Throughout the ages of church history, faithful pastors and theologians have outlined what you might call the essentials of the faith—things that are essential, non-negotiable. If you deny these things, then we have broken fellowship. It doesn't mean we don't love a person.
It doesn't mean we wouldn't be kind to them, of course. We can't fellowship together as a church if we disagree on these essentials. The list may vary certainly in some terminology, but basically it's like this. Number one, the authority, inerrancy, and sufficiency of the Scripture, because if that's not there, nothing else matters. All the other doctrinal, foundational, or essential elements depend upon believing the Bible is the Word of God. And then the Trinity. God is God the Father. At the same time, he's God the Son. At the same time, he's God the Holy Spirit. For example, the United Pentecostals would deny the deity of Christ. I guess that he's some sort of force, but he's not God.
We would say that's wrong. We hold to the Trinity. And of course, the person of Christ, his deity, and at the same time, his full humanity. And then the substitutionary atonement of Christ. He died vicariously, that is, in our place and for sinners. The bodily resurrection of Christ, and you might say of all that are his. We believe that.
Absolutely, bodily, literally, he rose from the dead. If not, we have no salvation. And then salvation by grace through faith alone would be another one. You could put the word justification by faith in there. Well, that's more of a component of the whole, but I'll talk more about that.
Matter of fact, I'll talk a lot more about justification in a moment. Then number seven, the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit, something many in the Reformed movement needs to get a hold of. It's not just raw academic accuracies that build the church. It's the Spirit of God using the truth that builds the church. Number eight, the second coming of Christ and the final judgment.
He is absolutely, literally, bodily returning. And there we will be ushered into a glorious eternal state, and there will be the final judgment of unbelievers. Number nine, the eternal state. You could say heaven and hell.
There is a place where all people live forever, either in the glorious eternal heavens or eternal state, we could say more broadly, or in the eternal state of eternal punishment. And then the church, I would amplify that to be local churches. If you don't get God's purposes for time, and in a sense for eternity of bringing his people together, that's always been his plan. There's no such a thing as just being in a discipleship group or a Bible study group or this little group or that little group. God ordained the people of God to get together in local churches. So we call those the essentials of the faith. Then there's some non-essentials.
These aren't all of them, but some non-essentials. We can fellowship with folks, but we can disagree on some of these. The mode of baptism, perhaps. I struggle there a little bit because I'm a Baptist, because I'm convinced the Bible teaches that. I would not say a person doesn't know Christ and is not my brother if he doesn't believe in baptism the way we do.
Spiritual gifts. You can be at different places there, and we'd still be in fellowship together. Eschatological timelines. There's a whole lot of varying opinions about the end-time events among good and godly men.
These should never be grounds for breaking fellowship. Dr. John MacArthur, hardcore, pre-tribulation, pre-millennialist. But he fellowshiped very often, taught with, preached with, preached in each other's churches, with R.C. Sproul, a Presbyterian, who was a diehard amillennialist.
And these brothers got along great. Church governance. You may differ some in the way you organize pastors or elders in the church.
Worship style within reason can be a variance, one church to another, yet not a line of fellowship. Bible translations. Now, I'm not talking about Bible paraphrases. I'm talking about good word-for-word translations from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. We can have different views there, though I would encourage you to use the one that I use, the New American Standard, so you can follow along better.
If not, buy you a cheap one, okay? And bring it when you come to church. Now, that's not a pastoral edict.
That's just a pastoral suggestion. But the one I want to talk about today, it comes under the salvation by grace through faith, and that is the doctrine of justification. The doctrine means teaching, the biblical teaching on the article of justification. Martin Luther, the famed reformer during the Protestant Reformation, said, justification is the article upon which the church stands or falls.
There's a lot of truth in that. It's very foundational. When the early Reformers, including early Baptists— of course, the Baptists didn't break off of Roman Catholicism so much as they were already there in the edges, if you will, of the culture, but there were some Baptists there when the Reformers broke out of Roman Catholic structures and teachings to become what was called the Protestant Revolution, and they were protesting against the false doctrine of the Catholic system. But everything for them and everything for Baptists in general depends upon, that we hold to, justification by faith alone. Now, John Calvin used to say, matter of fact, in my studies found out it probably didn't start with Calvin. He wasn't the first to say it, but he's noted as saying that in essentials, uniformity. There are some essential things we cannot debate.
Well, we could debate them, but we cannot divide or rather allow differing views. In non-essentials, yeah, we're open to that. And then in all things, we're to have love.
Let me read it for you exactly as it is said. In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. But in all things, charity or love. Now, the wrong road concerning this Bible teaching of justification was the Roman Catholic road. In the Council of Trent of 1545, the Catholic Church gave their official position against those who broke out of Catholicism called the Protestant Revolution, a Reformation, and how the Protestant Reformation taught justification, but how the Catholic Church in contradiction taught justification. The Catholics would say justification is not only the remission of sin, forgiveness, if you will, but it's also sanctification and the renovation of the inner man. So in the Catholic teaching on justification, you come to have your sins forgiven, but you must also gain your standing before God by sanctifying your life and by renovating yourself through the inner man. Of course, then they developed a whole system of what's been commonly called priestcraft, sacraments you go through with the priest to continue to renovate, to continue to sanctify so that you might be one of the justified ones. Well, this notion that justification includes remission, sanctification, and renovation of the inward man, the Bible knows nothing of that.
Not at all. Biblical justification does not include sanctification, and it does not include inward renovation. Those may accompany justification, but they are not the same or a part of justification.
That's very, very important. Even in the secular context of the ancient world in which our Bible was written, justification in the culture did not mean a man had renovated himself. It did not mean a man had changed himself or somehow sanctified himself.
Dr. Pendleton and his excellent systematic theology is the one where I first saw this illustration. And he says that the judges in ancient courts would have little marbles or stones. And when the case was presented for and against a defendant, the judges would hear all the evidence, and then they would get up from their judgment seats and go to an urn. And in their urn, they would drop a white stone or a black stone. A white stone was declaring this man stands justified before the law. The black stone stands for this man stands as condemned or guilty under the law. Now those stones in those urns did not change the man. Didn't renovate him, didn't sanctify him, but they did declare, forensically if you will, in a legal sense that he stood as now justified before this court of law or he stands condemned before this court of law. That's why Paul took this secular word out of the secular culture of the court of that day and brought it into our theology. He says that's what Jesus does for us. Justification is the formal declaration of your new standing, listen to me, as just before God and before his law. What a glorious truth this is. Justification is not a change of heart.
It's not a change of behavior, though that should always follow, of course. Justification is a change of standing. I now have a right standing before the triune Holy God and the divine bar of justice, though I haven't fixed anything. Romans 4-5 reminds us, But those who believe in him are believes in him who justifies the ungodly.
What kind of phrase is that? Your God is a God who justifies the ungodly. That doesn't mean he approves your ungodly heart and behaviors. It means he takes you as you are and he changes your standing into a justified one from the former standing of being a condemned guilty one.
What a phrase Paul uses. He's the God who justifies the ungodly. So when some of our Church of Christ friends, our Catholic friends, would like to push on us that your standing before God depends upon your works, you might say respectfully and maybe even lovingly, you don't understand, I serve a God who justifies the ungodly because if he doesn't, I'm sunk.
And by the way, friend, you are too. And the Bible continues on in Romans 4-6, To the man whom God credits righteousness apart from works. The word credits there is a word that has a lot of different dynamic of meaning, if you will. It means the one to whom God pronounces righteous apart from any works. It's the one that God reckons as righteous apart from any works. It's the man God imputes, puts into his account righteousness apart from any of his works. It's the God who presses to one's account that he's now justified or righteous apart from any works.
That's the kind of idea Paul is getting across. And just to quickly amplify on this further, Romans chapter 8, verses 33 through 34. Well, who would bring a charge against God's elect?
Boy, gotta stop there for a moment. If God in his sovereignty beyond our comprehension elected some to be converted, then he's got to do something about their guilty standing before his holy law because he can't change his holy law. His holy law is an expression of his very personal character, and he can't change himself because he needs not change himself.
Why do you change perfection? But all of his elect children stand guilty. So what's he going to do?
Back to our text. Romans 8, 33. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? Well, God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Well, Christ Jesus is he who died.
Yes, rather who was raised, who's at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. In the flow of the whole overall biblical context, what Paul is pointing out here is, while you are the ungodly, another phrase, while you were yet sinners, Romans 5-8. While you were in that status and you changed nothing, God did something and changed your standing on your behalf. All is an unmerited favor.
Powerful stuff. It takes the Holy Spirit to rest your heart on this because you'll never completely wrap your mind around it, but you can rest your heart fully upon it. It's an act. It's axiomatic. It's self-authenticating, these glorious truths. That is, if you are one of these spiritually regenerated elect of God. Romans 3, 24-26. Being justified in Catholic theology, you would say, as a part of your renovation. Being justified as a part of your sanctification.
No. Being justified as a gift by his grace, unmerited favor. You didn't earn it or deserve it. How did he get that done? Through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, he would be the just. God never became unjust. He's the just and now the justifier of the one who has faith. Not the one who worked, not the one who changed anything, not the one who renovated himself, not the one who somehow sanctified himself, but the one who just has faith in Christ. So he says, God overlooked these previous sins and now today he's overlooking sins through the meritorious work of Christ, who justly took your punishment on Calvary so that God could forgive you and make you as a just one, though you don't deserve it, because he took all your penalty, your guilt, and your condemnation as an unjust one. So Paul continues on.
He said, that's not enough. Let's go back to your Jewish forefather that you so revere, Father Abraham, who began the whole country, and Father David, who is your mightiest king that you so venerate. What did they believe? Romans 4, 1 through 8. What then shall we say about Abraham? Our forefather, according to the flesh, has found. For if Abraham was justified by works, now wait a minute, he's under the old law and the old covenant, but all men are saved by grace through faith, faith in this day, Abraham's day of looking forward to the cross, faith in our day looking back on the cross.
Always faith, though, in the promised Savior, Messiah. For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. In other words, that could never be before God. What does the scripture say? Genesis 15, 6 is where he's quoting from now. Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. He believed God's promise, including the coming of the Messiah Savior, and God said, boom, that faith, that belief, causes me to credit to your account that you now stand righteous before a holy God. Verse 4, Romans 4. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, a grace, but as what is due. Now if Abraham and others work their way to justification, then they're getting what they've earned.
What a ludicrous, he's just making a point, what a ludicrous thought Paul would say, what a foolish conclusion. But to the one who does not work, to our Catholic friends that we love and appreciate, to our Church of Christ friends we love and appreciate, we want them to know justification comes to those who do not work. Any religious work, right?
Ritual, sacrament, going through the motions, hoop, jump, you name it. But he does not work, but what does he do? He believes in him who justifies the ungodly. If you're going to be saved, you come to God with absolute convincing conviction that you are the most worthless sinner you've ever known, bar none. But that he is the God, the premier work of the premier person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who can justify the ungodly.
Maybe we need to put a sign out front, right there on Avalon Avenue. Grace Life Church of the Shoals, a church for the ungodly justified ones. That'd be accurate, be good theology. Now I'm not putting that out for a vote, okay?
We'll just leave it where it is right now. Verse 5 again, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited, there it is again, as righteousness. Then he goes to David, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. So the blessing of verse 6, David speaks of the blessing, it means David speaks of the pronouncement you could say.
It could even say David speaks congratulations to all of those who've come to the promised Savior in faith that he and he alone cleanses them and causes them to gain a just, a right standing before the holy God. So there are only two types of people in Scripture, those who are justified and those who are condemned. You could say it a lot of different ways, but that's one accurate biblical way to categorize all mankind before God, those who are justified and those who are condemned. These are the radical antithesis, if you will, contradiction one of the other. Now let me say to you, just to make the point, hang with me.
Don't misquote me and out of context quote me. There are two ways to be justified before God. Two ways to be justified before God. Number one, keep the law of God to perfection. Those who can keep the law to perfection will find that you are not condemned by God's law. God's law imposes no obstacle to your justification if you keep it perfectly. But from the moment you understand God has a law and from the moment you understand that you ought to keep God's moral and ethical laws, you then realize from that moment on, but I've already broken it a lot in my past, so you got to go back and somehow find atonement for the past law breaking, even if from this point onward you can keep all the law, which you can't. But if you could work all that out, past, present, and future, keeping the law perfectly, then the law basically says, if you do this, you shall live. But now where are we going to find such a man?
Where are we going to find a man that has that? Brother Matt preached well on it Wednesday night. A rich young ruler said, I've done all these things, as Brother Matt pointed out. I probably did several of them pretty well in human eyes, but before God he failed all of them. You know, there's only one omniscient one who knows all things fully and perfectly. And when this omniscient one who knows all things fully and perfectly looks on mankind, here's what he says, Romans 3 10.
There is none righteous, not even one. All right, I've checked all of you out, God says, and nobody knows man like I know them. Jesus said, I know what's in men's hearts.
He doesn't just know perfectly all the outward behavior, he knows perfectly all the inward attitudes and motivations and dispositions. And we all fell on both accounts, inwardly and outwardly. We're all those who have fallen short. We're all of those who find ourselves guilty. So no one's going to get justification that way.
It's just not going to happen. Romans 3 19 reminds us, Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. In a slang sense, the Bible says, Shut your mouth, just shut up. Yeah, but just shut up. But I'm not as bad, just shut up. But I've really changed it, just shut up. That's what God's saying.
You probably have done less things than some of the most vile creatures who've walked the earth have done. But that's not the standard. The standard is God.
And we all fell there. So we're condemned under this law. So the law that condemns, could it possibly also justify us?
No, it cannot perform to wholly antithetical, contradictory achievements. Then how can a man be justified? Here's the other way.
How can a man be justified? One word, rather. One name. Jesus.
Jesus the Christ. Romans 10-4. Looking at me, but looking past me, do you see Romans 10-4?
Just say 10-4. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, to gain a right standing to everyone who believes. Believes on the person and work of Jesus Christ.
You know what the word end there is? The scholars tell us, the Greek scholars tell us, you could amplify that out, you could use the word the goal. Christ has made it so that you achieve the goal of the law without doing any of the law. Making you just or justified before a holy God. Christ achieves the aim of keeping the law perfectly, which you can't do, even though you're not keeping it.
You get what the law would have given you if you had kept the law rather perfectly. Philippians 3-9 reminds us, And may be found in him, not in your works, not in your renovation of the inner man, as the Catholic system would say, not in the sanctification of your life, as the Catholic system would say, being found in him, having a righteousness, not that I've worked and put on, not of my own, derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. Luther said faith in Jesus is the hinge on which turns a sinner's justification.
Now, one more amplification and I'll be done. Justification includes forgiveness, and justification includes pardon. Forgiveness is the releasing one of their debt, but it doesn't mean they were chained from being a debtor. They're still standing as a debtor, you just released them because of that debt, or of that debt to you. Pardon means excusing one of the consequent of their wrongdoing. Now, these are wonderfully true. These are wonderfully included in our salvation, but Paul pulls out of the ancient world this concept of judicial justification because he says there's more than just forgiveness here, there's more than just pardon here, justification means we now stand before God, and we now stand before the law of God as if we never broke any of it. Not just forgiven of the consequence, but as if I never even tried to keep it and never failed, and in any way ever failed to keep it. Wow. Pastor, how does that work?
I don't know. I'm just glad that's where I'm standing in him. We now stand before God as if we never sinned. We now stand before God as righteous as Jesus is righteous. We are standing in his righteousness, the scripture says. So, Christ's righteousness is imputed to us because on Calvary's cross, our guilt, our law-breaking, our transgressing, our sinfulness was imputed to Christ. Our sin imputed to Christ on the cross.
His righteousness, just standing, is imputed to us when we believe. R.C. Sproul calls it the Great Exchange, but I was preaching this before I knew there was an R.C.
Sproul. It is the Great Exchange. 2 Corinthians 5, 21 pictures that for us. He made him who knew no sin, that's Jesus, to be sin. The Father looked on Jesus as if he committed every sin you've ever committed, of heart, disposition, attitude, demeanor, and every behavioral action. He made him Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him, the Great Exchange. Pastor, what does that have to do with the Lord's communion supper?
Everything. You see, this is the supper of the justified ones. It's exclusive.
It's exclusive. You cannot take this supper rightly, pleasing before God, if you are not one of the justified ones. One who's come to the foot of a bloody cross. And if not literally in your heart, threw yourself down as a totally bankrupt, worthless, depraved sinner. And in effect said, if you can't give me righteousness and justification as a free gift, I'm sunk.
Nothing I can do. If you've done that, then you're one of the justified ones. And you're welcome at the Lord's table. Matter of fact, not only are you welcome, you're required to be a part of the Lord's table. You see, this is a time for introspection, for you to say, now am I living up to the glories of what this table represents? You can't live up to earning salvation, but you can live out your salvation better than maybe you've lived it out at times.
That includes Jeff Knoblet, by the way. But the Lord's table, it's unique. You do that every Sunday, by the way. You see, every Sunday service is a realignment service. We try to shake off Saturday night and get on Sunday morning again. Shake off the world and get back to what matters according to God's truth again. Every Sunday is a realignment, but in a special way, we realign our hearts with God and the people of God. If you've got something that you have at all against your brother or sister, get it right. Say, oh God, forgive me and make it a purpose in your heart, I'll get it right as soon as we get out of this church service. Now, you may not be a member of Grace Life Church, but if you've received salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone for the glory of God alone, if you are a baptized member of a local church and in good standing, though you're not a member here, you're welcome to take this supper with us today.
