What the doctrine of justification by faith alone means, dear ones, is that we are justified by faith, unto good works. Luther says we're justified by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone. James labors the point: if you say you have faith and you don't have any works, your faith is in vain. It's not real. It's a dead faith.
We are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. That was the cry of the Protestant Reformation, and it's the heart of the biblical gospel. And yet, it's critical to recognize that true saving faith will always lead to a transformed life. Hi, I'm Josh Mann, and you're listening to the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today, we'll be continuing our series in the book of Galatians with R.C.
Sproul, a series that we'll be concluding next week. But you can keep exploring this New Testament epistle with an expositional commentary on Galatians, drawn from the teaching ministry of R.C. Sproul. This resource explores all six chapters of Paul's letter, equipping us to better understand and defend the good news of justification by faith alone. You can request the digital version of this book by donating today at renewingyourmind.org, or you can use the link in the podcast show notes to give.
Let's join RC Sproul now with a message entitled "Crucified with Christ." We're going to continue this morning our study of Paul's epistle to the Galatians, and I will be reading from chapter two, verses seventeen. Through 21, but if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live now in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me. And gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Several years ago, I was involved in a discussion with certain Christian leaders behind closed doors. The discussion was focused. Upon a very serious matter that was facing the church, and a hotly contested issue that brought severe controversy, even to those who formerly had been agreed upon with respect to the evangelical faith, but in the midst of this discussion. I spoke to one of the persons who was present. I'm not going to tell you his name in order to protect the guilty.
And I asked him the question: Do you believe that the doctrine of sola fide, or justification by faith alone, is essential to the gospel? He listened to the question. He paused for a second, then he replied, saying, "I believe that solifede or justification by faith alone is central to the gospel." And I said to him, "I hope politely, and not sternly." I said, "Sir, that's not the question I asked you. I didn't ask you if." Justification by faith alone was central to the gospel. I ask you, was it essential to the gospel?
And again, he looked at me and said, "Well, I believe that justification by faith alone is central to the gospel." I felt like I was pulling teeth. In this particular discussion, and so once again, I pose the question, sir. I'm not asking you if justification by faith alone is central. I'm asking you, is it essential so that without justification by faith alone, you don't have the gospel? He thought for a second.
He looked at me, and he replied. And said, "I believe that justification by faith alone is central to the gospel. Three strikes and you're out." At that point, I gave up the inquiry. But I was musing for a moment and said, "It would seem to me that any being that has something that is central to its very being." Would also be essential to its being, unless we're talking about donuts. But we are not talking about donuts.
We're talking about the gospel. And the reason I was asking this question is this: that when we're dealing with the gospel, as I've said to you in the past more than once. That we have difficulty, it seems, to being able to define what the gospel is, and I said there are two aspects of the gospel. First, there's the objective meaning of the gospel, and it has to do with the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The gospel, at its core, is Christ.
But as Paul teaches us in his letter to the Galatians and elsewhere in Romans and Ephesians, he points out to us that the objective work that has been accomplished in our behalf by Jesus can only be gained by us through the medium of faith.
So that when we talked about justification by faith alone, we're talking about how the individual benefits or appropriates the work of Christ for him or her self. By what means do we receive the work of Christ? And it's at that point that the question of the subjective side of the gospel. Is critical with respect to this doctrine of justification by faith alone, and what Paul is getting at here initially in this portion of the epistle is the inseparable relationship between Christ, the objective content of the gospel, and faith as the means by which We receive Christ and our salvation. The difference in the debate between the reformers and the Roman Catholic Church focused on what is the instrumental cause for our justification.
Rome answered it this way: the instrumental cause, the means by which we are moved from one state of being unsaved and unjustified to the state of grace, to being justified. Was the instrument of baptism, and secondarily the sacrament of penance. And the Protestant Reformers said, "No, we're not moved from sin and damnation to salvation by the instrument of the sacraments. We're moved by the sole instrument of justification, which is faith." And so the reformers were willing to die for that affirmation that the only instrument by which we are changed from sinners to those who are saved is the instrument of faith, and faith alone, the sole instrumental cause. It's here, the dativ of means.
It's that by which something takes place, and this is what the whole battle is here. In the Galatian heresy, the Galatians are insisting that the only way you can be saved or be justified is through the instrumental cause of faith, plus the instrumental cause of works. The same issue of the 16th century Reformation.
Now, the time of the Reformation. Luther and Calvin, the Magisterial Reformers, as in the problem with the Galatians, had to face a serious ethical charge and an ethical danger. Today we talk of easy believeism or easy grace, where we say, "Oh yes, we're justified by faith alone." Not by works; therefore, we can live as godlessly as we want to. We can live constantly in sin. We can be carnal Christians, but if we believe, that's all it takes.
We'll be saved. No, works have nothing to do with our salvation. Is what we hear.
Now, what the doctrine of justification by faith alone means, dear ones. Is that we are justified by faith unto good works? Luther says we're justified by faith alone, but not by faith it is alone. James labors the point. If you say you have faith and you don't have any works, your faith is in vain.
It's not real. It's a dead faith. Luther said, "Saving faith is a fides viva, an alive faith, a living faith, a faith that always and everywhere, if it's genuine, will yield and produce good works and obedience to God." Now, the cardinal heresy of anti-nomianism is saying. That we are so free from the law that we can have faith and live as lawlessly as we want and still be justified. That's the danger, and that's what the Galatians were hearing.
They were thinking, if we do away with the law, if we're just justified by faith, then that means that we can be godless and still be saved. Then that can't be right. And the Roman Catholic Church was hearing the same thing in the 16th century from Martin Luther. Luther said, "You're justified by faith alone." They say, "Does that mean you can have faith and live as godlessly as you want?" Luther was not advocating godlessness, and the last thing he wanted was lawlessness. And the Apostle Paul here.
In his letter, is not advocating lawlessness in the sense of disobedience, but rather he's trying to make this distinction. We are saved unto good works, but not by our good works. Again, if you have no good works, that's proof that you don't have any faith, and if you don't have any faith, you don't have any justification. But if you have true faith, you're justified. Then the works follow.
So we have this section where Paul says, "If in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?" What? What? What? What's he talking about here? Here's the question: If I believe that I'm justified by faith alone, and I still sin, what does that mean?
Because let me just back up a second. I know one thing about everybody in this room. I don't know that everybody in this room is justified. But I do know that everybody in this room is a sinner. You may be a justified sinner or an unjustified sinner.
I don't know which one you are. I can't read your heart. I don't know if you have genuine faith or not. But I know we're all sinners. And what the apostle is saying is.
If we are teaching justification by faith and not by works, because he had just said, "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified," and that we are still found to be sinners, which is certainly true. Luther's formula, "Sine multis et peccator," at the same time, just and sinner, just. On the basis of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ by faith to me, but if God looks at me as I am, just as I am, without one plea, He will see a sinner, and if He sees the most faithful servant in the vineyard of Jesus Christ, be it Saint Peter or Paul or anybody else, and looks carefully, doesn't even have to look that carefully. He will immediately see that that person is still a sinner, and if he looks at me, my sin jumps out at him, and he knows that. And so, if if I say that I'm justified by Christ, which is what I mean when I say I'm justified by faith alone, and I'm still a sinner, what does that mean?
It must mean That Jesus, rather than saving me from sin, is the cause of my sin. He is the minister of my sin, and he's the agent of my sin. This is the question. Doesn't it follow that if you're justified by Christ and not by the works of the law, then Christ must mean that he is. Another Moses, who brings us into the law again, and simply leads us into sin.
Paul's asking this as a rhetorical question, and a rhetorical question is a question where the answer is obvious before it's even said. But Paul doesn't leave us in silence. He says, "If we think that our righteousness is in Christ, then we're still sinners." Doesn't that make Jesus the author and agent of sin? How does he answer his own question?
Well, if you think about it carefully, no, not so much. Or does he say, "That's a difficult poser there," but I don't think so. How does he answer his own question?
Like he answers it to the Romans when he said. Where sin abounds, grace thus also abounds. And so, what's the easy conclusion?
Well, if when we sin abundantly, we get abundant grace, then therefore let's really go on sinning, so that grace may abound. And Paul asks to the Romans, "Shall I continue in sin that grace shall abound?" And how does he answer that question? Not just by no means, but what he says is, "God forbid! Don't even think about it. Don't for a second imagine that Jesus Christ is a minister of sin." This is the last conclusion we should possibly come to from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Christ is not the minister of sin; he's the minister of grace. But if we don't believe that our salvation is by grace alone, and we want to add the necessity of works to it, then once again we're under the law and are going to be slayed by the law. And Christ would become a new Moses and a new mediator of sin. Certainly not, he says. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. What's Paul mean here? For through the law I died to the law. He said, "When I lived every day of my life as a Pharisee, when I was a Pharisee among Pharisees, a Jew among Jews, trying desperately to keep the law in every detail, 'Thou shalt not this' and 'Thou shalt not do that,' I was killing myself. Not only did I die to the law, I was killed by the law." And not only was I killed by the law, I was slaughtered.
The law scolds me, it kills me, and drives me to a savior who alone can save me. And so Paul says, when I discovered the gospel, the law died. I didn't die; it died. In terms of its power of condemnation over me, I could say, "Who shall lay any charge to God's elect?" It's Christ who justifies.
So he said, "When I died, to the law, and here's a subjunctive mood: so that, in order that." I might live to God. I didn't reject the law, so I could be lawless. I just learned that through the law, I could never be justified, and the only way I ever could be free to live for God is as if I let the law die. And now he's saying to the Galatians, "You want to raise the law from the dead? You want to add it?" To salvation, may Christ the new minister of sin.
If I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself a transgressor. For through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live to God. And here it is: when Christ died under the law, under the curse of the law.
So did I. I'm crucified with Christ. Paul doesn't mean that I add anything to the benefits of the crucifixion of Christ. Paul doesn't say that my crucifixion was the ground of the atonement of my sins. No, no, no, no, no.
He's just saying that when my Savior died, I died with Him. The old Paul, the old sinner, died with Christ. When he says, "It's not I who live," it doesn't mean that he's physically dead, biologically dead. He says, "But it's Christ in me. I am united by faith and by the Holy Spirit with Christ." With his death, with his sacrifice, with his atonement, I am in Christ.
Christ is in me, so that my identity, the moment I put my trust in Christ and in Christ alone, changed forever. And the instrument by which that change took place was faith, and faith. Alone in the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and who gave Himself for me. I don't nullify the grace of God, for heaven's sakes. I establish the grace of God because He says here, "If righteousness were through the law." Then Christ died for no purpose whatsoever.
It was a futile sacrifice. He died in vain. Is that what you want, O foolish Galatians? Do you want to get under the law again? Don't you realize that through the life and death of Jesus Christ, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, which you have received by faith, you vitiate.
If you go back to the law and go back to the works, and you want to start all over, go ahead. You'll have no destiny other than perdition. You'll have no hope. Do you see why Paul is so passionate about this? You can't start by faith and then add to it one little detail.
I said that the Roman Catholic Church is flandered in our times when we put the difference this way: where we say, "Well, we believe in justification by faith, and they believe in justification by works," or "We believe in justification by grace, and they believe in justification by merit." And I said that's really not true because Rome. Has labored the point that faith is a necessary ingredient to be saved.
So it's not true to say that they believe in justification by works, or is it? The minute you add works of any kind to faith, you're saying, in the final analysis, faith isn't enough. It's not good enough. And what decides your fate, ultimately and eternally, is what works you do. And so, though the distinction is made between the necessity of faith and grace and all of that, when you look at it, and it's a final analysis, this is exactly what Paul is saying to the Galatians.
If you want to rest at all on your works. If you want to just add works as an addition to faith, you've destroyed your faith. You've destroyed the gospel. You have no gospel. All you have is the law that will slay you.
Our salvation in Christ does not need to be added to. Jesus doesn't get us started on the salvation road, and then we finish walking it on our own. No, Jesus paid it all, and we receive the perfect salvation He won for us simply by trusting in Him. This has been the Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and I'm so glad that you've joined us today. The topics that we've been exploring in the Book of Galatians were central to the Protestant Reformation.
And they remain just as central for God's people today. Dr. Sproul's commentary on Galatians has many more rich insights to offer, and you can receive it today for your donation. You can go to renewingyourmind.org to give, and you'll receive the ebook edition of R.C. Sproul's expository commentary on Galatians.
The error that the apostle Paul sought to correct in the Galatian churches was not a minor point of doctrine. It was a departure from the gospel itself. Find out why next week as we conclude our study in the book of Galatians here on Renewing Your Mind.
