Video Transcript: Justification by Faith

Justification, talking about such a big word, five syllables long, might sound like a formula for boredom. Justification is among the most important things you or I can possibly know. To show why this is. So let me first asked you a question, and then tell you a story. Here's the question. How can you be right with God? If you had to go before God right now? And he asked, Why should I accept you and let you into heaven? What would you say? That's a question of ultimate importance. How can you be right with God? That's the question. 

Now, here's the story. The story of someone who wrestled with this very question. Martin, was a brilliant young man at age 21. He already had a master's degree, and he was headed for a career in law. But Martin's thoughts were on more than just his career. He often thought of God and Heaven and Hell, he wanted to be right with God and have a place in heaven. But he wasn't sure how. The thought of meeting God terrified him. Martin was part of a church, but his Roman Catholic Church didn't do much to erase his fears. 

One time Martin was walking outdoors. When a thunderstorm came along, the lightning flash, the thunder rumbled, and the rain began to pour down. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck so close to Martin that the impact knocked him down. He cried out, St Aan helped me I will become a monk. He was crying out to St. Ann the mother of the Virgin Mary to be his helper, and he promised that he would enter a monastery and become a monk. You see, Martin's Church taught that the saints could help a person gain favor with God. And the church also taught that if you joined the monastery became a monk you had a better chance of making it to happen. And so unlike many who make promises in a panic and later, forget them, Martin kept his promise, He gave up his career, and he entered a monastery to work on his salvation. There Martin devoted himself to prayer, singing, study, and meditation. He did so well that in less than two years, his superiors selected him to become a priest. But even this did not give Martin peace with God. As he was saying his first mass, he had another crisis during the mass, he found himself reciting the words, we offer unto thee the living the true, the eternal God. And as Martin later told the story, at these words, I was utterly stupefied and terror stricken. I thought to myself, Who am I that I should lift up my eyes or raise my hands to the divine majesty? The angels surround him at his knob, the earth trembles, and shall I, a miserable little pygmy? Say, I want this I asked for that. For I am dust and ashes and full of sin. And I'm speaking to the living, eternal and true God. The young priest was shaken. It took every answer at his power just to stay at the altar long enough to finish saving the mouse. After that, Martin Luther worked even harder to earn God's approval, he prayed even more than the rules of the monastery required. He studied theology for long hours, he got his degree as a doctor of theology. He fasted sometimes going three days in a row without eating a crumb. He went to Confession constantly, in accordance with his Church's teaching, that in order for your sins to be forgiven, you had to confess them to a priest and have the priest absolve you. But Martin Luther knew there had to be some sins he was overlooking. If his salvation depended on his ability to recall every last sin and confess it to the priest, then he was lost. Martin kept searching for peace, frightened him to think of God, so he thought of God's Son, Jesus, but he knew that Jesus would return to judge the world and that frightened him all the more.

He turned his prayers to Jesus mother, Mary, he hoped that Mary might be tender and compassionate and put in a good word for him. It didn't help. He chose 21 Dead saints as his special patrons, Three Saints for each day of the week, and he prayed to them. But that didn't help there. He was a priest, a theologian, a monk, completely devoted to the practice of religion. And yet no matter what Martin Luther tried, it couldn't put him right with God. Then came the discovery. Luther began to study the Bible Book of Romans, and he kept Coming across a phrase that puzzled him the righteousness of God. He took the phrase to mean that God is righteous and act righteously by punishing those who are wicked. That was a terrifying thought. 

Martin wrote, My situation was that although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscious, and I had no confidence that my merit could assuage him. Therefore I did not love adjust and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him. Night and day, says Luther, I pondered, until I saw the connection between the righteousness of God and that statement that the righteous shall live by his faith. Then I grasped that the righteousness of God is the righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith. I felt myself to be reborn, and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning. This passage became to me a gate to heaven. God justifies us through faith. Martin Luther had discovered how to be on good terms with God, not by good deeds, or church rituals or prayers to saints, but by trusting in God's free gift of righteousness. 

In Christ. Luther wrote, If you have a true faith that Christ is your savior, then it wants you have a gracious God for faith leads you in and opens up God's heart and will, that you should see pure grace and overflowing love. What Luther found in the book of Romans, the doctrine of justification by faith transformed his life. It also transformed the life of the church. On October 31/15/17, Luther launched a public protest against church abuses and teachings that were clouding the Bible's message and justification by faith. His protest sparked the great movement known as the Protestant Reformation. 

Now, I mentioned all this, not just as a history lesson, but because each of us needs to face the questions Luther faced, we need to discover the answer Martin Luther discovered in the Bible, and we need to proclaim the gospel of justification by faith. If God asks you, Why should I let you into heaven, and you say, I'm basically a good person, or I've gone through the right rituals, or I've tried my best, you will be lost forever. Your best isn't good enough. In order to be right with a perfectly righteous God, you need something nothing less than perfect righteousness, and you're not perfect, you're a sinner. In order to be right with God. You need to give up on your own qualifications and accept the perfect righteousness of Christ as a gift that God freely credits to those who believe who trust in Jesus. The Bible makes this absolutely clear in Romans 4:5, Romans 4:5-5 says now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his do unto the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. That may be the clearest statement in the whole Bible about justification by faith, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, the wicked, his faith is counted as righteousness. God justifies that word means God gives a right standing a status of being accepted by God and right with Him. And it's done by believing, not by our achieving, it's believing in Jesus, it's faith, not works. That is the key to justification to being right with God. If you're counting on your own goodness to get you into heaven, I guarantee you on the authority of God's word that you'll never get there. In order to be justified, given the right standing by God, you must give up on what you've done, and trust in what Jesus Christ has done. Instead of working to earn God's favor, trust a God who justifies the ungodly, and God will credit your face as righteousness. 

This Gospel of unearned credit of justification by faith isn't a new message. It wasn't new when Martin Luther came upon it almost 500 years ago. Luther found it in the book of Romans written by the Apostle Paul 1500 years before Luther 2000 years before us. And it wasn't even new in the book of Romans. This is how God has always dealt with his people, including even those people Who lived 1000 of years before Jesus came? Even before the New Testament book of Romans was written, even in Old Testament times, righteousness was a matter of unearned credit of faith and not of works. Paul made this discovery in his own life. When he tried to earn salvation by works. Paul's religious fanatics turned him into a hater of Jesus and a killer of Christians. But then Jesus appeared to him. And Paul put his faith in Jesus, and it was made right with God through faith. Then after thinking things through and taking another hard look at the Old Testament scriptures, Paul found that justification by faith had been God's way of salvation all along. Even in Old Testament times. In Romans 4. Paul shows this by looking back at two of the leading figures in Old Testament history, Abraham, the father of God's people who live to 2000 of years before Jesus, and David, the great king, who lived 1000 years before Jesus. First Abraham, Paul says, What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works? He has something to boast about, but not before God? For what does the Scripture say Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness? Did God declare Abraham righteous because Abraham earned it? No, God made some promises to Abraham. Abraham believed those promises of God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Paul then brings out the full significance of this. He says, Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his do, and the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Now a wage, notice here a wage is very different from a gift. When you punch the time clock every morning and put in a hard day's work for your boss. Do you consider your paycheck? A gift? When your boss pays you after hours and hours of effort and labor? Do you say, Ohh!, Thanks, boss for this generous gift? Of course not. It's not a gift. You earned it. You worked hard for it, you deserve it. Your boss is handing you a gift when you've worked hard for him. He owes you that money. Now to the one who works, says Paul, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his do. However, that's not how salvation works. 

The Bible doesn't say, Abraham worked hard, and God gave him credit for the righteousness he had earned. No, it says, Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him, imputed to Him reckoned to him as righteousness. Faith was counted by God as righteousness, and God gave a right standing to Abraham apart from any achievements on Abraham's part, his faith was credited to him as righteousness. He was credited with something he hadn't earned, it was a gift. Abraham's faith is proof says Paul, that to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. But you might wonder, how can Abraham be an example of God justifying the wicked, the ungodly? Wasn't Abraham a great and godly man? Well, keep in mind that before God called him, Abraham was an idol worshiper. And even after he came to know God, Abraham was a sinful man in need of ongoing forgiveness. The Bible tells the story of what happened while Abraham and his wife Sarah, were staying for a time in Egypt. Sara was beautiful. And Abraham was afraid that the king of Egypt might want her and that the king might have him killed in order to get her. Abraham was willing to lie. And to pretend that Sarah wasn't his wife. Abraham was so concerned for his own skin, that he was willing to let another man sleep with her. God kept it from happening, but it certainly wasn't because Abraham was so noble or courageous. 

And if once wasn't bad enough, Abraham did the same thing again later on. This time during a stay in Palestine. He again pretended Sara and he were not married, because he was afraid of the fowl-listing King. Again, Abraham was willing to let his wife become part of the kings heron, and it was only God's intervention that kept it from happening. Now it was this Abraham, Abraham, the former idol worshiper, Abraham the cowardly liar who was willing to let another man have his wife. It was this Abraham, who believed God and was credited with righteousness. Now, according to Romans 4, Abraham is proof that to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

And Abraham isn't the only one to the one who doesn't work but believes in the one who justifies the ungodly applied not just to Abraham but also to David. Paul, it was honestly just as David also speaks of the blessing of the One to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Yes, a right standing with God depended on a perfect record. Teva didn't have a chance. David committed adultery with Bathsheba. He slept with another man's wife. Then David had her husband Uriah killed. David took no action when his daughter Tamar was raped by his son Amnon. But although David was sinful, he admitted his sinfulness. And he trusted in a God who credits righteousness apart from works. Both Abraham and David discovered the very same thing. Righteousness is a matter of unearned credit, the great father of the Hebrew people and the greatest king in the history of the Hebrew people, both discovered this already in the Old Testament, God's people were justified through faith and not works, they found that the Lord didn't count their sins against them, but that instead, he credited to them a righteousness that they have not earned. How could God do this? How could God be a just judge, and still leave the sins of people like Abraham and David and countless others, I'm punished because God had already determined to send his son to pay the just penalty for their sins. 

Paul explained this a bit earlier in Romans, in chapter 3. Paul wrote all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins, it was to show His righteousness at the present time so that he might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So Jesus is the propitiation, who absorbs God's wrath against sin and makes God favorable towards God's people. And so God is just in punishing sin, and at the same time, he can declare sinners to be right with him. Instead of condemning Old Testament believers for their sins, God kept adding their sins to Christ's account, until the day when Jesus would pay the price on the cross. And God was crediting to those Old Testament believers, the righteousness that Jesus would someday earn for them. So you see, God's way of salvation has been the same throughout history. 

For Abraham, 2000 years before Christ, for King David 1000 years before Jesus came. It was a matter of faith, and unearned credit, based on the future work of Christ. For Paul writing, not long after Jesus, death and resurrection, and for us, 2000 years later, it's a matter of faith, and unearned credit based on the completed work of Christ. No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter when in history, you live the answer to the question, How can I be right with God is always the same. If you could go to heaven, and ask the people there how God accepted them, you'd hear the same refrain over and over. If you asked Abraham, how did you get here? He tell you I was an idol worshiper, a liar and a coward. But I trusted a God who justifies the ungodly, and he credited me with a righteousness I didn't earn. If you ask David, how did you get here? He'd say, Well, I was an adulterer, a murderer, and a failure as a father, but I trusted a God who justifies the ungodly, and he credited me with a righteousness I didn't learn. If you asked Mary Magdalene, how did you get here? She'd say, I was an immoral demon possessed woman, but I trusted a God who justifies the ungodly, and he credited me with a righteousness I didn't earn. If you ask St. Paul, how do you get here? He'd say, I was the chief of sinners, a proud blaspheme or a killer of Christians. But through Jesus Christ, I trusted a God who justifies the ungodly, and he credited me with a righteousness I didn't earn. So how can you be right with God have the very same way as every other person whom God accepts? by admitting your own sin and putting your faith in the perfect obedience and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What happens is this, God takes your sins and transfers them to Christ's account. The price of those sins is fully paid through the infinite suffering and death of Jesus on the cross. God then takes the perfect obedience and holiness of Christ and credits that to your account, so that you are counted as having the perfect righteousness required to enter heaven. Christ got what you've earned, so that you can get what Christ earned. That's the miracle of divine bookkeeping. The apostle wrote much of justification by faith in his letter to the Galatians, as well as in his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, We know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, high do not nullify the grace of God, for His righteousness work through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith and that quote, The righteous shall live by faith is again a quote from the Old Testament from the prophet Habakkuk. We are justified by faith and not by our ability to keep God's law. Now, in understanding what it means to be justified by faith, let's just say a little bit more about what faith is. And faith and repentance are really part of the same act of conversion. And faith and repentance are two sides of the same coin, in which my whole person receives the whole Christ. Faith is not just believing an idea, but it's a whole person, embracing and receiving the whole Christ and repentance is more than negative aspect of that and faith is more the positive aspect of my whole person receiving the whole Christ. repentance and faith both are something we do with our mind, with our heart with our will. In repentance, your mind admits that sin is wrong intellectually, you believe that sin is wrong, and you are a sinner, and then your faith. Your mind believes that the gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for your salvation is true. Your mind believes the gospel facts. Your heart in repentance feels sorry, and hates sin. It's not just an intellectual realization about sin, but it's a sorrow and a hatred for it from your heart. And in faith is your heart treasuring God treasuring Jesus Christ, treasuring and desiring and embracing his promises. Faith is an act of the heart, as well as the mind. And then your will, in repentance, your will makes a choice to fight sin, rather than just going along with it, to strive to change, you won't be perfect right away, but you in your will choose to be an enemy of sin. And then you choose also in faith, to trust Jesus as your Savior. And by your Will you commit to serve Jesus as your Lord. 

So faith has the mind embracing Jesus as the WAY the TRUTH OF THE LIFE. The heart is treasuring God and Jesus Christ and all of his precious promises to us. And the will is making a choice to trust Christ as your Savior, and to serve Him as your Lord. And by the way, you can't cut Jesus in half, and say, I want to save your part, but not the Lord part. True Faith accepts what Jesus has done for our salvation and honors him as the Lord and the one we are committed to obey, and to follow. And that is true faith that, that intellectual, that heart that will embracing the whole person receiving the whole Christ. And when that happens, we are justified by faith justification is a once for all new, legal standing with God, the instant we believe, the instant we exercise, repentance and faith, God forgives all our sins, past sins, present sins, future sins, God forgives them all. Because Jesus paid for them with his blood. And God counts Jesus perfect obedience as ours. God accepts us as we are. And it gives us a right standing based on Jesus finished work. And that is done the moment we, with our whole self, embrace the whole Christ, we receive that once for all new standing. Now sanctification is also a wonderful work of God, but it is different than justification. Sanctification is an ongoing, lifelong process. And in sanctification, our relationship to God grows closer our sin has less and less power over us. And we become more and more like Jesus, God gradually changes what we're like by the Holy Spirit's work inside of us. And so justification and sanctification are both great works of God. But they are quite different. Let me just highlight a few of those difference. differences here of justification is instantaneous, when the whole you embraces the whole Christ by faith, you are instantaneously declared forever, right with God. Sanctification isn't a one time instantaneous thing. It is lifelong. It is a continuing work of God. Justification is once for all, when you're justified, you're justified, and nothing can ever undo your status and you're standing with God. Sanctification isn't just once for all, it's gradual, often a little bit at a time, sometimes it'll there will be great leaps forward as the Lord does a tremendous work of changing who you are and how you relate to him, and growing in your ability to overcome sin in huge ways. But there may be other times when the growth is very, very gradual. justification to pick a theological term is imputed. It is credited to you it is counted to your record, even though it's not fully true of you that you're a perfect person, you are counted as perfect, because Jesus goodness is imputed to you. Now in sanctification, Jesus goodness is gradually imparted to you, you become more and more Christ like gradually, you see the difference. Justification God credits you as already having all the righteousness of Jesus Christ in your account, so to speak. But in sanctification, it's the process we're inwardly and in your way of living. Jesus character is little by little more and more imparted to you made a part of who you are. Justification is your legal standing. And that legal standing is to be right with God and accepted by God. Sanctification is not your legal standing. It's your moral character. God is changing you to have a character that is filled with the fruit of the Spirit that more and more reflects Jesus Christ, but it's always partial. And in this life always incomplete. Justification gives you a complete legal status. Sanctification is the working out gradually towards greater maturity. Justification is based on Christ's work outside of us, His finished work in His perfect life, His atoning death, and His glorious resurrection and ascension. Your standing with God is based entirely on what Jesus did for you, and outside of you, and it's already finished. And your sanctification is growing from the Spirit of Jesus working within you. So the lot is already done, and paid for and completed. And your justification is based on that. But sanctification is something that keeps growing as the Spirit is doing his work. In justification. God accepts us as we are, because our whole self embraces the whole Christ. He accepts us as we are and justifies us. But he doesn't leave us as we are sanctification God changes who we are, and justified people always make beginnings in sanctification. Only in rare circumstances, such as the thief on the cross, who died only a little bit after he was saved in the first place. Is there someone who's justified, but in whom sanctification hardly began its work. But in most normal cases, when people come to Christ and faith and are justified and receive their new standing, then God sets in motion, this process of sanctification by His Holy Spirit, look at this and get it very clearly. You're standing with God never depends on any earnings, you've done any works. You've done any growth in your character, anything the spirit has done within you, your standing with God depends on what Jesus did outside you, and God accepting you as you are. And so when you're facing hard times, or when you've slipped and fallen into sin, you need to look to Christ as your righteousness and your justification. And as the one who has earned your standing with God once and for all, so that your heart does not give up on God, but that you know, you're accepting for the sake of the Beloved Jesus Christ. And then you say, Lord, please work in me, change me make me more and more like Jesus, and we do want to grow in grace. We do want to grow more and more like Christ. But let us never think that the things we do is part of earning our standing with God. That was the mistake of the Roman Catholic church that was being taught at the time of Luther and is still sometimes taught today, that our salvation and standing with God depends on our advancement in sanctification, but the doctrine of justification by faith alone means that God accepts us as we are and gives us this new legal status. Thank God for that. 

So keep in mind this important difference. Justification is a once for all new legal standing, the instant we believe God forgives all our sins past, present and future, because Jesus paid for them with his blood. And God counts Jesus perfect obedience as ours. God accepts us as we are, and gives us a right standing based on Jesus finished work. And then sanctification is an ongoing, lifelong process in our relationship to God grows closer, our sin has less power over us, and we become more and more like Jesus. God gradually changes what we're like by the Holy Spirit's work. And this is a wonderful work of God. It's wonderful to grow more and more like Jesus, but never mistake it as the ground for God's acceptance of you. God accepts you because of Jesus, and He justifies you through faith, through your whole being, accepting by faith, the whole Christ