How can an unjust person, such as myself, ever hope to stand before the just judgment of God? In a word, how are we saved?
And this is a matter of eternal consideration. Thanks to the redemption that can be found in Christ alone. And it's that good news, and specifically the righteousness that Christians receive so they can stand before a just God that R.C.
Sproul will explore today on Renewing Your Mind. For all the resources that Christians have in the West, books, Bibles, study Bibles, surveys show that biblical literacy is on the decline. It's why we revisit these key truths of the Christian faith again and again, like justification and imputation. So keep listening, as Dr. Sproul will preach with his trademark passion from Romans chapter 3.
But perhaps this is a message you could share with a friend or a loved one. Find it on our new YouTube channel by searching for Renewing Your Mind, and share the video to help more people hear the good news of the Gospel. If you have your Bible with you, open it to Romans 3, beginning at verse 21.
Here's Dr. Sproul. What we're going to be looking at, dear friends, is this doctrine of justification by faith alone. Which doctrine provoked the most serious controversy in the history of the Christian church? That controversy that culminated in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century that focused on the material cause of the doctrine of justification was asking the simple question, how can an unjust person, such as myself, ever hope to stand before the just judgment of God? In a word, how are we saved? How are we justified?
And this is a matter of eternal consideration. The Reformation was not a tempest in a teapot. It was not a question of theological shadow boxing, because what was at stake in that controversy, where many paid with their lives, was this doctrine central to the New Testament gospel of justification by faith alone. And yet in this day and age, there are few professing Christians who even can define the meaning of the term justification. Luther warned at the end of his life that unless the gospel were proclaimed clearly and persistently through the ages, that it would surely and soon fall once again into eclipse, and people would begin once again to entertain the idea that they could be right with God on the basis of their good works. Luther, in insisting on the biblical doctrine, declared that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is the article upon which the church stands or falls. Calvin added the sentiment to Luther's that the doctrine of justification was the hinge by which everything else turns. And so if you're not clear of what the word justification means and what the doctrine is all about, let me say this.
It's time that you became clear on what this is. Now, again, let me begin by saying further what justification does not mean. First of all, when we are justified in the sight of God, that act of justification is not an act of divine pardon. In justification, God does not pardon the sinner.
When a governor or president executes executive clemency and pardons a convicted criminal, that person is deemed to be guilty, but in spite of that guilt, the person in authority grants the mercy of giving a pardon and more or less forgiving him of his crime and setting him free. Now, certainly justification involves forgiveness, as I hope we will see at some point, but let's not confuse the act of divine justification with an act of pardon. In justification, what happens is that God makes a legal declaration, what we call a forensic declaration. If you watch trials on television or pay attention to shows like Numbers or CSI, you're aware that there are those involved who gather what is called forensic evidence, evidence that is used in trials, in criminal cases.
Forensics has to do with judicial judgments or declaration. And so when we find it in the New Testament, what happens in the act of justification is God makes a judicial declaration about a person's status before his judgment. And what happens in justification, again, is not a pardon, but it is an act whereby God declares a person to be just. Now, both the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants in the 16th century agreed that in the final analysis, the act of justification is something that God does, and it is a declaration, and it is a judicial declaration. And even Rome, for those of you who have studied this in a theological manner, has its own view of forensic justification because both sides agree that justification doesn't happen until God declares a person righteous.
But the issue then and now is this. On what grounds does God make that declaration? Why would God look at you when He sees one who is dead in sin and trespasses, when He sees one who by nature does no good, does not seek after Him, has no understanding of Him? On what basis would He ever say from heaven, you are a just person, when manifestly you are not a just person?
And the good news of the gospel is that God pronounces people just, astonishingly enough, while they are still sinners. Now, this was the debate with Rome. Rome set forth their doctrine then and now that God will never declare a person just until that person actually, under the divine scrutiny, is found to be just. In the succession of the Council of Trent in the middle of the 16th century, which was at the heart of the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church defined her doctrine of justification, which it has echoed through the centuries, even as recently as the New Catechism, in which it declared, without equivocation, that before God will ever declare a person to be just, righteousness must inherit within that person.
The Latin is the word inherently. That is to say, when God looks at you, He's not going to say that you're just until when He looks at you, He sees that you really are just. Now, Rome says you can't be just without grace. You'll never become just without faith, and you'll never become just without the assistance of Christ. So you need faith, you need grace, and you need Jesus. And you need the righteousness of Christ infused or poured into your soul, and you must cooperate with that grace to such a degree that you will, in fact, become righteous. If you die with any impurity in your soul by which you lack complete righteousness, you will not go to heaven, but if mortal sin is present in your life, you will go to purgatory, which is the place of purging. The point of the purging is to purge off the dross in this crucible of purgatory to make you completely pure. It may take three years, it may take three million years, but the object of purgatory is to get you so that you are, in fact, righteous so that you can be admitted into God's heaven.
So let me go back so that we don't miss the point. In the Roman view, God will never, ever, ever pronounce a person just or righteous until by the help of God's grace and by the help of Christ, that person actually becomes righteous. Now if God were to judge you tonight, what would He find?
Would He find sin in your life? Could He possibly rightly declare you just if all He considered was the righteousness that He found in your life today? Remember what the Apostle Paul said, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Paul labors in this text that all have sinned and do sin and fall short of the glory of God. That's precisely why the ground for our justification cannot be found in us or any righteousness that is inherent in our souls. That's why what we need so desperately is what Luther called a eustitzium alienum, an alien righteousness, a righteousness that comes from outside of ourselves, a righteousness that again he said was extra nos, outside of, apart from us. In simple terms, ladies and gentlemen, what that means is the only righteousness that would be sufficient for you to stand before the judgment of God would be the righteousness of Christ. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is only theological shorthand for the affirmation that justification is by Christ alone, by His righteousness, which is received by faith. So when Paul speaks here about justification, not talking about pardon, and he's not talking about God's declaration of what it is he finds in us and in our behavior.
He's talking about something else altogether. Let me just give one more historical background before we return to the text. One of the slogans that was formulated by Luther that was widely repeated in the 16th century was a little Latin phrase. And if you don't ever learn any other Latin phrase, as long as you're a Christian, learn this one, the one that Luther said, simil justus et peccator, four words, simil justus et peccator. What does it mean? Luther's slogan was this, that the Christian is someone who is at the very same time righteous and a sinner.
How can that be? Well, if that person is considered in and of themselves, again, if God would come and examine your life, He would discover very quickly that you're still a sinner, that I'm still a sinner. And yet at the very same time, while I am still a sinner, I am righteous in His sight by virtue of the transfer legally that God has made by assigning the righteousness of Jesus to me if I put my trust in Christ. So by virtue of this transfer or imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer, the believer is declared to be righteous while in and of himself that person is still a sinner. That's the good news is that you can be declared just by God while you're still a sinner. That's the heart of the gospel.
I don't have to wait to become perfectly righteous before I'm acceptable to God. And this is the point now that the Apostle is laboring in this section of the epistle when he says, But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. When we get to chapter 4, Paul is going to show that this doctrine of justification by faith alone is not a novelty. This isn't a new doctrine that Jesus announces with His incarnation or the Apostle Paul dreams up in his ministry, but that this doctrine of the gospel is one that is rooted and grounded in the testimony of the Old Testament. It is the whole point of the law that drives us to this one who possesses righteousness that we don't have, and it is in the teaching of the prophets. He will show us in chapter 4 that the same way that you and I are justified today on this side of the cross was how people in the Old Testament were justified, how Abraham was justified, and I don't want to get ahead to that illustration. I'll wait until it appears in the text. But the point that he's mentioning now by way of giving us a heads up of what's to come is that now the righteousness of God is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.
And before I go on, let me just stop here. When we say that justification is by faith or through faith, we have to be careful that we don't misunderstand that. This does not mean that if you have faith, that faith is such a righteous thing, such a good response to the call of the gospel, that God looks at you and say, Well, you have faith. There's your righteousness.
You've made the right decision. You've responded to Christ. You've done the good thing, and your faith counts for your righteousness. And because you have faith, I will declare you righteous. To be justified by faith is not to be justified because you have faith in the sense that your faith now is the supreme work that makes you righteous.
No, no, no. The language here of being justified by faith or through faith simply means this, that faith is the means by which we lay hold of Christ. It is the means by which the righteousness of Christ is bestowed upon us. Faith is the alone instrument by which you are linked to Christ and by which you receive His righteousness transferred to your account. That's why it's so important for us to understand what faith is and why we call people to faith and why the New Testament calls us to faith. It means that we place our trust in Christ and His righteousness.
We don't trust our own righteousness because we don't have any. But when we trust Christ's righteousness in our behalf and embrace Him, then God transfers legally His righteousness to us. Do you see what happens in your salvation is a double transfer is involved. Christ dies for our salvation, but He also lives for our salvation. On the one hand, your sins, and you hear this every Good Friday, that your sins are transferred to Jesus. He dies on the cross for you because He bears our sins. Now how does that happen? Does God reach down into your soul and grab a hunk of your sin out of your soul and then reaches over and places it on the back of Jesus?
No. It's a legal transfer. God assigns your guilt to His Son. He transfers it from you to Christ, but that's only half the transaction. The other half is that He takes Christ's righteousness and assigns it to you when you believe.
So that when God looks at me, if He would look at me in my nakedness, knowing that all of my righteousness is as filthy rags, I would perish. But He gives me the cloak of the righteousness of Jesus. This is that righteousness of God that Paul introduced in the first chapter of Romans, that righteousness not by which God Himself is righteous, but that righteousness that He makes available to all who put their trust in Christ. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe, for there's no difference. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. You know, if I were righteous inherently, it may be gracious to say that I'm justified because the only way I could have been righteous inherently was through the help of God. I needed God's grace to make it possible for me to become righteous.
But that's not what Paul's talking about here. He's talking about a grace that goes so much deeper than that. It's the grace by which God freely gives the gift of the righteousness of Christ to somebody who's a sinner, who's at the same time just and sinner. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness. And here's one of my favorite texts in all of the Bible, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
There is no such thing, dear friends, as cheap grace. Do not think that the gospel is simply an announcement of pardon. Do not think that in your justification God just decides unilaterally to forgive you of your sins. That's the prevailing idea that what happens in the gospel is that God just freely forgives you of sin because He's such a loving, dear, wonderful God that it doesn't disturb Him, that in our sin we violate everything that is holy. Beloved, God never, ever negotiates His own righteousness. God will never lay aside His holiness to save you or anybody else. God demands and requires that sin be punished.
That's why that object is the symbol, the universal symbol of Christianity, the cross. Christ had to die because the propitiation had to be made because God said, I will not negotiate my justice. Sin has to be punished.
Your sin has to be punished. And so in the drama of justification, God remains just. He doesn't stop being just. He doesn't set aside His justice. He doesn't waive His righteousness. He insists upon His righteousness.
You cannot be justified without righteousness. But the glory of His grace that He demonstrates along with His justice is that that justice is served vicariously by a substitute that He appoints. And so by basing your justification on the righteousness of Christ, God's mercy is shown in that it's not your righteousness that saves you, it's somebody else's.
You get in on somebody else's coattails. That's grace. But that somebody who is your Redeemer is perfectly righteous and has fulfilled the justice of God for you perfectly. That's the glory of justification that in it God demonstrates that He is both just and the justifier. If He were only the justifier by negotiating His righteousness, He would not be just. If all He did was maintain His own righteousness without extending the grace of the imputation of somebody else's righteousness to you, He would not be the justifier.
But He is both just and the justifier. That's the marvel of the gospel. It is a marvel and should often be on our lips. Hopefully this week's messages on Renewing Your Mind will help you in future conversations about the gospel and what you believe as a Christian, because we should not be ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Another resource to help you reflect on the marvel of the gospel is a new hardcover year-long devotional from R.C.
Sproul in Romans. Spend 2025 in Romans with Dr. Sproul as your guide and with additional application given with each reading. It's called The Power of the Gospel, and you can request your copy when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800 435 4343. When you do, we'll get this resource to you as our way of saying thank you. It will begin shipping in just a few weeks, so be one of the first to receive it when you donate today in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org or by clicking the link in the podcast show notes.
Have you ever wondered why we're all born sinners? Well, tomorrow R.C. Sproul will turn to Romans 5 and will consider the sin of Adam. Join us then here on Renewing Your Mind. R.C. Sproul.
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