Justification:
The Heart of the Gospel
by
Rev. Ronald
J. Van Overloop
Prof. David
J. Engelsma
Rev.
William A. Langerak
CONTENTS:
Justification
By Faith Alone – Rev. R. Van Overloop
Introduction
What
Justification Is
How
Justification Is Ours
Peace With
God
Justification
and Good Works – Prof. D. Engelsma
Introduction
The Attack
on Justification on behalf of Good Works
The Truth of
James 2
The Relation
Between Justification and Works
Justification
and the Believer – Rev. W. Langerak
Introduction
Justification
Establishes the Righteousness Of God and our Legal Relationship to All
Things
Justification
and our Relationship to the Church
Justification
and our Relationship to the World: Our Flesh and Sin
Justification
and our Relationship to the World: The Natural Creation
Justification
and our Relationship to God: Peace
Justification
and our Relationship to God: God-glorifying Worship and a Thankful Holy
Life
PREFACE:
This booklet presents, in printed form, three speeches that were
given at the 2006 Winter Conference sponsored by the Evangelism
Committee of the First Protestant Reformed Church of Holland, MI. The
theme for this conference was "Justification: The Heart of the
Gospel."
This theme was chosen in light of the fact that many today, even in
conservative Reformed circles, are denying a fundamental truth of the
Reformed faith, namely, justification by faith alone. Justification is
being redefined. The word "alone" has been dropped. It is said
that man is justified by faith and by works.
We express our appreciation to the three speakers for their timely
lectures, which clearly confront and combat the errors with regard to
the doctrine of justification.
We trust that making these speeches available in booklet form will
serve to remind the reader of the importance of holding to this truth
– a truth which is, indeed, at the very heart of the gospel of God’s
grace and salvation in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
May God be pleased to use this as a means to keep us steadfast in the
faith. May it serve His glory, as well as the salvation and comfort of
His people.
The Evangelism
Committee of the
First
Protestant Reformed Church of Holland, MI
3641 104th
Avenue, Zeeland, Michigan 49464
(616)748-7645
www.hollandprc.org
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop
Introduction
It is my privilege to speak to you this evening on a most important
subject. It is objectively important because it was the material
principle of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century,
and it remains such in Reformed churches. It is subjectively important
for every child of God because it is knowing how I am right before God.
Martin Luther maintained that this truth was the difference between a
standing and a falling church. If a church upholds the truth of
justification by faith alone, then in Luther’s judgment it was a
standing church. If they did not, then it was falling. The importance of
the truth of justification by faith alone is also evidenced in the fact
that thee two creeds which arose out of the Reformation, the Belgic
Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, maintain and defend
this truth, and they do so in precise, powerful, and comforting terms: Heidelberg
Catechism, Lord’s Days 23,24,51 and Belgic Confession,
Articles 22 - 24.
The importance of this truth can also been seen in the kind of
attention Satan gives to it. Throughout the history of the church Satan
has attacked the truth of justification by faith alone. Some of his most
deceptive attacks have been and are made when he distorts the language,
using the words "justification by faith," but making them mean
something different. Most often Satan attacks the use of the word
"alone." Those who identify their position as "federal
vision" are attacking this fundamental and precious truth, doing so
in a most deceptive way. They will speak of the fact that justification
is by faith and that it is through grace, but they add that
justification is not only by faith, but also by the works which flow
from faith. The result is that justification is not by faith alone!
And the importance of the truth of justification by faith alone is
experienced. It was in the life of Martin Luther. And every believer has
times when he wonders how he can stand before the holy God whose eyes
will not behold iniquity. Every believer is aware of his sins and of the
presence of great sinfulness within. We ask, How will I know when the
great day of judgment comes that I can stand before that judgment seat
without terror? Then everything that I have done, said, and thought will
be exposed. How can I look forward to that day with a comfortable sense
of God’s favour? How do we gain such assurance when my conscience
accuses me that I have grossly transgressed all of God’s commandments?
How can I have this assurance when others point out my errors? How can I
stand before God? How does He receive me? The answer to these
penetrating questions is found only in the truth of justification by
faith alone. This truth is the heart of the gospel as far as the
experience of every child of God is concerned.
What Justification Is
What is justification? Herman Hoeksema defined it as an act of the
grace of God, whereby He imputes, puts on the legal account of one who
is guilty and condemned but elect His perfect righteousness in Christ,
acquitting him of all his guilt and punishment on the grounds of the
merit of Christ’s work, and giving to this sinner the right to eternal
life. Justification is a part of salvation from sin in Christ as God
applies salvation to each of His elect.
Our creeds speak of justification in the same way. Both the Belgic
Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism describe
justification as a work of God in the experience of a believer.
Scripture declares, "And we know that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His
purpose. For whom he did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among
many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called:
and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them
He also glorified" (Romans 8:28-30). This passage speaks of
justification as a work of God - His legal declaration in the
consciousness of the elect, called, believing sinner. When we speak of
justification tonight, we will be speaking of it as a part of the work
of God in saving every elect sinner, giving to them salvation from sin
in Christ. Justification is God declaring to the consciousness of His
regenerated and called children that they are forgiven and righteous.
God by His Spirit speaks to the consciousness of the humbled and
broken sinner of His act of changing his legal position before God, the
Judge, from a state of guilt to a state of innocence. God speaks to the
repenting sinner of His work of having justified him in Christ. Jesus’
parable of the Pharisee and the Publican concludes with the publican
going "to his house justified." The Pharisee and the publican
went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee stood and prayed with himself,
"God I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are." The
publican found a place in a far corner and there He humbly pleaded for
mercy - God’s undeserved pity for a miserable sinner. God spoke to the
consciousness of that broken, humble sinner, working in him an awareness
that God had done something for him. The humble sinner left the temple
justified, rejoicing in the knowledge and assurance of his
justification. Justification is the humble sinner hearing God declare
that his legal status before the holy and righteous Judge is changed
from one of guilt to one of innocence. Believing what God had spoken by
His Spirit to his consciousness, the publican went home no longer
beating his breast as he did in the temple, but happy with the
blessedness of justification.
While God’s declaration of the justification of His elect children
took place once at the cross of Christ, the justification which takes
place in the consciousness of His children occurs repeatedly. Every time
the sinner repents, God gives the humbled sinner the knowledge that all
his sins and sinfulness are forgiven for Jesus’ sake. Why it is that
the children of the heavenly Father are taught to pray repeatedly:
"forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"? In
answering this question our spiritual fathers use the language of
justification in the Heidelberg Catechism. "Be pleased for
the sake of Christ’s blood not to impute to us poor sinners, our
transgressions, nor that depravity, which always cleaves to us" (Q.
126). Every time we pray the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer we
are asking our Father in heaven to justify us, that is, not to impute to
us our sins and the sinfulness which lies within us. Justification is
repeated, not because God’s act of justifying is imperfect, but
because the sinner repeatedly sins and needs to be told, over and over,
that his sins are not imputed to him.
There are two major elements in God’s declaration of an elect
sinner’s justification. The one is negative and the other is positive.
The first element of justification is that God instructs the elect
ungodly that he is forgiven, delivering him from all the guilt and shame
of his sins. The sinner knows that he is only worthy of condemnation and
his conscience condemns him (Luke 18:13). But God declares him to be
forgiven - perfect innocent. Listen to the Heidelberg Catechism.
"Though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed
all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still
inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine,
but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect
satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I
never had had, nor committed any sin. (Q. 60). God forgives. He takes
away my condemnation, the penalty I deserve, the shame that comes with
the penalty, and the consciousness of the guilt which drove the publican
to beat his breast in the far corner of the temple. God declares that
our sin is gone. He declares that in His judgment we are no longer
worthy of being condemned. For what can a justified sinner be condemned?
His sin is gone. Long ago a catechism teacher taught me that to be
justified means "just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned." The Heidelberg
says, "As if I never had had, nor committed any sin."
The second element of justification is God declaring to the
consciousness of the elect sinner that he is righteous. Simply put, to
be righteous is to be right in God’s sight because God’s law has
been perfectly fulfilled. God declares that in Christ the believing
sinner has fulfilled His law (Romans 5:19). It does not matter what my
sight sees or what others say they see in me. Righteousness is that God
declares that I have done what is right. Again, the Heidelberg
Catechism puts it very well: "as if I had fully accomplished
all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me" (Q. 60).
It is the reality of this second element of justification which makes
the simple definition of justification (just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned)
simplistic, because it does not speak of righteousness. Justification
means that God declares one to be righteous. This is a real
righteousness. God, the perfect Judge declares the elect, regenerated,
called sinner to be righteous. The justified sinner is aware that he is
worthy to be condemned to everlasting damnation, but God, out of His own
good pleasure, merely of grace, for the sake of Christ declares this
sinner to be perfectly righteous, and thus worthy of intimate friendship
with God, both now and eternally in heaven. The present relationship
with God is that the justified one is a child of God, graciously adopted
into His family. And he is an heir of eternal life. Children are heirs,
co-heirs with Christ of everlasting life with God.
We must say one more thing about the righteousness which God reckons
to the account of the justified. It is God declaring one to be righteous
by imputation. This is not yet God making him righteous by infusing or
by renewal. This latter is sanctification which always follows
justification. The righteousness which is ours in justification is
something which God, as the Judge, declares to be ours legally, by
imputation. The righteousness which God gives to the sinner is only the
righteousness of Jesus. We have none. And this righteousness is nothing
less than God’s righteousness. "By the deeds of the law shall no
flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets: even the righteousness of God
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe" (Romans 3:20-22). It is the righteousness of God - His own
righteousness. God’s own perfect righteousness is reckoned on our
account because of the perfect work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus earned this absolutely perfect righteousness. He did so by His
perfect obedience to God’s law and by His suffering all the penalty of
our sins. In His life and suffering Jesus was made to be sin for us. He
was reckoned among sinners. Our sins were imputed to Him, so He carried
every one of our sins and all of our sinfulness. He came into the
likeness of our sinful flesh in order to bear the wrath of God for all
of our sins. Romans 4:25 declares that He was delivered unto death
because of, on account of, our offenses. His work of bearing God’s
wrath was a perfect work, performed out of loving obedience to God. This
merited forgiveness and righteousness. He fully paid our debt and He
earned for us such perfect righteousness that God had to raise Him from
the dead. Jesus no longer belonged under death and in the grave. Every
one of our sins and all of our sinfulness was forgiven.
Even as Jesus was delivered to death on account of our offenses, so
He was raised from the dead on account of our righteousness. His
resurrection is proof that He had fully paid for all of our sin. When we
see the empty tomb, then the Spirit communicates to us the truth of
forgiveness, full and free. Our conscience may say the opposite. It may
want us to look at all of our sins and to stare at the spiritual
cesspool of sinfulness out of which all our sins arise. This would make
us doubt our salvation. But the gospel points to the cross and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. His tomb is empty. He paid it all. We are
justified. We are righteous.
How Justification Is Ours
How is justification ours? How do we know that we are righteous? How
does God communicate it to us? How do we experience it? By faith alone!
Faith is the means or instrument by which God imputes to the guilty
sinner the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And faith is the means or
instrument by which the guilty sinner experientially knows and enjoys
his innocence and peace with God.
The Heidelberg Catechism presents the subject of justification
after it treats the things one must believe. It arrives at the truth of
justification with this question, What does it profit you now that you
believe all the truths expressed in the Apostles’ Creed? Its beautiful
answer is, "That I am righteous in Christ, before God." It is
not whether I am righteous before other humans. They are going to have a
harder time believing that I am righteous. They, like my conscience, see
that I still sin, that I still do things wrong. But God says, "You
are righteous before Me, and you are so righteous that you are an heir
of eternal life."
Faith is that gift of God in the regenerated and called sinner,
whereby the sinner is ingrafted into Christ and whereby he embraces and
appropriate Christ and all His benefits, relying on Him. Faith embraces
the declaration of the divine Judge. Faith appropriates to oneself the
forgiveness in Christ and the righteousness of Christ.
Faith is a most fitting instrument to give to us the knowledge of our
justification. It is so because faith is a believing and not a working.
To say "faith" is to say "no work." Faith is the
opposite of works. Faith is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast (Ephesians 2:8,9). Faith is the bond which unites one with
Christ. God objectively unites all the elect to Christ in election. When
God regenerates the elect, then He objectively engrafts us by faith into
Christ. This is the power of faith. This power of faith becomes active,
so those who are objectively engrafted into Christ, subjectively hold to
Him. They embrace Him, or "abide in Him" as Jesus says in John
15. Faith knows and trusts Christ for righteousness. It embraces Jesus
Christ as He is proclaimed in the gospel. We trust Him Whom we believe.
I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to take my
sin, to pay for it all, and to earn righteousness which He puts onto my
account. Faith simply believes - holding for truth that which God has
revealed in His Word.
So how am I right in the sight of the perfectly holy God? This is the
question which burns in every guilty sinner. This was Luther’s burning
question. If the seraphim of Isaiah 6 were compelled to hide themselves
and their faces before the thrice-holy God, then how can I stand before
Him? Faith says, "I stand before Him, not on the basis of sight,
but on the basis of what God has taught me in His Word. The Bible tells
me that when Jesus died, He died for sin. And when He lived, doing
perfectly the will of the Father, He earned for those He represented a
perfect righteousness. God, for Jesus’ sake, puts that righteousness
to my account. God allows me to stand before Him in that righteousness.
Faith excludes works. Repeatedly the Scriptures declare that
salvation is by grace alone through faith alone without any works of
man. "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace"
(Romans 4:16a). "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be
justified in His sight..." "For all have sinned, and come
short of the glory of God: being justified freely by His grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "Therefore we
conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the
law" (Romans 3:20,23,24,28). To one who works there is a reward,
but it is not a reward of grace; it is a reward of debt (cf. Romans
4:4). "To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness"
(Romans 4:5). Faith believes on Him Who justifies the ungodly, for
"Christ died for the ungodly," who are without strength to do
anything good (Romans 5:6). The ungodly have done nothing to deserve
anything good from God. And Galatians 2:16 put it this way,
"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."
Faith is a gift of God, not a work of man. There are many who speak
of justification by faith, but they make faith to be a work of man. But
the Bible and our Reformed confessions condemn such thinking. "Why
sayest thou, that thou art righteous by faith only? Not that I am
acceptable to God, on account of the worthiness of my faith; but because
only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, is my
righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same
to myself any other way than by faith only." (Heidelberg
Catechism, Q. & A. 61). Faith is not the righteousness, it is
only the way God gives His righteousness to His people. Faith is not a
work of man, but a gift of God. Therefore we may never think that faith
makes one worthy or is of any merit before God. God so works in us to
will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13), so that when we
believe, then it is still a work of God and not of us. Human works do
not make up any part of our justification before God. Good works flow
from our salvation, but in no way do they earn salvation or make us
righteous before God. "Why cannot our good works be the whole, or
part of our righteousness before God? Because, that the righteousness,
which can be approved of before the tribunal of God, must be absolutely
perfect, and in all respects conformable to the divine law; and also,
that our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with
sin" (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. & A. 62). "What! Do
not our good works merit, which yet God will reward in this and in a
future life?" Yes, our good works do receive a reward, but
"this reward is not of merit, but of grace" (Heidelberg
Catechism, Q. & A. 63). It is all of grace. The good works which
flow out of our salvation, which God will reward, do not make up the
least part of our righteousness. When we stand before God now and in the
judgment day, we may not think that it is ever because of something we
have done. We do stand before God in righteousness, but it is all of
grace through faith, without any works of man.
Precisely because faith clings Christ, we look away from ourselves
and to Him. We cannot add to His perfect work. Faith in Christ declares
that it is all of Him and nothing of us. If our works could add or help
in our salvation, then our sins would detract from it. We are righteous
before God only because He graciously justifies. He makes the imputation
and the declaration of judgment. We cannot earn it and we cannot lose
it. We are justified by faith without works. Then we can have peace with
God!
Peace With God
Because justification is by grace alone through faith alone, there is
peace with God (Romans 5:1). This is not just peace, but wonderful peace
with God. Between God and us there is fundamental agreement and
subsequent good will.
This peace is not something I will have or might have, but it is
something I have now. The present possession of this blessed peace is
experienced in the way of remembering that we are justified by faith
alone through our Lord Jesus Christ. If we would only consider our sin,
then we would lose the sense of peace with God. The devil loves to have
us focus on our sin. He uses our conscience and other humans to point
out our sins and our sinfulness. He wants us to think that we are not
good enough. He wants us to compare ourselves to others, because this
invariably makes us consider our works. He just wants us to look away
from the cross of Christ. The devil loves to make us know such guilt
that we can find no way out, but stay guilty and condemned. Over against
the devil, God wants His children to experience guilt, but only as that
which drives us away from the merit of works to the merit of the cross
of Christ. For God guilt is the doorway through which we must pass in
order to come into the awareness of being justified.
We are justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ. We must look
at Him, and keep looking at Him. His perfect work is the only thing that
can merit complete forgiveness and perfect righteousness. Faith in His
cross and His resurrection assures us of justification. And so real is
this forgiveness and righteousness that no one can or may lay a charge
against us. "If God be for us, who can be against 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? Who shall lay any thing to
the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth" (Romans
8:31-33). If we are not justified, then we are condemned. And so the
apostle continues, "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that
died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of
God, who also maketh intercession for us" (Romans 8:34). God makes
us look at Christ’s work to assure us of freedom from condemnation and
the possession of justification. "Who is he that condemneth? It is
Christ that died." Christ, our representative head, died for us.
But there is more, "yea rather, that is risen again." Remember
that we already learned in Romans 4:25 that Jesus was raised for our
justification. It gets better, "Who is even at the right hand of
God, who also maketh intercession for us." At God’s right hand
Jesus intercedes for us, pleading the riches of the merits of His cross,
so God declares us justified. There is nothing that can separate us form
the love of God and from our righteousness in Christ. That is why we
have peace with God!
Forgiveness and righteousness are ours according to the riches of God’s
grace (confer Ephesians 1:7). It is not according to the measure of our
repentance nor of the exercise of our faith. God’s forgiveness is
according to the riches of His grace. His grace is the only standard.
Faith knows that we are God’s children by adoption, possessing every
right of children, including an eternal inheritance. And faith knows
that our righteousness can never be lost and that we are heirs of
eternal life. Standing in His grace we rejoice in hope of the glory of
God (Romans 5:2).
Peace with God is the ability to rejoice. We rejoice that we are not
our own, but belong to our faithful Savior in life and in death. We need
never be tormented by the thought that we do not measure up or are not
good enough. Instead we have confidence in approaching God, our
conscience free "of fear, terror, and dread" (Belgic
Confession, article 23). The only acceptance that matters is God’s,
and we are "accepted in the Beloved" (Ephesians 1:6). When God
loves His beloved Son, then we may know that we are accepted in Him and
loved for His sake.
Therefore, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is all that Paul
had to say in answer to the Philippian jailor. Exercise your God-given
faith to lay hold on Christ and His perfect work. Abide in Him. Realize
how completely forgiven and perfectly righteous you are. This is the
peace that passes all understanding. Then, O sinner, you may go home
justified!
JUSTIFICATION AND GOOD WORKS
Prof. David J. Engelsma
Introduction
What a grand gospel truth is justification by faith alone. What a
blessed gift of God to us is justification by faith alone. And what a
blessed work of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in our consciousness is
justification by faith alone.
Justification is the strictly legal act of God as judge in which He
forgives the sins of the one who believes in Jesus Christ and reckons
him righteous on the basis alone of the obedience of Jesus Christ in the
stead of this sinner. This is how David describes justification in Psalm
32:1-2, where he proclaims the blessedness of the man to whom God
imputes righteousness without works. "Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not impute sin." And this is how the apostle
Paul describes justification, with appeal to this passage in the Psalms,
in Romans 4:5. "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted [or imputed, or reckoned]
for righteousness."
The sole basis of this act of God the judge pronouncing the ungodly
but believing sinner righteous is the obedience of Jesus Christ in the
sinner’s stead. The basis is both Christ’s lifelong obedience to the
law of God, and Christ’s death as complete and perfect satisfaction of
God’s justice regarding the elect sinner’s guilt. Paul writes in
Romans 5:19 that it is by the obedience of one, that is, Jesus Christ,
that many are "constituted" (not, "made," as is the
translation of the Authorized Version there) righteous, just as all of
us were constituted guilty by "one man’s disobedience." The
only righteousness that avails in the heavenly courtroom with God the
judge, Who is awesome in His holiness, is the righteousness worked out
by God Himself in the obedient life and death of His own incarnate Son,
Jesus Christ.
This righteousness, is God’s own righteousness, as Paul teaches in
Romans 3:25: Especially in the propitiation of the cross, God declared
His righteousness. In Romans 10:3, the charge of the apostle against the
Jews, and against all who in any way whatever make their own obedience
in whole or in part, their righteousness with God, is that they are
"ignorant of God’s righteousness" and go about to
"establish their own righteousness;" their sin is that they do
not submit themselves to the righteousness of God.
This righteousness, which is God’s own, and the only righteousness
that avails with God so as to obtain the verdict, "innocent,"
and so as to throw the doors to eternal life open to the sinner, this
righteousness, I say, is granted to the sinner by means of faith, and by
means of faith only. This is the teaching of the apostle in Romans 3:28:
"We conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of
the law." Faith in Jesus Christ is the means, the instrument, by
which the sinner receives righteousness by imputation, so that his
standing with God the judge is that it is as if he had never sinned, as
if he had himself perfectly obeyed the law of God, and as if he himself
had completely paid for all his sins and merited eternal life. Inasmuch
as Romans 3:28 contrasts faith with "the deeds of the law,"
the apostle in fact teaches that justification is by faith alone.
When Martin Luther translated Romans 3:28 by the word "allein"
in German, that is the word "alone," rendering the text,
"a man is justified by faith alone without the deeds of the
law," he captured the meaning of the Holy Spirit and translated the
text correctly.
This understanding of Romans 3:28, Galatians 2:16, and other texts,
namely, that these texts teach that we are justified by faith alone, is
confessional with all Reformed people. Q&A 60 of the Heidelberg
Catechism, for example, answers the question "How art thou
righteous before God?" this way: "Only by a true faith in
Jesus Christ."
What a grand gospel truth this is. It is the heart of the biblical
gospel, declared Luther and the entire Protestant Reformation. Calvin
agreed, calling justification by faith alone, in his Institutes,
"the hinge on which all religion turns."
As a purely gracious act of God, justification by faith alone
glorifies God. The righteousness of a sinner, upon which all blessing
and salvation depend, is God’s free gift. The righteousness of the
sinner before God is God’s own righteousness worked out by God in the
incarnation and atoning death of His Son. Inasmuch as the act of
justifying, the obedience that is the basis of the justifying, and even
the faith itself of the sinner by which he receives righteousness, are
God’s free gift in sovereign grace, justification points to God’s
eternal election in grace as the source of justification, and magnifies
the grace of God.
As a purely gracious act of God, justification by faith alone affords
peace to the believer. "Though my conscience accuse me that I have
grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them,
and am still inclined to all evil," I am confident that I am
righteous before God on the basis of the obedience of Christ. This is
the testimony of the Heidelberg Catechism in Q&A 60. Without
justification by faith alone, depending on even one good work of our
own, "we would always be in doubt, tossed to and fro without any
certainty, with our poor consciences continually vexed," we confess
in Article 24 of the Belgic Confession.
Where now does this truth of justification by faith alone leave the
good works of the justified believer? Is there still a place at all for
good works? Is this place of good works an important place, even a
necessary place? Or are good works, and the call to perform good works,
excluded, or perhaps minimized? The question is this: What is the
relation between justification by faith alone and good works?
This, my friends, is an important question in itself, apart from any
controversy over the issue. The same gospel that excludes good
works from justification includes good works in the salvation of
us by the Spirit. The same gospel that warns us against bringing
good works into justification warns against leaving good
works out of our lives.
Adding to the urgency of a right understanding of the relation
between justification and good works is the attack on justification by
faith alone by determined foes of that truth. This attack on
justification by faith alone is raised, allegedly, on behalf of good
works. The urgency is heightened today in the community of Reformed
churches by an attack on justification by faith alone in the name of an
emphasis on good works from within the Reformed churches themselves.
Indeed this attack on justification by faith alone is raised by
prominent, influential, Reformed theologians, seminary professors, and
ministers of the gospel. These men are spokesmen for a movement known as
the "federal vision," that is literally "covenant
vision," because it is the development of a certain doctrine of the
covenant. Basic to this covenant doctrine is an attack on justification
by faith alone. This attack is defended as a promotion of good works in
the life of the Christian.
This attack on justification by faith alone is found today in the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in America, the
United Reformed Churches, and the Orthodox Christian Reformed Churches.
Not only is the attack on justification by faith alone found in these
churches, but it is also tolerated by these churches. Not only is it
tolerated by these churches, but in the case of at least three of these
churches the attack on justification by faith alone has been upheld by
the major assemblies – by classes, presbyteries, and synods.
The Attack on Justification on behalf of Good Works
The main attack on the gospel truth of justification by faith alone
by its foes in every age is the argument that justification by faith
alone weakens, if it does not destroy altogether, zeal for a holy life
of good works.
At the outset, we should recognize the seeming validity of this
charge. Justification by faith alone asserts that the works of the
sinner who is justified do not at all enter into the justification of
the sinner. Not all the good works he may do, and not one of the sinful
works he has done, be that sinful work never so gross, enter into his
justification by God. On the basis of this doctrine, the carnal mind,
the fleshly thought, the natural man says, "This inevitably results
in carelessness of life on the part of those who embrace this
doctrine."
Up to the present hour, three notable champions of good works, as
they like to have us believe, have arisen, who oppose justification by
faith alone, because the doctrine is harmful to good works.
The first of these foes of justification by faith alone is the Roman
Catholic church. At the Reformation, and ever after, Rome has condemned
the truth of justification by faith alone as destructive of zeal for
holiness of life. It is to this charge by Rome that the Heidelberg
Catechism is responding in Q. 64: "But doth not this doctrine
(that is, the doctrine of justification by faith alone) make men
careless and profane?" I do not take Rome’s pretended concern for
holiness of life and for good works seriously. Nor should anyone take
Rome’s pretended concern for good works seriously. When Rome puts on
her pious face and displays concern lest Reformed Protestants come short
of holiness, I laugh, out loud. That that foul church at the time of the
Reformation should have criticized Protestantism for unholiness was a
joke. That that church of widespread sodomy and buggery, who covered up
the iniquity at the highest levels, until the secular press blew the
whistle on their perversions, should censure Reformed Christians for
carelessness is ludicrous. That the church that accepts Ted Kennedy and
most of the mafia as members in good standing, and who will give those
men fine funeral masses when they die and perish eternally, should even
utter a peep about justification and good works is sheer hypocrisy. But
we are interested in Rome’s charges, because they are the very same
charges that are always raised also by the other enemies of
justification by faith alone. Indeed, Rome’s charges are the very same
as those that were raised against the apostle Paul himself when he was
proclaiming the doctrine of justification in the epistle to the Romans.
The second noteworthy attack on justification, supposedly because the
doctrine is hurtful to holiness of life and good works, comes from the
Arminians. This is not so well known among us because we concentrate on
their denial of election, efficacious atonement for the elect alone,
sovereign grace, and the perseverance of the saints. But the Arminians
denied justification by faith alone also. And they denied it, as they
said, because they saw it as detrimental to human responsibility and the
life of holiness. The Canons of Dordt refer to this aspect of the
Arminian heresy in Head II, Rejection of Errors #4, where they condemn
the error that "regards faith itself and the obedience of faith,
although imperfect, as the perfect obedience of the law, and does esteem
it worthy of the reward of eternal life through grace." John Wesley
was a true son of James Arminius and Simon Episcopius in his denial of
justification by faith alone as destructive of John Wesley’s idea of
holiness.
The third notable assault on justification by faith alone has been
launched in the past thirty years or so from within the Reformed
churches themselves, indeed, from within Reformed and Presbyterian
churches that are widely reputed to be the most conservative
Presbyterian and Reformed churches. I refer to the movement that
promotes a theology known as the "federal vision," a movement
that is influenced by an understanding of Paul, especially in Romans and
Galatians, that differs from the understanding of Paul that Luther had,
that Calvin had, that the whole Reformed tradition has had, and
especially that the Reformed confessions have. This is called the new
perspective on Paul. Because this denial of justification by faith alone
has risen within, and is nourished in the bosom of, reputedly
conservative Reformed churches, and because it bases itself upon a
popular, indeed the prevailing, doctrine of the covenant, this attack on
justification by faith alone is the most dangerous to professing,
Reformed Christians today. Indeed, I regard this heresy as the gravest
threat to the Reformed faith since the Synod of Dordt.
The attack on justification by faith alone, on behalf of good works,
as they say, always takes the same form, and always uses the same
arguments. Whether it is coming out of the mouth of the Roman Catholic
theologian, out of the mouth of the Arminian theologian, or out of the
mouth of the spokesman in conservative Reformed churches for the
"federal vision," the argument is always the same.
The fundamental argument against justification by faith alone is
this, that a believer will be motivated to be zealous for good works
only if he supposes that his justification depends on those good works,
or is earned by those good works, or if he is driven by the terrifying
conviction that his good works make him worthy of God’s justification
of him. This is the fundamental argument. The only motivation for zeal
in doing good works is the supposition that those good works are the
basis or ground of righteousness, that these good works are the
condition of salvation, that these good works make one worthy of eternal
life. If this argument is wrong (and the gospel of Scripture says it is
dead wrong), the whole argument against justification by faith alone
collapses.
Related to this fundamental argument are several other perennial
arguments against justification by faith alone. For one thing, so the
argument runs, when Paul teaches justification by faith without the
deeds of the law, or apart from the law, he is only excluding certain
kinds of works – ceremonial works (such as circumcision), or works
that are done in order to merit, or works that are done by unregenerated
people. According to those who raise this argument, Paul does not intend
to exclude from justification truly good works, works done out of love
for God by the believing Christian.
Another argument goes like this. When God promises, as He certainly
does, to reward our good works, the meaning is that our good works earn
salvation, or make us worthy of salvation, or are the basis of our
salvation in part, so that our justification is partly, at least, by
good works, and not only by faith.
Then there is this argument. When the Bible teaches in II Corinthians
5:10, and other places, that our final judgment will take place
"according to" our works, it means that the final judgment,
which decides our eternal destiny, will be based in part on the works
that we have performed. And because the final judgment will only be the
public version of the justification that we experience today, inasmuch
as the final judgment will be based on our works, so also is our
justification today, in our own experience, justification on the basis
of works.
Of special interest to us, is the argument against justification by
faith alone by the men of the "federal vision." Their argument
against justification by faith alone is an argument from a certain
doctrine of the covenant. It is the argument that since God’s covenant
with His people is conditional, that is, a covenant that depends upon
the baptized child’s own faith and obedience, also justification in
the covenant is conditional. That is, God’s justification of the
baptized children depends on the child’s act of believing, and on the
child’s lifelong obedience to God in the covenant.
Now this is not entirely new, since the notion of a conditional
covenant and conditional salvation in the covenant has been found and
has been defended in Reformed churches for a long time. This is the
doctrine against which the Protestant Reformed Churches battled hard in
the late 1940s and early 1950s. It is this doctrine of the covenant that
now is being developed into a full-blown denial of justification by
faith alone, and with this central gospel truth, a denial of all of the
so-called "5 points of Calvinism." What is new is that the
doctrine of a conditional covenant is now applied to the truth of
justification with the result that men boldly deny justification by
faith alone.
I have demonstrated that the "federal vision’s" denial of
justification by faith alone is the development of the doctrine of a
conditional covenant in my book, The Covenant of God and the Children
of Believers. (RFPA, 2005)
The view of justification defended by all those who attack
justification by faith alone is this: justification is not strictly a
legal act of God, but also a renewing, sanctifying work, actually making
the sinner good. Justification, in this case, does not depend entirely
upon Christ’s obedience for us and outside us, but it depends also in
part upon us ourselves, upon our own obedience, and upon our own good
works. And, on this view, justification does not consist only of the
obedience and righteousness of Jesus Christ, the perfect righteousness
of Christ made up of His lifelong obedience and His atoning death in our
place; rather, the righteousness that is recognized by God in
justification is also partly our own – our own imperfect
righteousness, made up of our own imperfect good works.
What is the response of the orthodox Reformed faith to this attack on
justification by faith alone on behalf of good works, whether by the
Roman Catholic Church, by the Arminians (who are 90 % or more of those
professing Christians in North America who call themselves evangelicals
and fundamentalists), or by the defenders of a conditional covenant?
In the first place, we respond that the attack itself upon us and our
doctrine of justification confirms that we are holding the same gospel
truth of justification that the apostle Paul held and confessed,
especially in Romans and Galatians. Paul’s teaching on justification
drew the same attack, the very same attack. "Paul," charged
his opponents, "you make void the law through faith" (Romans
3:31). "Paul," they exclaimed, "you are preaching that we
may and that we will continue in sin, that grace may abound"
(Romans 6:1). Speaking for myself, and for the Protestant Reformed
Churches, we rejoice that our confession of justification is still
drawing this attack. If our confession of justification did not draw
this attack, I would be worried that there is something wrong with our
doctrine of justification. The confession and preaching of very few
Reformed churches today concerning justification draw this attack. Very
few Reformed churches are so clearly and sharply preaching and
confessing justification by faith alone and salvation by free,
sovereign, unconditional grace, that opponents charge them with teaching
a doctrine that results in carelessness of life.
In the second place, our response to the attack is Paul’s own:
"God forbid!" We do not disparage a life of good works in
obedience to the law of God. On the contrary, by the teaching of
justification by faith alone we establish such a life of zeal for good
works.
In the third place, we do not respond to these attacks by
compromising the doctrine of justification by faith alone – not in the
slightest. But we defend the doctrine against the attacks. Justification
is by faith alone. All our works are excluded, including our truly good
works, the works that we do in the power of the Spirit of Christ. The
sole basis of our righteousness with God is the obedience of Christ, and
not our own obedience, not whatsoever. The only work that is our
righteousness with God is the work for us of another, even Jesus Christ.
With regard to the specific arguments that are raised against
justification by faith alone, we respond that when Paul excludes the
deeds of the law, and the law, from justification, he is referring to
all our works. Galatians 3:10, 12 prove this, for in these passages the
law, about which he says in verse 11 that it has no place in the
justification of the sinner, obviously refers to the entire law of God,
including the ten commandments. In verse 10, Paul quotes Deuteronomy
27:26: "Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which
are written in the book of the law to do them." The "book of
the law" includes all the commandments, not merely ceremonial
commandments. Accordingly, when, in verse 11, the apostle denies that
anyone is justified "by the law," he refers to the entire law.
Regarding the promised reward, we respond that the Bible does indeed
promise us a reward for our good works. But this reward is a reward of
grace, not a reward that we earn, not a reward that we deserve, and not
wages that God pays us for our labours. The reward is of grace because
God in His grace eternally ordained the good works that we should walk
in. (Ephesians 2:10) The reward is of grace because by His death Jesus
Christ earned for us the right to do good works. (Titus 2:14) It is a
privilege to do good works in the service of God. The reward is a reward
of grace because the Spirit of Christ Himself works these works in us
and through us (Philippians 2:13). The reward is a reward of grace
because when God accepts them of us He first justifies, or forgives, all
those good works with regard to the corruption and sin that stain every
one of them. And the reward is a reward of grace because when God gives
us the reward, which is eternal life and the place that we have in
glory, He does that, not because He owes it to us, but in free favour. (Heidelberg
Catechism, Q. 63)
With regard to the argument against free justification that appeals
to the final judgment and to the fact that we will be judged according
to our works, it is certainly true that the judgment of us on the world’s
last day will be the justification of us who believe in Jesus Christ. It
will be a public justification. Today, when I believe in Jesus Christ, I
am justified privately. God and I know that I am justified by faith in
Christ. There comes a day when I will stand before God the judge in the
presence of the whole world, elect and reprobate, devils and angels, and
then God will make public the justification that now is private. That
justification of the final judgment will be a strictly legal act of God.
It will not occur, nor does Scripture ever say so, because of our
works, or on the basis of our works. But it will take place according
to our works as a kind of standard. In that final judgment, the sole
basis of our justification will be what it is today, namely, the
obedience of Jesus Christ in our stead. Thank God for that! If this is
not true, we have no hope. But in that day, the good works that we have
done by the grace of God will be displayed by God, forgiven of all the
corruption that tainted them, so that those works display and
demonstrate the reality of God’s gracious judgment and salvation of us
to the praise of God.
To the attack on justification that arises from the doctrine of a
conditional covenant, we reply, first, that on the basis of a
conditional covenant the denial of justification by faith alone, and of
all the doctrines of grace, follows. If the covenant is conditional,
justification is by faith and works. And if the covenant is conditional,
so is election conditional, the atonement conditional, the salvation of
a sinner conditional, and eternal life conditional.
But, second, our response is that the very fact that a conditional
covenant implies justification by faith and works proves that the
doctrine of a conditional covenant is false doctrine. It is the
introduction into the Reformed churches of a gospel of salvation by man’s
own willing and working.
Third, our response is that the covenant is unconditional. God
promises the covenant to, and fulfils the covenant with Jesus Christ and
all the elect in Jesus Christ out of mere grace, as Galatians 3:16 and
Galatians 3:29 teach. Galatians 3:16 teaches that the covenant promise
to Abraham’s seed was a promise to Christ, who is the seed of Abraham.
The covenant promise never was directed to all the physical offspring of
Abraham. According to Galatians 3:29, those, and only those, who belong
to Christ by divine election are included in the seed of Abraham and are
objects of the promise. Today the entire conservative Reformed and
Presbyterian church world is put on guard by God, through the theology
of the "federal vision," that the doctrine of a conditional
covenant is the rejection of the gospel of salvation by grace. And the
whole Reformed church world is being tested regarding the fundamental
confession of the Reformed churches down through the ages, that
salvation is by grace alone.
Our response to the attack on justification by faith alone, in the
fourth place, is this, that we on our part charge those who teach
justification by faith and works that they destroy the peace and the
certainty of salvation of the child of God, that they rob God of His
glory, and that they are, as Calvin accuses everyone who teaches
justification by faith and works, Pharisees. Everyone who teaches and
believes justification by works in any form is a Pharisee. According to
our Lord, in Luke 18:14, Pharisees are not justified. How can one be
justified who depends on his own sin-tainted works and dares, as Robert
Trail put it, to make his own pitiful holiness sit on the throne of
judgment with the precious blood of the lamb of God.
The Truth of James 2
I have so far deliberately bypassed the chief argument always used
for justification by faith and works, and against justification by faith
alone. This is a biblical argument. It is the appeal to James 2:14ff. I
now want to consider the attack on justification by faith alone
consisting of an appeal to James 2, and in connection with this appeal,
the truth of James 2 concerning justification.
James 2, teaches that both Abraham, in offering up Isaac at God’s
command, and Rahab, in receiving and saving the Israelite spies, were
justified by works (vss. 21, 25). James 2 teaches that from these
important events in Old Testament history, explained as justification by
works, we see "how that by works a man is justified and not by
faith only" (vs. 24). Apparently, James 2 teaches that
justification is by works, and not by faith only. And, seemingly, in
chapter 2 James teaches a doctrine that is clean contrary to the
teaching of the apostle Paul, who, in Romans 3 and 4, in Galatians 2,
and in other places, teaches that justification is not by works, but by
faith alone.
It is not surprising that the enemies of justification by faith alone
make much of James 2. James 2 is the decisive passage for them all. Rome
quoted James 2 to Martin Luther endlessly, until at one point, in
exasperation, the Reformer dismissed James as a "right strawy
epistle" – an epistle of straw (a charge he did not maintain).
Similarly, the contemporary defenders of justification by works in the
Reformed churches sit in James 2. This all by itself is highly
significant. These defenders of justification by works in the Reformed
churches line up with Rome against the gospel of the Reformation.
The explanation of James 2 by the enemies of justification by faith
alone is as follows. James teaches that justification, as an act of
God by which the sinner becomes righteous, is very really by the
good works of the sinner, so that the righteousness of the sinner is
partly his own obedience to the law of God. According to these defenders
of justification by faith and works, God takes the sinner’s works into
account in the act of justification. James is to be harmonized with Paul
in this way, that, although both of them are speaking of justification
in the same sense, they have different works in view. The works that
Paul excludes from justification in Romans 3:28 are only ceremonial
works, and works that are done to merit salvation. On the other hand,
they say, the works that James has in view are the truly good works that
proceed from faith.
This was the explanation of James 2 that Rome has always given. This
is the explanation of James 2 that the advocates of the "federal
vision" are now giving. Our righteousness with God is partly Christ’s
obedience, and partly our own. Our justification today and in the day of
judgment depends partly on Christ’s work for us and partly on our own
good works. In the justifying act of God by which we become righteous,
our own works enter in. His holy eye falls on them, not as sins to be
pardoned, but as deeds that must be acceptable to God, to make us worthy
of eternal life. And we stroll into the judgment, now and on the world’s
last day, with our good works in our hands, pleading these works as
deeds upon which our eternal destiny shall depend.
Is this not too terrifying to contemplate? Will you and I face the
last judgment in this way? Must I die with this terrifying thought in my
soul: my eternal destiny rests upon something I have done, upon myself?
Is this not gross insult – the insult of self-righteous unbelief –
to the perfect righteousness God has worked out in Christ?
This is not the teaching of James 2.
First of all, whatever James teaches in chapter 2, it is in harmony
with what Paul teaches, because the Spirit cannot contradict Himself in
the Bible. Paul is teaching about justification in the sense of a legal
act of God acquitting us of guilt and reckoning us righteous. This is
plain from Paul’s language in Romans 3 and 4: "imputes;"
"forgives;" "to him that worketh not, but believeth on
him that justifieth the ungodly;" Abraham our father was not
"justified by works." (Romans 4:1-8)
Second, James is speaking of justification in a different sense from
Paul. James refers to the believer’s proof and demonstration of his
free justification by faith alone. The man who has been justified by
faith alone will show that justification. He will show it to other men.
He will prove that justification to himself. And he will show that
justification to God his judge. He will show his justification by the
good works that always are the fruit of justification.
This has always been the explanation of James 2 by the Reformed
fathers. In his commentary on James 2:14ff, John Calvin wrote that
justification by works in James 2 refers to the "proof [Abraham]
gave of his justification." Justification by works in James 2 means
"that righteousness is known and proved by its fruits."
That this is indeed James’ meaning the passage itself shows. James
is contending with church members who, although they profess faith, in
fact have a "dead" faith, a faith that produces no good works
at all, but is content to live impenitently in sin. James challenges
this kind of church member: "show me thy faith without thy
works," and adds, "I will show thee my faith by my works"
(vs. 18).
James himself calls attention to the fact that Abraham was justified
by God’s legal act of forgiving sins, and imputing righteousness by
faith alone, long before Abraham offered up his son Isaac on the
mountain. Right in the middle of his doctrine of justification, James
quotes Genesis 15:6: "and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith,
Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for
righteousness." This happened many years before Isaac was born.
Abraham believed the promise of God. And Abraham’s faith, apart from
any works at all, including the sacrifice of Isaac, was imputed unto
Abraham for righteousness.
James is teaching exactly what Jesus had taught in Luke 7:47 about
the sinful woman who loved Him, because He had forgiven all her sins,
and who anointed His feet with the precious ointment. "Her sins,
which are many are forgiven; for she loved much." He did not mean
that her love was the ground of her forgiveness. But He meant that her
love was proof and evidence of the forgiveness of her many sins. That
this was Jesus meaning is put beyond doubt by the second part of Luke
7:47: "but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth
little."
This is the teaching of James 2. Good works, which have no part in
the sinner’s being accounted righteous before God (for this is by
faith alone), are the necessary fruit and demonstration of
justification. By the good works of loving gratitude to Him who has
graciously forgiven their sins, Abraham, Rahab, and every true believer
are justified demonstratively.
James 2, therefore, is an important passage, to teach us the right
relation between justification by faith alone and a life of good works.
The Relation Between Justification and Works
Good works, indeed an entire, consistent life of good works – good
works in personal life, good works in high school, good works in dating,
good works in marriage, good works in the home and family, good works on
the job, good works at church, good works in the midst of and over
against the godless, depraved culture and society in which we are
privileged to shine as light in the darkness – I say, good works are
the fruits of justification by faith alone. They are fruits and
evidences of our justification by faith alone. Our good works are not
the conditions for justification, nor the basis of justification, nor
the content of justification, but the fruits of it.
Good works are the fruits of justification in two ways.
First, the faith by which we are justified is a true and living
faith. As a true and living faith, it unites us to the resurrected,
living, Jesus Christ so that by this faith we also receive the
cleansing, empowering grace of Christ to live godly lives. Whomever He
justifies, them He also sanctifies. Although we are justified by faith
without any works, the faith that justifies is never without its works.
Second, good works are the fruit of justification in this way, that
the forgiven sinner, freed from the guilt and shame of sin, and freed
therefore from death and hell, and to whom now heaven is opened up, and
upon whom the smiling face of God now shines, will love his gracious Saviour.
And this thankful love for God is the motive of a life of good works.
Oh, it is a mighty motive for zeal for good works. This was Jesus’
teaching about the relation between justification and good works in the
parable of the two debtors in Luke 7:42: "and when they had nothing
to pay, he freely forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them
will love him most?" If we are forgiven, we will love. And if we
are forgiven much, we will love much. Without love for God for gracious
justification, no good work is possible at all. We must hear Him say to
our soul: "My son, My daughter, adopted in the cross, I freely
forgive all your sins. I impute to you the righteousness of My
Son." Then we will be zealous for good works – we cannot but be
zealous for good works.
Fact is, and let the advocates of justification by works hear it,
every work that is done out of the motive of earning, out of the motive
of repaying, out of the motive of fulfilling a condition, out of the
motive to make ourselves worthy, out of the motive of grounding our
salvation, in order to make a universal gracious promise effective for
oneself, every such work is evil, is sin. Love works in the only way
pleasing to God. And love confesses the truth of salvation by grace
alone. Love obeys the law. Love heeds the precepts and follows the
example of Jesus in the gospel.
The preacher has no reason to fear that if he preaches justification
by faith alone, the doctrine will breed carelessness in his
congregation.
This is not to say that there will not be those who abuse the
doctrine by showing themselves careless in their life. That some will do
this explains the presence in the Bible of James 2.
It may not be overlooked that James 2 is a necessary warning
concerning justification and good works. There were in the church at
that time those who were loudly confessing gracious salvation, but were
failing to live in good works, especially by cruelty toward their fellow
church members. There still are such people in the church. I myself have
contended with these people, and those were some of the fiercest
conflicts in all of my ministry. Oh, how loudly they spoke of sovereign
grace. But then in their lives showed no fruits of good works. The
preacher and consistory must admonish them in strong language: "Do
you make an orthodox confession while living wickedly? So does Satan.
Wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?"
By this very admonition, written on the pages of inspired Scripture,
which comes to us all, we who have a living faith are stirred up the
more to a life of good works, to show our faith. This glorifies God, Who
saves, not only from the punishment of sin, but also from sin’s
pollution and slavery. And He saves from sin’s pollution and power in
the same way He saves from sin’s guilt: by the gospel of grace, not by
the law.
JUSTIFICATION AND THE BELIEVER
Rev. William Langerak
Introduction
One thing yet remains in this timely and enriching conference on the
subject, "Justification by Faith Alone." Previous speakers
have carefully explained the truth of it. And because almost every
attack upon it through the ages has taken the same form, namely by
injecting the works of the sinner as a basis for our justification,
these speakers have carefully distinguished between justification and
sanctification, showed the necessary relationship between them, and
demonstrated that justification occurs both objectively and subjectively
without any respect to our works, whether good or evil, in body or soul,
from the flesh or regenerated spirit. It has been shown that when it
comes to justification, our works simply have no place whatsoever. What
has been taught is the truth of justification as generally understood by
the church for some 2000 years, but especially as developed, formulated
and taught by the church of the Reformation over against the pernicious
errors of Rome and the Arminians. The thing that remains in this
conference is to explain the significance of this truth for the everyday
life of the believer.
The general significance of this truth has already been noted. The
theme of this conference uses the fond description given it by the
church in the past, "the heart of the gospel." Previous
speakers noted Luther called it, "the article upon which the church
stands or falls" and Calvin, "the main hinge upon which
religion turns." We might add that the general significance of
justification is also indicated by the depth of treatment it has
received by such theologians. For example, in Book Three of his Institutes,
Calvin devotes nine of the 25 chapters to justification, compared
with one each on faith and regeneration, and three on predestination—so
much for stereo-types. He also devotes eight chapters to sanctification,
reducing the charge that the Reformed have no place for good works, to
outright slander. The general significance of justification was also
clear from the text we read, where Scripture not only defends this
truth, but calls those who try to overthrow it "dogs" and
"evil-workers."
It is the purpose of this speech, however, to demonstrate from
Scripture, the confessions, and Reformed writers, the specific practical
benefits the truth of justification affords the believer, and to do this
while demonstrating what is forfeited when any other notion of
justification is entertained. Furthermore, it is my intention to
concentrate on those aspects of justification that apply to our present
earthly life, since previous speakers have mentioned the significance of
justification for our eternal life and glory.
The practical significance of this truth for our present earthly life
is important to demonstrate for two reasons. First, so that believers
will be encouraged to battle with great zeal and personal cost for this
truth over against error. Even at this present hour, supposedly
conservative Reformed and Presbyterian leaders boldly claim that this
truth as developed, formulated and taught by the church of the
Reformation, is deformed, illegitimate, and diseased. In their opinion
thousands of believers offered their backs to the whips, their tongues
to the knives, their mouths to the gags, and their bodies to the fire
not for the truth of God’s Word, but for a colossal, theological
mistake made by our Reformed fathers. This most recent attack, which
goes by the name "Federal Vision," does more than belittle the
dear cost paid in the past by Reformed believers to maintain this truth,
a despicable thing all by itself. But by assaulting the biblical truth
of justification, which is indeed the very heart of the gospel,
proponents rob the believer of it practical and saving benefits, and God
of His glory. Believers, therefore, must know these benefits of
justification for their everyday life, so they personally are moved to
maintain it, even at great personal cost.
In the second place, the practical benefits of the truth of
justification must be demonstrated so that believers will avail
themselves of them. There is a danger that we simply view justification
as a theological abstraction and the battle over it as a family quarrel
over semantics. The fact is where justification is misunderstood,
rejected or overthrown, there simply can be no enjoyment of the rich
benefits it provides, only misery.
Justification Establishes the Righteousness of God and our Legal
Relationship to All Things
To understand the significance of justification by faith alone for
the every day life of the believer, it is first necessary to know what
sets it apart from every other aspect of salvation. What is it that
makes justification the heart of the gospel, the main hinge upon which
religion turns, and the article upon which the church stands or falls?
If you suppose the reason is that justification most clearly reveals the
sovereign discretion, grace, and mercy of God in salvation apart from
the will, worth, and works of men, you would be mistaken. It is true the
doctrine of justification clearly reveals these things, but not
exclusively or even primarily so. God’s electing love, enlivening
regeneration, transforming sanctification, and indeed every part of
salvation equally reveal that God saves apart from the will, worth, or
work of the sinner. It could even be argued that election more clearly
reveals the divine prerogative in salvation, or that sanctification more
clearly reveals the divine power in salvation, or regeneration the
passivity of man under God’s work.
What sets justification apart and gives it its unique significance is
this: Of all the aspects of salvation we enjoy, justification reveals
and extols the legal right of the triune God, i.e. His righteousness
both within His own being and in His dealings with mankind. And this
issue of God’s righteousness is fundamental for the enjoyment of
salvation in the Christian life and is what makes justification the
heart of the gospel.
God’s righteousness refers to the truth that within His own being
and in all His dealings with the creation, particularly mankind, the
triune God acts according to the standard of His own ethical goodness.
Implied also is the right of God to insist upon and maintain that
standard. The righteousness of God is not appreciated much anymore in
the churches today. In fact, it would be fair to say that failure to honour
it underlies most movements to reject the truth of justification.
Churches today may be interested in personal improvement and even
deliverance from misery. But as Abraham Kuyper once charged, the whole
matter is merely one of "calling for the assistance of the Great
Physician, who receives His fee and then is discharged with a few
thanks. The question of right does not enter into the matter at all; so
long as the sinner is made holy, all is well."1
God’s righteousness is basic to the Christian faith. It is an
essential perfection of God’s own being and activity; if God were
unrighteous or act unrighteously, He would not be God. Consider also
that along with knowledge and holiness, it is a perfection God
communicated to man when He created him in His own image, and is a
perfection He immediately restores by Christ in the new man. In
addition, the person and every work of Jesus Christ has as its purpose
to reveal the righteousness of God. On the cross, rather than let sin go
unpunished, God punished the same in His beloved Son, would accept only
the sacrifice of His righteousness as satisfaction for sin, and rewarded
Him righteously with highest honour and glory for His work. The Heidelberg
Catechism teaches Jesus was provided to restore us to righteousness
(Q&A16), suffered to obtain for us righteousness (Q&A37), died
to satisfy the righteousness of God (Q&A40), and arose and ascended
to make us partakers of that righteousness (Q&A45 & 49). He,
Jesus Christ, the mystery of godliness, was even Himself justified in
the Spirit (1Tim. 3:16) to reveal God’s righteousness.
Should it surprise us then that justification, the forensic,
juridical, and legal act of God declaring us righteous on the basis of
the cross, is the heart of the gospel? It is so because it establishes
God’s righteousness. It reveals God to be the Lawgiver who establishes
right and wrong, the Judge who determines what is in conformity with
that law, and King who rules in righteousness, punishing or rewarding
according to His law. And since it establishes God’s righteousness, it
reveals the wonder of His grace in justifying men. As Herman Bavinck put
it, "What God most strictly condemns in His holy law, namely the
justification of the wicked (Deut. 25:1), what He says of Himself He
will never do (Exo. 23:7), that He nevertheless does. But He does it
without jeopardizing His righteousness. This is the wonder of the
gospel."2
The further significance of justification, then, is that because it
reveals God’s righteousness in establishing a relationship with us, it
serves as the legal basis for every relationship of the believer.
Abraham Kuyper rightly noted, "Right regulates relations. Right is
the basis especially of interpersonal relationships. All are first
established and developed on a legal basis, that of right."3
And so, our justification serves as the basis for our relationship to
the world, relationship to sin, to death, to the law, to the church, to
every member of the church, to every member of the world, but especially
to our relationship to God. There can be no relationship with God apart
from justification, and no subsequent change in our condition by God
unless there is first a change in our status, that is our legal
relationship to God, the legal right of God over us.
Kuyper again: "It is evident that regeneration, calling and
conversion, yea, even complete reformation and sanctification, are not
sufficient. For although these are very glorious and deliver you from
sin’s stain and pollution…yet they do not touch your juridical
relation to God. Every member of the church must…realize his juridical
position to God, now and forever, that he is not merely man or woman,
but a creature belonging to God, absolutely controlled by God, and
guilty and punishable when not acting according to the will of
God."4
We will now examine more closely the significance of justification
for the believer in these relationships.
Justification and our Relationship to the Church
Justification is basic to our relationship with the church of Jesus
Christ. First, it implies that right church membership is essential. To
enjoy the benefits of justification by faith alone, one must be a member
where it is taught and believed. The reason is that justification is
received by means of official worship. By his words in worship, the
publican was justified, and by his words in worship the Pharisee was
condemned (Matt. 12:37). Christ’s declaration that one is justified is
heard only through the right and official preaching of the gospel by
ministers called and sent. Christ must speak, for only God can forgive
sins. Only God can justify. And he chooses to do so through preaching.
Besides, preaching that has at its heart the declaration sinners who
believe in Christ are justified, is the primary mark of the true church.
The importance of justification for church membership explains why
Luther called it the article upon which the church stands or falls. A
true church is one that preaches justification by faith alone, and
nothing contrary to it. A church that will not and does not preach
justification by faith alone is no church. Where justification by faith
alone is rejected and another form of justification is taught, there
simply can be no justification of sinners. It may have the form of pure
religion and undefiled, but it justifies no member.
In this regard, I think that preaching which declares sinners
justified some other way, is no different than a radical Muslim cleric
who teaches his followers they are received into the favor of God for
killing infidels by detonating a suicide bomb strapped to their waist.
It may be believed so that some give up their life for this cause, but
what they preach simply does not happen. So also, where the preacher
declares that one is justified by faith and works of faith, no one is
justified. They can declare it, but it simply isn’t true.
As regards our relationship to the church, justification also serves
as the basis for our essential unity as members of the church and right
judgment of one another. It is in this connection that Calvin spoke of
the judgment of love or charity. He noted that because unholiness and
hypocrisy always exist in the church and in every member, sanctification
all by itself cannot be used as a mark of the true church, or any member
for that matter. Judgment must be according to love, that is, according
to how we ourselves would be judged by other believers in the light of
God’s gracious justification of us. This is what Jesus was referring
to when He said, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge
righteous judgment" (John 7:24), and "with what judgment ye
judge, ye shall be judged" (Matt. 7:2). We should keep that in mind
in our dealing with one another. We are even required to pray,
"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive the sins of others."
The reason justification serves as the basis for our unity, and of
right judgment of one another is because it is the great equalizer in
the church of Jesus Christ. Justification is the legal basis for
spiritual equality. The Westminster Catechism takes note of this
significant fact: "Justification doth equally free all
believers from the revenging wrath of God and that perfectly, in this
life, that they never fall into condemnation. Sanctification is neither
equal in all, nor in this life, perfect in any" (Q&A77).
Justification is the one thing that all members of the church, from
little children to the oldest saints, share in common. There will be
differences in race, gender, gifts, social standing, economic position,
and education. There will be differences of growth in sanctification—children
who spiritually mature early and adults who are yet spiritually children—but
all must be viewed and treated as equals on the basis of their
justification.
Justification and our Relationship to the World: Our Flesh and Sin
The doctrine of justification is also significant for our
relationship to the world and things that belong to it. Justification
changes our entire relationship to the creation, to the law, to sin, and
to members of the world. This change in our relationship to the world
and the things in it, is indicated in Scripture. The operative phrase is
that we "are dead to" them. By this Scripture means that our
legal relationship to them is severed so that they no longer have any
right over us, while at the same time a new relationship is established
with Jesus Christ so we can derive all life and benefit from Him.
We note in the first place that Scripture teaches justification
changes the relationship to our own flesh, which has its origins in this
world, and the sins which have their source in our flesh. Justification
makes us dead to sin and the law of sin in our flesh. For example,
1Peter 2:24 says Christ "bare our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness." And
Romans 6:1-2: "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God
forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer
therein?"
Justification, then, is the basis, possibility, and certainty of
sanctification, the deliverance from the actual power of sin in our
flesh. Justification and sanctification, then, are necessarily and
inseparably related; the relationship is that of legal to actual, status
to condition, right to reception, imputation to indwelling. And they are
necessarily and inseparably related exactly because it is God that
justifies. Justification gives the believer the right to be delivered
from the dominion of sin. Through it the right of sin to reign in his
flesh is legally overthrown. And, since justification occurs through
means of faith—the living, organic connection to Jesus Christ
established by God—the believer certainly will be delivered from the
power of sin. This explains why the Heidelberg Catechism can so
boldly proclaim that it is impossible that the doctrine of justification
by faith alone makes men careless and profane (Q&A64). Because of
their relationship to Christ by justification through faith, the
believer is now dead to sin so that it is impossible that the life of
Christ fail to actuate them to a new and godly life. Justification does
not depend upon sanctification, but is the legal basis and certainty of
it.
That one is justified does not mean sin is dead in the flesh
of the believer. That should be clear not only from our experience, but
Scripture. Job talked of the iniquities of his youth and that he
abhorred himself because of his sin. While David speaks of his integrity
in Psalm 7:8, he also confesses his iniquity and his depravity in Psalm
51. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother
conceive me." And the apostle Paul, a justified saint, remarked,
"With the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh
the law of sin" (Rom. 7:25).
The believer must also recognize the presence of in-dwelling sin
because faith is counted for righteousness in the man who
"believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly" (Rom. 4:5). I
believe this to be true, even when speaking of subjective justification.
The benefits of justification are experienced continually in our lives
not only when we humbly confess our past sin and depravity, but
especially when we confess that while justified and sanctified saints,
we remain sinners in our flesh. We must accept personal responsibility
for our depravity and the sin that issues forth from it like a flood.
Otherwise, we become "the whole" who have no need of the
physician and "the righteous" who have no need for
repentance" (Mark 2:17-18). In the words of Calvin, "to obtain
Christ’s righteousness, we must abandon our own righteousness…The
heart cannot be open to receive God’s mercy unless it be utterly empty
of all opinion of it’s own worth" (Institutes, 3.11.3 and
3.12.7). An example is the publican, who was justified when he cried
out, "Be merciful to me, a sinner"—not, "be
merciful to me, who used to be a sinner."
The above, explains why the Heidelberg Catechism includes an
entire section on our misery prior to the section on our deliverance
where justification is proclaimed. A Reformed preacher does not skip
this section and simply go on to preach our deliverance with the
attitude, "Well, this stuff about sin, our misery, and depravity is
something we used to be and used to need deliverance from." It,
too, is there for our comfort; it is there so we properly evaluate
ourselves as we are by nature because it is necessary to enjoy
justification. It is necessary because Jesus delivers and gives
righteousness to the poor, the needy, the oppressed, the humble, the
mourning, the weary and heavy laden, the hungry and thirsty after
righteousness. Even the justified, regenerated, and sanctified apostle
Paul could still confess, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners; of whom I am chief" (1Tim. 1:15). Bavinck made the point
this way: "Even though the believer shares in the forgiveness of
sins (justification) he must consciously, from day to day, keep
appropriating it by faith in order to enjoy the assurance and comfort of
it. It is true that there are many who continue to live on the basis of
a bygone experience and are content with that, but such is not the
Christian life."5
Understanding justification’s change in our relationship to sin
(that we are dead to sin, but sin is not dead in us) is also important
so we do not minimize sin or God’s law. Previous speakers have pointed
out the striking fact that those who attack the truth of justification
on the basis that it hinders the performance of good works, generally do
not uphold the standard of God’s law or hold it in high esteem
themselves. This was true of the self-justifying Pharisees who paid lip
service to the law in Jesus’ day. This was true of the Arminians and
followers of John Wesley. There is a reason for this. If one is
justified in part by his works according to the standard of God’s law,
then that standard must be attainable. Otherwise no sinner can be
justified. The result of such thinking invariably is that the perfection
demanded by the law is lessened, either by saying the law only demands
perfect outward performance, or that God accepts imperfect performance
as the basis of justification. Striking too, that when this is done,
good works in the eyes of men become evil in the eyes of God, since they
are not fruits of thankfulness for our justification, but are means to
attain justification. This phenomena also explains the complaint voiced
by the Presbyterian theologian, John Murray. "Far too frequently we
fail to entertain the gravity of our sin against God. This is the reason
why this grand article of justification does not ring the bells in the
innermost depths of our spirit. This is the reason why the gospel of
justification is to such an extent a meaningless sound in the world and
in the church of the 20th century."6
Justification and our Relationship to the World: The Natural
Creation
As regards the significance of justification for our relationships in
the world, justification also is the basis for the believer’s
relationship to the natural creation. Being justified, we are also made
dead to the world in that sense. However, we must quickly add that at
the same time we are reconciled to the world, which is also redeemed in
Christ. That is brought out in two texts in 2 Corinthians. In chapter
4:14-15 Paul says one benefit of justification is that all things are
now for your sakes. And in chapter 5:17-18 he says, "If any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all
things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us
to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of
reconciliation."
What does this all mean? First, the believer is made dead to the
world in the same sense that he is made dead to sin. We are dead to the
affects of every evil. They simply cannot change our relationship to
God. The evil works for our benefit, enlivening the new man and
crucifying the old. Satan, even when tempting us, serves our Lord. This
is what Calvin was referring to, when in the context of justification,
he remarked that although we are redeemed from a world that otherwise
confines and oppresses us, all things now work together for our
good" (Institutes, 3.15.8). Our comfort is not simply in God’s
providence. Our comfort, as the Heidelberg Catechism teaches, is
that the God of providence is my Father, who established that new
adoptive relationship when I was justified (Q&A27). Bavinck again:
"The earmark of the justified is that in the midst of oppression
and persecution to which they are exposed on every hand in the world,
they put their trust in the Lord and seek their salvation and
blessedness in Him alone. Nowhere is there any deliverance for them,
neither in themselves nor in any creature, but in the Lord their God
alone."7
This fact explains why, immediately after teaching that "it is
God that justifies," Paul asks those comforting rhetorical
questions, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword" (Rom. 8:36)? Being justified, they are all either
averted by God our justifying Father, or they are turned to our profit.
Either way, once justified, providence and the world, and even the evil
of this world serves our salvation.
Secondly, this truth of justification by faith means that our
attitude toward the things of this earthly creation is changed. As Col.
3:2-3 teaches: "Set your affection on things above, not on things
on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ."
Or 1 John 2:15: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world." This attitude toward the world that is the result of
our justification, is captured by Paul in Phil. 3:8 we read earlier:
"I count [since I am justified] all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord: for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung."
Calvin called this attitude a real contempt for this life, adding,
"Indeed there is no middle ground between these two. Either the
world must become worthless to us, or hold us bound by intemperate love
of it" (Institutes, 3.9.1-2).
Thirdly, justification also establishes the right use of the world by
the believer. It is important to remember that this contempt we are to
have for the world is not absolute since the creation is being redeemed,
and given for our benefit as justified believers. Hence, justification
serves as the basis for what we call Christian liberty. As Bavinck put
it so well, "The believer who is justified in Christ is the freest
creature in the world."8 This connection probably
explains why in his section on justification Calvin also treated the
subject of Christian liberty. He saw that since we are dead to the world
on the basis of our justification, Christian liberty condemns any
unbiblical restrictions upon the use of the good things in this
creation. Since we are dead with Christ from the rudiments of this
world, while living in it we are not subject to ordinances such as touch
not, taste not, or handle not (Col. 2:20). Calvin says of those who want
to restrict the use of this creation to such laws or even their
necessary use, that they "fetter the consciences more tightly than
does the Word," and "deprive us of the lawful fruit of God’s
beneficence." (Institutes, 3.10.1).
As regards the lawful use of this present creation by the justified,
Calvin is helpful when he gives us two main principles to live by. The
first is that we use this creation as though not using it, or enjoy the
gifts of it as though not having them. The operative attitude for Calvin
is indifference. For him, adiaphora were truly the things
indifferent, i.e. can only be used lawfully when we are indifferent to
them or, to use biblical language, we are dead to them. Secondly, Calvin
taught that being justified, we must use and enjoy the creation
conscious that we are stewards who must give an account to our Father in
the day of Christ.
Justification and our Relationship to God: Peace
We move finally to the significance of the doctrine of justification
for our relationship to God.
In the first place we notice that justification is the exclusive
means by which we are reconciled to God, that is, by which we enjoy any
peaceful and blessed relationship to God. Negatively, that means those
who justify themselves are not and cannot be reconciled to God. We are
now not so concerned with those who would do so by excusing their sin,
but those who attempt to attain justification on the basis of their own
works, either in whole or in part. It makes no difference what kind of
works they try to make a part of their justification—whether works
supposedly performed by an unregenerated person, or good works
supposedly done with a sanctified heart. One who believes they play some
part in their justification, simply is not justified, either in
actuality or the experience.
Bavinck again: "You either have all of Christ’s righteousness
or none of it. You cannot get a part of it and fill in the rest
ourselves." In Luke 18:44 Jesus declared frankly to the Pharisees
who attempted this, that they were not justified. His sharp word to all
who use their works as the basis for their righteousness before God, is
this: "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God
knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is
abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). The result of
self-justification is everlasting death under the wrath of God.
"The man who doeth those things shall live by them," that is
he will not live at all but die by them (Rom. 10:5). The official
judgment of the Reformed is that "if we should appear before God,
relying on ourselves or any other creature, though ever so little, we
should, alas! be consumed" (Belgic Confession, Art. 23).
But for those who believe that they are justified by means of faith
alone, the pre-eminent benefit is peace with God, according to Romans
5:1. About this text Calvin remarked, "There Paul says that no
peace or quiet joy are retained unless we are convinced we are justified
by faith. Those that prate that we are justified by faith because being
reborn we are righteous by living spiritually, have never tasted the
sweetness of grace" (Institutes, 3.13.5).
Justified, we have peace with God because he removes the guilt of sin
from our conscience. Peace with God as regards guilt from sin is what
Luther so desired and what drove him to inquire as to what Scripture
says. Trying to achieve righteousness through works, he was terrified in
his own conscience. But forsaking all that and being justified by faith,
all that was taken away.
Then too, we are granted peace with God, because he grants unto us
the right to enjoy every blessing in Jesus Christ. Justification is the
basis for our adoption as His sons and daughters to enjoy all the rights
and privileges of the inheritance which is His kingdom, and to live in
conscious fellowship with Him which is the covenant of grace. This ought
to thrill every one of us this evening who love God’s covenant, that
fellowship with God we enjoy and receive being justified.
Justification and our Relationship to God: God-glorifying Worship
and a Thankful Holy Life
Finally, we note that justification is the basis for proper worship,
heartfelt praise, honour, and glory of God, whether by word or deed.
Without justification, there can be holy living in thankfulness, which
is a form of worship. Calvin noted this too. After calling justification
the main hinge upon which religion turns, he goes on to explain why:
"Unless you first grasp what your relation to God is and the nature
of His judgment concerning you, you have neither a foundation upon which
to establish your salvation, nor one on which to build piety toward
God" (Institutes, 3.11.1). Here, Calvin turns the tables
on all advocates of justification by works, faith and works, or faith
and the works of faith. Against their charge that the doctrine of
justification by faith alone hinders a holy life, he rightly claims that
without it men cannot and will not live piously.
History confirms this assertion. For whenever the doctrine of
justification by faith alone is overthrown, rejected, or minimized,
members of the church become more unholy and profane (as one previous
speaker already noted). The reason is that a holy life is the fruit of
thankfulness to God for His free grace in justifying us. Whenever we
believe we have some part, though ever so small, in our justification,
we cannot be thankful to God. Instead we will not only be proud and
complacent, but, as Calvin claims, "attempt to our great harm to
filch from the Lord the thanks we owe his free kindness" (Institutes,
3.13.1).
There can be no real worship, heartfelt praise, honour and glory to
God, with a doctrine of justification by faith and works—only self
glory. Or as Scripture declares, "If Abraham were justified by
works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God" (Rom. 4:2).
And this is abhorrent in the sight of God, for it robs him of the glory
of his righteousness. Calvin again: "Whoever glories in himself,
glories against God. Man cannot without sacrilege, claim for himself
even a crumb of righteousness, for just so much is plucked and taken
away from the glory of God’s righteousness" (Institutes, 3.13.2).
But when we believe we are justified by faith alone, there will be
true and acceptable thanksgiving, praise, honour and glory to God
expressed in our lives and in worship. This occurs because, as we stated
earlier, when God justifies us, He establishes and causes us to
experience in the most wonderful way his righteousness, which in turn
magnifies and extols his grace. This is why Scripture calls the gospel
of righteousness a glorious gospel. The Lord’s purpose in bestowing
righteousness upon us graciously in Christ through justification by
faith alone is "to declare His own righteousness" (Rom. 3:26).
He wills that every mouth be stopped and all the world be rendered
guilty before Him (Rom. 3:19ff), because as long as man has anything to
say in his defense he detracts from God’s glory.
Without being justified by faith alone, there can be no confidence
before the righteousness of God either. Calvin again: "One can
easily and readily prattle about the value of works in justifying men.
But when we come before the presence of God we must away such
amusements. How shall we reply to the heavenly judge when He calls us to
an account. Let us envisage for ourselves that Judge. Not as our minds
naturally imagine Him, but as He is depicted for us in Scripture. By
whose brightness the stars are darkened, by whose strength the mountains
are melted, by whose wrath the earth is shaken, whose wisdom catches the
wise in their craftiness, besides whose purity all things are defiled,
whose righteousness not even the angels can bear, who makes not the
guilty man innocent, whose vengeance when once kindled penetrates to the
depths of hell. Let us behold Him, I say, sitting in judgment to examine
the deeds of men. Who will stand confident before His throne? The answer
is the man who is justified by faith alone and only that man" (Institutes,
3.12.1).
All these benefits for the justified believer as regards his
relationship to God are summarized in one of the most beautiful passages
of the Reformed Confessions: "The result of being justified freely
by His grace is that the believer ascribes all glory to God, humbles
himself before God, and acknowledging ourselves such as we really are,
relies and rests upon the obedience of Christ crucified alone. This
gives us confidence in approaching to God, freeing the conscience of
fear terror and dread. Therefore, as Hebrews 4:16 puts it, we may come
boldly unto that throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need" (Belgic Confession, Art. 23).
And if these were the only benefits of justification by faith alone, it
should be enough to motivate us to fight hell itself for this doctrine.
And many have.
We conclude with a fitting quote from Martin Luther: "Whoever
departs from the article of justification does not know God and is an
idolater. For when this article has been taken away, nothing remains but
error, hypocrisy, godlessness and idolatry, although it may seem to be
the height of truth, worship of God, and holiness." Give thanks to
God for this unspeakable gift.
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