Justification by faith alone, apart from the works of the law, is the central truth of the Reformation, as championed by figures like Martin Luther and William Tyndall. This doctrine, rooted in passages like Romans 3:21-27 and Galatians 2:16, asserts that God declares a sinner righteous not based on human merit but through the imputed righteousness of Christ. While faith is the channel through which Christ's merits are appropriated, it is not the ground of salvation; rather, it is a gift from God that leads to a transformed life evidenced by good works, as illustrated by Abraham's faith and obedience. Ultimately, justification is a work of God, grounded in Christ's blood and active obedience, applied by the Spirit, and proven by works, securing peace with God and eternal life.
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Well, this is the last message I plan on bringing on the great subject of justification. And justification is the glorious doctrine of the Reformation. It is that truth that Martin Luther understood. And, of course, when he understood that we are justified by faith, apart from the works of the law, apart from any works, It was this that stirred his soul that enabled him to put the ninety-five theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church and their glorious Reformation was on.
And of course, in the glorious Reformation it brought other men to the forefront who taught the same men like Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin. and especially the man who desired to have the scriptures written that and I'm thinking of William Tyndall who had the scriptures written and it was his desire that every palaman in England could be able to read the wondrous word of God and if you've ever read or if you get an opportunity to read the little biography of William Tyndall called God's Outlaw.
It's worth reading. If you understand what some of these, the price that some of these dear brethren paid in order that you and I can have the Word of God in our language when they were opposed by the religious leaders and by others, it is hard to imagine the activity of Satan in trying to hinder the word of God from getting in the hands of the common people. But there's a verse in Scripture that always thrills my soul. It's found in the ministry of our Lord the first time that he took the scroll of the law there in the synagogue in Nazareth and he used the word, the poor, had the gospel preached to them.
And putting the gospel in the hands of the poor results in blessing from God let us never forget the poor and when they had the Jerusalem conference in Acts chapter fifteen and the subject was over justification by faith really are we saved by faith or are we saved by faith plus something else and there it was plus circumcision plus the works of the law and they came to the conclusion we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we Jews shall be saved even as they Gentiles.
Verse eleven of the fifteenth chapter of the Acts and what a blessing it is to realize these truths that have come down through the years and one of the things we should praise God for are for men who stood at times in history when it really counted. We should be thanking God for Martin Luther, not his God who raised him up. We should thank God for Zwingli and Menna Simons and some of the Anabaptists who diligently labored. We think of Nicholas Ludwig, I had to remember that middle name of his, Zinzendorf, among the Moravians.
what a work he did and some of these others we should thank God that they stood at crucial times in the history of the church we want to turn tonight and have a Bible reading of a number of verses beginning at Romans chapter three and verse twenty one I trust you have a page of notes tonight and I don't know if these notes help you but They keep me from going out on a lot of limbs, I'll tell you that. But they have been, they're available. When I taught this, not to, oh, a few years back in a Bible college, they asked me to come in and teach the doctrine of justification.
I used a different set of notes than I've given you. I like these much better than what I used then. But nevertheless, We begin our reading tonight at verse twenty one of Romans three. And we read, But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Verse twenty seven. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? A works? No. But by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude. that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Chapter four, verse three. For what sayeth the scripture? Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. That scripture there is Genesis chapter fifteen and verse six that he is quoting. Next verse. Now to him that worketh is a reward not reckoned of grace but of debt but to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness the book of Galatians chapter two Galatians chapter two and verse sixteen where we read knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.
Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Now, when you go through this section of Galatians, where we have the real argument in the New Testament between law and grace. I look at the epistle to the Galatians as Romans in miniature because Galatians was written first to deal with the subject of law and grace.
And then later on Paul wrote from Corinth to the church at Rome which he had not yet visited. So it is good to keep these things in mind. However, when you read the little word we, the pronoun we in Galatians chapter two, the we there has reference to we believing Jews in relation, in contrast to believing Gentiles. The same is true when you come to the fifteenth chapter of the Acts where you have the Jerusalem conference.
And that verse I quoted previously, we believe, that's we Jews, Peter is speaking. We believe, or should I say James is speaking, and he says, Simeon hath declared, Peter hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles. He says, we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, We Jews shall be saved even as they Gentiles. See, under the Old Testament it was just the opposite. Under the law covenant it meant a Gentile had to become a Jew in order to be saved.
He had to come under the umbrella of the covenant nation and the covenant nation was the nation of Israel. Never forget that. For you remember that great confession of Ruth the Moabitis? Ruth was an outsider totally. She was under the curse of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, I'm trying to think of the chapter. where it says, A Moabite shall not enter into the congregation unto the tenth generation, yet even forever. How did she get in?
She got in because she was redeemed by the mighty Redeemer, a man by the name of Boaz, who was a picture of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. But in coming in, she made the confession And this is what is important. Thy people shall be my people. Who were those people? The people of the covenant. And thy God shall be my God. Her God was no longer the gods of the Moabites, to whom Naomi told her to go back and serve those gods. Her God was the God of the Hebrews.
And the God of the Hebrews was Yahweh, Jehovah, Jehovah who redeems his people. And you have a beautiful illustration here in the book of Galatians in verse sixteen. Notice verse twenty-one of Galatians two. I do not frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Chapter three of Galatians in verse eleven. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God it is evident for the just shall live by faith.
May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's pray together. Our Father, in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that salvation is by grace alone. through faith alone, in Christ alone, so that no man can glory, for he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. And it is this knowledge that it is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, that gives us joy unspeakable and full of glory and produces peace that passes understanding to the receiver of this glorious gift.
We thank you. Open our understanding. Give us a time of rejoicing tonight in our own souls as we meditate upon what our blessed Lord has done for us in justifying us and in making us His own. Receive our thanks and Bless this meeting tonight for Jesus' sake. Amen. Now, we must never keep in mind, as we have in the introduction on our paper, we must ever keep in mind the fact that it is God who declares a believing sinner righteous. The believing sinner or any sinner can say whatever he likes about himself.
But that doesn't mean much. But what God says means everything. And God says, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies. Therefore, it is God who declares the believing sinner righteous. And last Sunday night, we looked at that happy portion in Romans chapter eight, from verse fourteen on, where it speaks of what we are made in Christ. That through Christ we are adopted as sons. and as sons now we're awaiting the adoption the public adoption when we shall be manifested as sons of God for that we are as we read in first John chapter three and our adoption into the family of God is the proof that we have been justified for remember there are two things that we noted at the end of page Eight last week.
I don't have page eight with me. But we noted two things that are sure to the child of God. Number one, we are heirs of God. And that's what adoption gives us. It gives us sonship that gives us an inheritance. We have an inheritance in Christ. We're sure of that. And the second thing we're sure of is the truth of eternal life. Eternal life is ours in Christ. And we are assured of eternal life with God because we've been justified as if we were in glory already for a thousand years.
Now when we speak about justification, it is usually the truth of justification by faith that is meant. Now, this is a term that is mostly used when referring to justification. And that's what we want to consider tonight. The relation of faith to justification. What does it mean? Well, notice first. Scripture never says that we are justified on account of our faith. It never says that. In other words... This means that faith is never represented as the ground of our justification.
If it did, faith would have to be regarded as a meritorious work of man. And faith is not regarded in the Word of God as a meritorious work of man. It is referred to as a gift of God. And the Word of God speaks of the gift of faith in Romans chapter five. Now the scriptures that we read tonight refute the idea of ever harboring that a man merits salvation. He never merits it because we are saved by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
Now someone may raise the objection And really two in parenthesis here is an objection. Abraham's faith was reckoned unto him for righteousness. So we read in Romans chapter four and verse three and again in verse nine and again in verse twenty two of Romans chapter four. And if someone comes and says, now wait a minute. Abraham's faith brought him righteousness. you see, but we have to view the whole argument of Scripture. This cannot mean that Abraham's faith was the ground of his righteousness.
You see, faith itself as a work to the place of righteousness or that it would take the place of the righteousness of God in Christ. Faith is simply the channel by which the merits of Christ are appropriated. And there under the stars that we read in the account of Genesis fifteen, Abraham simply believed God. Now what did he believe? He believed what God said, that his seed would be as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand upon the seashore.
And that resulted in the acts of Abraham in time to come. I'd like you to look at Romans four for a moment. For when we get down to verse eighteen, we see what this did in his life. For it says in verse eighteen, Who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations? According to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, He considered not his body not dead when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He staggered not at the promise of God to unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Now, when you read a passage like this, he staggered not at the promise of God to unbelief. The word there, he staggered not. in the original is like being a double-minded man. And James says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. I don't know if you've ever met a double-minded man, a person who can't make up their mind, but Abraham was a kind of a man who could. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.
Now, suppose on the seventh game of the World Series, There are two teams. It's a ninth inning. The bases are loaded. The score is even. Each team has scored three runs. There are two outs. The bases are loaded. And the man is told by the manager to lay down a bunk toward first base. He does. The man who's on third comes rushing home. The man on first rushes in, scoops up a bun and throws it to the catcher, and the catcher tags the man coming in.
Now all the eyes are on that man with a little blue cap, the umpire. And suppose he comes out and he scratches his head, takes his hat off and says, Boy, this is a puffy. Part of me wants to say he's safe. Another part of me was to say, he's out. Do you think that man would ever get out of the ballpark alive? I don't. Not in our society. He'd never get... A double-minded man is unstable in all these ways. And that's how it is, you see.
That's how it is. Abraham was not a double-minded man. He... believed God. And it was God who gave him the faith to believe. In other words, see in your paper, faith then is equivalent to the contents of faith being justified by God. There is no contradiction between Romans four and James two. Now, in James chapter two, If someone comes to you and says, Now I believe that a person is justified by works, what do you say to them?
Do you know James chapter two well enough to answer the person who says that? Notice verse fourteen of James chapter two. For it says, What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he has faith, and have not works. Can faith save him? And then he goes on to show that and prove from his standpoint that a man is justified by works. Martin Luther, we are told, got so excited he called with this the second chapter of James that he called it the book of James an epistle of straw.
because he rejoiced in Romans four but he couldn't reconcile it with James chapter two now I believe that in James chapter two the words if a man say not if God says but if a man say and how can another person say that you're saved only as they see your works you can say anything you want to about yourself You see, now I was saved when I was in high school, but I didn't live that way. And my history teacher was a believer. And she said to me one day, she said, Phil, your life speaks so loud I can't hear what you say.
And I want to tell you that hurt. But it was true. And the only way you can tell a person he saved is by their life. So here in James II, where James says this, he then does the very thing Paul did in Romans four. He uses Abraham as an example. Now I want you to look over here at the example, beginning in verse twenty-one of James II. He says, Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Now, aside of that verse, write in your Bible, Genesis twenty-two.
For that's the chapter that he offers Isaac on the altar, and from which he received Isaac in a figure, Genesis chapter twenty-two. So in verse twenty-two we read, Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect, and the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Aside of that verse, write Genesis fifteen six. When did Abraham believe God?
Oh, about twenty years before. When did he offer Isaac? Well, twenty years after he believed God. So you see, Abraham was justified by worse off before man. Before man. You see, he was justified as much in Genesis fifteen as he was in Genesis twenty-two. But you see, Genesis twenty-two proved under testing Genesis twenty-two proved the reality of Genesis fifteen. And here's where a lot fail today.
They fail under test. That's why the Word of God teaches the perseverance of the saints. It's not so much how you begin. It's how you end. It's not failing under test. It is persevering under trial. And this is so important. We'll come back to this when we get to the end of the paper. Let us move on to the ground of faith. The ground of faith is negative. The ground of faith can never be found in any virtue of man or in man's good works.
It couldn't be found in Abraham, for Abraham was an idolater. Genesis chapter twenty, not Genesis, but Joshua chapter twenty-four and verse two. He was an idolater. And notice it is impossible for man's good works to merit or constitute the ground of his justification. It's impossible for we are justified apart from works. But notice a positive side. The positive side of justification is found in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to the sinner when he believes on Christ.
Romans three, verse twenty four, being justified freely by his grace. And one Lord's day morning at the Lord's Supper. Our brother Man pointed out, that the word translated freely there in Romans chapter three verse twenty four is the same word without a cause. Being justified without a cause in us. They condemn Christ without a cause. Same word translated freely. Being justified freely by His grace.
Man adds nothing to the justifying work of our blessed Lord. Now, Christ being made a curse for us, Galatians three, verse thirteen, becomes the ground for the forgiveness of sins. In justification, there are two things. Number one, there's a forgiveness of sins. and number two there's a righteousness imputed to the sinner these two things make up justification so we find that our blessed Lord being made a curse for us is the ground for the removal of our sins just as in Leviticus on the day of atonement the scapegoat carrying the sins of the people into the wilderness to a land uninhabited is what pictures Christ being made a curse for us and being the victim
with all our sin laid upon him. We sing him number one hundred twenty. occasionally at the Lord's Supper. And the third verse, All my sins were laid upon him. Jesus bore them on the tree. God who knew them laid them on him. And believing I am free. The forgiveness of sins. And there is no removal of sin any other way than by divine judgment. There is only one remedy for sin. Not two. Only one remedy for sin, and that's judgment.
That's the remedy for sin. Either the sinner is judged and condemned forever, or the substitute is judged and condemned forever, or condemned because of His perfectness and His infiniteness. He alone... could bear the judgment of our sin and come through it victorious. It's impossible for the sinner to do it. It will take eternity in the lake of fire, and eternity never ends.
This is the awfulness of a lost soul. This is a thing that is not understood by those who deny eternal punishment. It is the awesomeness of the righteous, holy judgment of God. And this is what causes the child of God who understands this truth to rejoice in his own soul that he'll never experience the awesome judgment. for the guilt of each sin.
His sins are gone. There's a quartet song that used to be sung. I haven't heard it for a long time. You ask me why I'm happy, and I'll just tell you why, because my sins are gone. They're underneath the blood on the cross of Calvary, as far removed as darkness is from dawn. In the sea of God's forgetfulness, that's good enough for me. Praise God, my sins are gone. Oh, friend, can you say that tonight and rejoice in the saying of it because it's a genuine reality?
But now notice, see in the positive side of it. We not only have the removal of our sin, but we have Christ's active obedience. and through the active obedience of our Lord as he lived as a man among men. He earned and he merits the gifts of grace which include eternal life and that becomes the ground of our righteousness and it becomes the ground of our sonship as we studied last week in Romans chapter eight. His active obedience before God And remember, when we talk about his active obedience, our Lord showed forth his obedience to God here in the scene where men have failed.
Every man failed. Adam failed. And then God started a new, as it were, with Noah. And it didn't take long for Noah to fail. And then he started with a nation of Israel. and I just finished reading Joshua yesterday and it amazed me when you come to the last chapter of the book of Joshua in the chapter where Joshua says if you want to serve the gods on the other side of the river the gods of the Emirates or the gods of the land in which you now dwell he said as for me and my house we will serve the Lord time and again Israel said in the book of Deuteronomy in the book of Joshua We will serve the Lord and we will not serve other gods.
How long did that last? It didn't last long. Everyone a failure. You can't find any that hasn't failed. so when you read Romans three twenty three for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God it's a lot more than just patting each other on the back and smiling and saying aren't we all sinners it's a lot more than that it means that we are a total failure before a holy God and God demands perfection absolute perfection and this is what our blessed Lord rendered to him as a man and under worse circumstances than you and I have ever been in.
I never have experienced going without food for forty days. Have you? Have you ever gone without food for forty days and then had the enemy come and say to you, aren't you the Son of God? What are you doing going hungry? It's like a millionaire who's living in rags. And the person comes up to him and says, What are you dressed like that for? You can have the best. Why not have it? But our Lord said, Man shall not live by bread alone.
The tempter. Satan is revealed as he really is when you study the temptations. Our Lord endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself. So we read in the epistle to the Hebrews his active obedience before God. And that active obedience becomes the righteousness that you and I stand in as the children of God. And when we trust Christ as our Savior and we're justified. Not only are our sins gone, but we have a standing in the presence of God as Christ.
That's almost too much, isn't it, to take in, but it's true. No wonder Horatius Bonar wrote the words, The gate is open wide, the new and living way. Tis clear and free and bright, with love and peace and day. Why stand we then without in fear? The blood of Christ invites us near. Notice the principles of justification. There are seven. You'll notice as you go through the New Testament, we are not only justified by faith, but other ways.
First of all, we are justified by God. That means He is a source of our justification. Romans chapter eight, verse thirty. In other words, God has been fully satisfied and He must be in order that justification is possible. God has justified us. We are justified by God. Furthermore, too, we are justified by blood. This is a ground of justification. In other words, God planned for our righteousness and provided righteousness solely through the blood of Jesus Christ. Romans three, verse twenty four, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that He's in Christ Jesus.
Romans five, verse nine. And I'm not, I was ready to quote it, much more than being now justified by His blood. We shall be saved from wrath through him. Here we have the ground of justification. The blood of Christ. Third, we are justified by faith. That's the instrument of justification. Romans five verse one. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And notice, it is apart from works. For no man could ever pay the indebtedness that he is incurred.
For all of us are bankrupt. Remember the parable our Lord told of the two debtors. They were both bankrupt. And if you're bankrupt, it doesn't matter if you owe a nickel or if you owe twenty million. If you can't pay the nickel or if you can't pay the twenty million. Both are bankrupt. Now notice, for we are justified by grace. That is the essence of justification. You see, this is God's unmerited favor. But five, we are justified by the Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit is the agent of justification. First Corinthians six eleven is one of those great verses in the New Testament. It says, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Neither fornicators nor adulterers nor effeminate. What verse did I say? Chapter six and verse eleven. And I've quoted most of it. And it says... and nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Oh, thank God, for that which has separated us from the world once and for all. And you see, what this verse teaches us is this. that when a person is saved there are certain sins that are dropped. A homosexual doesn't continue a homosexual if he's saved. God can save a homo. But I'll tell you this, he doesn't remain one.
Such were some of you. And if he remains one, it's proof that he hasn't been saved. An adulterer. He puts off his adultery. Such were some of you, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. I am totally disgusted with the ideas that are put forth today by the liberals that you can live any way you like as long as you've made your commitment. It doesn't work that way.
The Word of God teaches us, as we're going to see in a moment, and as James taught in James chapter two, that when we're saved, there is a genuine work that follows. And that is not legalism, to demand that the work follows. It is a looking for the power of the gospel in the life that we profess has changed us by divine grace. Now that's number six. We're justified by works. That is the evidence of justification.
This is reference to our justification before men and is the proof of our justification before God. Our works. and that's what James is teaching. Now, we are justified in Christ. This is a position of the justified one. Now, let's notice very quickly, we're justified by God, that is righteousness planned. We are justified by blood, that is righteousness provided. We are justified by faith, that is righteousness procured.
We are justified by grace, that is, righteousness, or the principle by which righteousness operates. We are justified by the Spirit, that's the power of justification. We are justified by works, that is righteousness proved. We are justified by Christ, that is righteousness possessed. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God your life? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? There's no prosecuting attorney because Christ has died.
He's risen from the dead. He's even seated at the right hand of the Father. He also make an intercession for us. In Acts chapter twenty-seven, Paul is on the voyage to Rome. He's in the midst of a storm. And he, when men had given up, the apostle Paul stands for, and he says, Be of good cheers, fellow. Fellas, I believe God. We're all going to get to land. We're going to lose the ship. But we're going to all get to land.
Now you can read about it in Acts twenty seven. Now, when they got to an excited land, we read a statement, and they cast four anchors out of the stern and wished for the day. And there are four anchors that we cast as believers in Christ, as we await the day when we shall see him as he is. Anchor number one.