery
Didst thou, the Sinless, bear?
Thy spotless robe of purity
Do we the sinners wear?

“THY WORKS, NOT MINE, O CHRIST”
(ISAAC WATTS)
Thy righteousness, O Christ,
Alone can cover me:
No righteousness avails
Save that which is of thee.

“BEFORE THE THRONE OF GOD”
(CHARITIE LEES SMITH BANCROFT)
Behold Him there, the Risen Lamb
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am . . .

“I WILL GLORY IN MY REDEEMER”
(STEVE AND VIKKI COOK)
I will glory in my Redeemer
Who crushed the power of sin and death;
My only Savior before the holy Judge,
The Lamb Who is my righteousness.

“KNOWING YOU”
(GRAHAM KENDRICK)
Knowing you, Jesus,
Knowing you, there is no greater thing.
You’re my all, you’re the best,
You’re my joy, my righteousness
And I love you, Lord.

-Cited by John Piper, “Counted Righteous in Christ” (p. 36-37)

J. Gresham Machen on active obedience

"If Christ had merely paid the penalty of sin for us and had done nothing more we should be at best back in the situation in which Adam found himself where God placed him under the covenant of works. In other words, if Christ only paid the penalty for our sins through his passive sufferings, then we are merely transported back to the Garden of Eden.

“That covenant of works was a probation. If Adam kept the law of God for a certain period, he was to have eternal life. If he disobeyed he was to have death. Well, he disobeyed and the penalty of death was inflicted on him and his posterity. Then Christ by His death on the cross paid that penalty for those whom God had chosen.

“Well and good. But if that were all that Christ did for us, do you not see that we should be back in just the situation in which Adam was before he sinned? The penalty of his sinning would have been removed from us because it had all been paid by Christ. But for the future the attainment of eternal life would have been dependent upon our perfect obedience to the law of God. We should simply have been back in the probation again.

“Here we begin to understand why Jesus' passive obedience is not enough - if divorced from his active obedience. The passive sufferings of Christ discharged the enormous debt we owe, due to our sins and the sin of Adam. In effect, Jesus' passive obedience alone would bring our account from hopelessly overdrawn back to a zero balance - our debt would be retired. But having our debt retired and our sins forgiven does not get us into heaven; it simply returns us to the starting point. More must be done if we are to gain heaven. Righteousness must be completely fulfilled, either by us or by a representative acting on our behalf.

"Moreover, we should have been back in that probation in a very much less hopeful way than that in which Adam was originally placed in it. Everything was in Adam's favour when he was placed in the probation. He had been created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. He had been created positively good. Yet despite all that, he fell. How much more likely would we be to fall - nay, how certain to fall - if all that Christ had done for us were merely to remove from us the guilt of past sin, leaving it then to our own efforts to win the reward which God has pronounced upon perfect obedience.

"That is the reason why those who have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ are in a far more blessed condition than was Adam before he fell. Adam before he fell was righteous in the sight of God, but he was still under the possibility of becoming unrighteous. Those who have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ not only are righteous in the sight of God but they are beyond the possibility of becoming unrighteous. In their case, the probation is over. It is not over because they have stood it successfully. It is not over because they have themselves earned the reward of assured blessedness which God promised on condition of perfect obedience. But it is over because Christ has stood it for them; it is over because Christ has merited for them the reward by His perfect obedience to God's law.

“Do you see? Christ has passed the test. He has earned the reward. Heaven has been secured by his perfect obedience to God's law. And he did not do all this for himself as if he needed to earn heaven for himself. He did all this for his people - even for you, O believer! On your behalf, he actively obeyed, thereby saving you and placing you beyond the possibility of ever becoming unrighteous again. Your status is secured eternally - what a great hope!"

–Dr. J. Gresham Machen

John Samson: We must be counted perfectly righteous to enter God's holy presence

DOUBLE IMPUTATION - If Christ had merely paid the penalty for our sins, our debt to God would have been cancelled, and no punishment would be due to us, thank God! But that is not nearly enough to gain an entry into heaven. That would simply remove the outstanding debt we owed to God and bring us to zero... and zero is simply not enough. Jesus said, "Unless your righteousness (positive) exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall in no way enter the kingdom of God." (Matt. 5:20)

We as sinners not only need the removal of the negative (our sin) but the presence of the positive... full and complete righteousness to be able to stand before a holy God just in His sight. So not only were our sins imputed to Christ and He bore their full punishment for us on the cross, but positively, the righteousness of Christ was imputed to us. The punishment due to us because of our sin came upon Him, and the pleasure of God due to Jesus' complete obedience to every jot and tittle of the law, came upon us. The very righteousness of Jesus Christ is the righteousness imputed to us by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone. This righteousness is one that has perfectly fulfilled the entire demands of the law of God. –John Samson, "The Active Obedience of Christ - No Hope Without It!"

John Gill: Christ's active and passive obedience secure eternal life and an escape from the wrath to come

The complete justification of God's people, is brought about by the death of Christ: justification is sometimes ascribed to the obedience of Christ; by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Rom. 5:19), and sometimes to the blood of Christ, being now justified by his blood, verse 9. And both are concerned in justification: the one is what is commonly called his active obedience; the other his passive obedience; and both together, with the holiness of his nature; are imputed for justification: his righteousness entitles to life; and his blood, his sufferings, and death, secure from wrath to come; and; therefore, it may well be said, with a view to Christ's dying for his people, who is he that condemneth? (John Gill, Who Shall Lay Anything to the Charge of God's Elect?)

Theodore Beza: Christ has satisfied God's justice -- penal and preceptive -- once and for all, silencing the railings of the accuser

You say, Satan, that God is perfectly righteous and the Avenger of all iniquity. -- I confess it; but I add another property of His righteousness which you have left aside: since He is righteous, He is satisfied with having been paid once. You say next that I have infinite iniquities which deserve eternal death. -- I confess it; but I add what you have maliciously omitted: the iniquities which are in me have been very amply avenged and punished in Jesus Christ who has borne the judgment of God in my place (Rom 3:25; 1 Pet 2:24). That is why I come to a conclusion quite different from yours. Since God is righteous (Rom 3:26) and does not demand payment twice, since Jesus Christ, God and man (2 Cor. 5:19), has satisfied by infinite obedience (Rom 5:19; Phil 2:8) the infinite majesty of God (Rom 8:33), it follows that my iniquities can no longer bring me to ruin (Col. 2:14); they are already blotted out and washed out of my account by the blood of Jesus Christ who was made a curse for me (Gal 3:13), and who righteous, died for the unrighteous (1 Pet 2:24).

... Here is the second assault that Satan can raise against us on account of our unworthiness: It is not sufficient to have no sin, or to have satisfied for sins. But more is necessary; that man should fulfil all the Law, that is to say, that he love God perfectly and his neighbour as himself (Deut. 17:26; Gal 3:10-12; Matt 22:3740). Bring therefore this righteousness, Satan will say to our poor conscience, or know well that you cannot escape the wrath and curse of God.

Now, against this assault, what will all men profit us except Christ alone? For it is a question of perfect obedience which is never found in any save in Jesus Christ alone. Let us learn therefore here to appropriate to ourselves once more, by faith, another treasure of Jesus Christ: His righteousness. We know that it is He who has fulfilled all righteousness (Matt 3:15: Phil 2:8; Is 53:11). He has given a perfect obedience and love to God His Father, and has perfectly loved His enemies (Rom 5:6-10) as far as being made a curse for them, as St. Paul says (Gal 3:13); that is to say, as far as bearing, for them, the judgment of the wrath of God (Col. 1:22; 2 Cor. 5:21). Thus, being clothed with this perfect righteousness which is given to us through faith, as if it were properly our own (Eph. 1:7-8), we can be acceptable to God (John 1:12; Rom 8:17), as brothers and co-heirs of Jesus Christ.

On this point, Satan must of necessity close his mouth, provided we have the faith to receive Jesus Christ and all the benefits He possesses in order to communicate them to those who believe in Him (Rom 8:33).

(Theodore Beza, “Faith and Justification”)

Spurgeon: Christ alone is our righteousness

MAN by the Fall sustained an infinite loss in the matter of righteousness. He suffered the loss of a righteous nature and then a two-fold loss of legal righteousness in the sight of God. Man sinned. He was therefore no longer innocent of transgression. Man did not keep the command. He therefore was guilty of the sin of omission. In that which he committed and in that which he omitted, his original character for uprightness was completely wrecked. Jesus Christ came to undo the mischief of the Fall for His people. So far as their sin concerned their breach of the command—He has removed by His precious blood.

His agony and bloody sweat have forever taken away the consequences of sin from believers, seeing Christ did by His one sacrifice bear the penalty of that sin in His flesh. He, His own self, bare our sins in His own body on the tree. Still it is not enough for a man to be pardoned. He, of course, is then in the eye of God without sin. But it was required of man that he should actually keep the command. It was not enough that he did not break it or that he is regarded through the blood as though he did not break it. He must keep it—he must continue in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them.

How is this necessity supplied? Man must have a righteousness or God cannot accept him. Man must have a perfect obedience or else God cannot reward him. Should He give Heaven to a soul that has not perfectly kept the Law? That were to give the reward where the service is not done and that before God would be an act which might impeach His justice. Where, then, is the righteousness with which the pardoned man shall be completely covered, so that God can regard him as having kept the Law and reward him for so doing? Surely, my Brethren, none of you are so drunk as to think that this righteousness can be worked out by yourselves.

... We, therefore, assert—believing that Scripture fully warrants us—that the life of Christ constitutes the righteousness in which His people are to be clothed. His death washed away their sins. His life covered them from head to foot. His death was the Sacrifice to God. His life was the gift to man by which man satisfies the demands of the Law. Herein the Law is honored and the soul is accepted. I find that many young Christians who are very clear about being saved by the merits of Christ’s death, do not seem to understand the merits of His life.

... He completed the work of obedience in His life and said to His Father, “I have finished the work which You gave me to do.” Then He completed the work of atonement in His death and knowing that all things were accomplished, He cried, “It is finished.”

... Christ in His life was so righteous that we may say of the life, taken as a whole, that it is righteousness itself. Christ is the Law incarnate. Understand me, He lived out the Law of God to the very full and while you see God’s precepts written in fire on Sinai’s brow, you see them written in flesh in the Person of Christ—

“My dear Redeemer and my Lord,
I read my duty in Your Word,
But in Your life the Law appears
Drawn out in living characters.”

... He carried out the Law, then, I say to the very letter. He spelt out its mystic syllables and verily He magnified it and made it honorable. He loved the Lord His God, with all His heart and soul and mind and He loved His neighbors as Himself. Jesus Christ was righteousness impersonated. “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” He might well say. One thousand eight hundred years have passed since then and blasphemy itself has not been able to charge Him with a fault.

... You will now observe that there is a most precious doctrine unfolded in this title of our Lord and Savior. I think we may take it thus—When we believe in Christ by faith we receive our justification. As the merit of His blood takes away our sin so the merit of His obedience is imputed to us for righteousness. We are considered, as soon as we believe, as though the works of Christ were our works.

-C.H.Spurgeon, “The Lord Our Righteousness”

William Cunningham: Arminians and Romanists both deny the biblical doctrine of substitution and satisfaction by Christ

“Papists unite with Arminians in denying the necessity of a perfect righteousness, as the ground or basis of God’s act in accepting men’s persons, and giving them a right and title to heaven … As the Scriptures indicate that a perfect righteousness is necessary, as the ground or basis of our acceptance and admission to a right to life, as well as a full satisfaction as the ground or basis of our forgiveness or exemption from punishment, so they set before us such a perfect righteousness as available for us, and actually benefiting us, in the obedience which Christ, as our surety, rendered to all the requirements of the law.” (William Cunningham, "Historical Theology," vol. II, pp. 49, 51; quoted in a compilation by Lee Irons)

John Otis on WCF XI.1

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XI, Section 1: Of Justification, states:

Those whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth;(a) not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness, but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them,(b) they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.(c)

(a) Rom. 8:30; Rom. 3:24.
(b) Rom. 4:5, 6, 7, 8; II Cor. 5:19, 21; Rom. 3:22, 24, 25, 27, 28; Tit. 3:5, 7; Eph. 1:7; Jer. 23:6; I Cor. 1:30, 31; Rom. 5:17, 18, 19.
(c) Acts 10:43; Gal. 2:16; Phil. 3:19; Acts 13:38, 39; Eph. 2:7, 8.

"It is quite apparent that justification does not infuse righteousness or obedience into men. Justification pardons men of their sins. Men who are justified are declared righteous, not made righteous inwardly. The righteousness that is given to them is the righteousness of Christ, freely bestowed. The Confessional statement expressly states that the righteousness that men possess is not rooted in faith itself or in any kind of evangelical obedience. The obedience that justified men possess is said to be the obedience and satisfaction of Christ that is credited to their account." (John Otis, Danger in the Camp: An Analysis and Refutation of the Heresies of the Federal Vision, p. 41.)

James Buchanan: Christ's righteousness is the only and all sufficient righteousness, on the grounds of which we can be justified before God

That righteousness [which is the ground of a sinner's Justification] is called in Scripture "the righteousness of God"; "the righteousness of Christ"; the "righteousness of One"; "the obedience of One"; the "free gift unto justification of life"; "the righteousness which is of" or "by" or "through faith"; "the righteousness of God without the law"; and "the righteousness which God imputes without works."

It will be found that, while these various expressions are descriptive of its different aspects and relations, they are all employed with reference to the same righteousness -- that there is one righteousness in which they all find their common center, as so many distinct rays converging towards the same focus, while each retains its distinctive meaning -- and that there is no other righteousness to which they can all be applied or in which they can find their adequate explanation.

... By His [Christ's] vicarious sufferings and obedience, He fulfilled the Law both in its precept and its penalty and is now said to be 'the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,' while His righteousness is identified with 'the righteousness of God,' to which the unbelieving Jews refused to 'submit themselves' and contrasted with 'their own righteousness' which they 'went about to establish,' 'as it were by the works of the law' (Rom 10:3-4)."

-Dr. James Buchanan, "The Immediate and Only Ground of Justification: The Imputed Righteousness of Christ"

Matthew Henry on Galatians 5:4

"Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace" (Galatians 5:4).

"All those who seek to be justified by the law do thereby render Christ of no effect to them. By building their hopes on the works of the law, they forfeit all their hopes from him; for he will not be the Saviour of any who will not own and rely upon him as their only Saviour." (Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Galatians 5:4.)

Archibald Alexander: Suffering the penalty is only half the requirement for justification, and Christ satisfied all

To suppose that suffering the penalty is an equivalent for obedience, and entitles to the same rewards is extremely absurd. It would be to suppose that Jehovah who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity, would be as well pleased with sin, accompanied with its due punishment, as with perfect obedience to his own most holy law. The enduring a penalty in his own person, or by another, never can entitle any one to any thing else than exemption from that which he has already endured. …

If a surety would secure the inheritance for him, he must obey the law in his stead, as well as suffer its penalty. Hence it appears evident, that justification includes more than merely the remission of sins, or it would be no justification; and although pardon is included in justification; yet the transaction receives this denomination not from the forgiveness of sin, but from the imputation of righteousness, by which the believer is constituted righteous; and by which a title to eternal life is procured for him by the merit of his surety.

Justification, therefore, is not merely the forgiveness of sin, but in addition to this, a declaration that the justified person has a right to the blessings promised. He not only obtains deliverance from the sentence of condemnation, but instantly is constituted an heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ in the heavenly inheritance.

-Archibald Alexander, “A Treatise on Justification by Faith”

A.W. Pink: Transgressing the Law and paying the penalty does not remove the positive obligation for perfect righteousness

The one who was justified upon his believing sustained a twofold relation unto God: first, he was a responsible creature, born under the law; second, he was a criminal, having transgressed that law—though his criminality has not canceled his obligation to obey the law any more than a man who recklessly squanders his money is no longer due to pay his debts. Consequently, justification consists of two parts, namely, an acquittal from guilt, or the condemnation of the law (deliverance from Hell), and the receiving him into God’s favour, on the sentence of the law’s approval (a legal title to Heaven). ... Against this it has been objected, "The law requires no man to obey and die too." To which we reply in the language of J. Hervey (1750), "But did it not require a transgressor to obey and die? If not, then transgression robs the law of its right, and vacates all obligation to obedience. … It is not sufficient that the believer stand before God with no sins upon him—that is merely negative. The holiness of God requires a positive righteousness to our account—that His Law be perfectly kept. But we are unable to keep it, therefore our Sponsor fulfilled it for us.” –A.W. Pink, “Justification” (ch. 5)

Shedd and Hodge: Christ satsified the penalty and precept of the Law for His people

“But the law requires present and perfect obedience, as well as satisfaction for past disobedience. The law is not completely fulfilled by the endurance of penalty only. It must also be obeyed Christ both endured the penalty due to man for disobedience, and perfectly obeyed the law for him; so that He was a vicarious substitute in reference to both the precept and the penalty of the law. By his active obedience He obeyed the law, and by his passive obedience He endured the penalty. In this way his vicarious work is complete.” –William Shedd, "History of Christian Doctrine," quoted by Charles Hodge in “Systematic Theology,” vol. 3

“As Christ obeyed in suffering, his sufferings were as much a part of his obedience as his observance of the precepts of the law. The Scriptures do not expressly make this distinction, as they include everything that Christ did for our redemption under the term righteousness or obedience. The distinction becomes important only when it is denied that his moral obedience is any part of the righteousness for which the believer is justified, or that his whole work in making satisfaction consisted in expiation or bearing the penalty of the law. This is contrary to Scripture, and vitiates the doctrine of justification as presented in the Bible.” –Charles Hodge in “Systematic Theology,” vol. 3

"Christ sustained no other relation to the law, except so far as voluntarily assumed, than that which God himself sustains. But God is not under the law. He is Himself the primal, immutable, and infinitely perfect law to all rational creatures. Christ’s subjection to the law therefore, was as voluntary as his submitting to the death of the cross. As He did not die for Himself, so neither did He obey for Himself. In both forms of his obedience He acted for us, as our representative and substitute, that through his righteousness many might be made righteous." –Charles Hodge in “Systematic Theology,” vol. 3

Charles Hodge: Justification is objective and forensic because it is grounded in extrinsic, imputed righteousness

The nature of justification is determined by its ground. This indeed is an anticipation of another part of the subject, but it is in point here. If the Bible teaches that the ground of justification, the reason why God remits to us the penalty of the law and accepts us as righteous in his sight, is something out of ourselves, something done for us, and not what we do or experience, then it of necessity follows that justification is not subjective. It does not consist in the infusion of righteousness, or in making the person justified personally holy. If the “formal cause” of our justification be our goodness; then we are justified for what we are. The Bible, however, teaches that no man living can be justified for what he is. He is condemned for what he is and for what he does. He is justified for what Christ has done for him. (Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. III)

J.I. Packer: The penal substitutionary view of the atonement is the foundation of Christ's righteousness imputed to the believer in justification

"Salvation in the Bible is by substitution and exchange: the imputing of men’s sins to Christ, and the imputing of Christ’s righteousness to sinners. By this means, the law, and the God whose law it is, are satisfied, and the guilty are justly declare immune from punishment. Justice is done, and mercy is made triumphant in the doing of it. The imputing of righteousness to sinners in justification, and the imputing of their sins to Christ on Calvary, thus belong together; and if, in the manner of so much modern Protestantism, the penal interpretation of the Cross is rejected, then there is no ground on which the imputing of righteousness can rest." (J.I. Packer, Introductory Essay in James Buchanan’s “Justification,” published by Banner of Truth, p. xiii)