1004. Salvation by Faith Alone

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Just over 500 years ago, Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses, which is considered to be the beginning of the Reformation. For the next several days, we'll be studying some of these doctrines in a series called Truth Triumphs.

Let's listen to today's message preached by Dr. Leighton Talbert of the Bob Jones University Seminary. One of my all-time favorite TV shows is one that probably, I would estimate, about 97.3% of you have never even heard of. Not because I'm that old, I don't think. But it was called Yes, Minister. No, it was not a religious program. The sequel was called Yes, Prime Minister. It was a 1980s British political comedy, which might not sound any better to you than a religious program, I don't know.

But it had a very clever script writing, just superb delivery. It was actually revived a little bit later, so I'm talking the 1980s version. The later version stinks, actually. But the earlier version was really quite good. It was actually Margaret Thatcher's favorite program when she was Prime Minister of England, Great Britain. And I still enjoy watching this.

I actually own the DVDs for the entire, both of those series. The first thing that you need to do when you want to rubbish someone is to express total support for them. You don't want to go on record as saying that somebody's no good, you must be seen to be their friend. After all, it's necessary to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back. That's a pretty cynically accurate depiction of politics in a fallen world, or business in a fallen world, I suppose. It is kind of the classic wolf in sheep's clothing ploy.

Who is the consummate, the original wolf in sheep's clothing? Satan has practiced and perfected that strategy when it comes to deceiving God's people, and when it comes to rubbishing God's truth. Because immediate, outright denial of truth is not nearly as effective as initial agreement. Followed by slowly supplementing it with disqualification and that addition until in time the original truth lies buried under a load of distractions and exceptions and provisos and stipulations. The truth becomes unrecognizable. The original truth.

Like what truth? Well, for instance, the five core truths at the heart of the Reformation, and they were at the heart of the Reformation because they are at the heart of how to be put right with God. Scripture, the ultimate authority on salvation, faith, the means of salvation, grace, the basis of salvation, Christ, the agent of salvation, God's glory, the ultimate motive or end for salvation. So how were those truths overshadowed and corrupted over time and to such an extent that a Reformation was required? Well, to Scripture was added tradition.

In fact, the church came to teach that because tradition is actually more complete and thorough than Scripture, tradition actually is more authoritative than Scripture itself. Faith was overshadowed by works. Works were theoretically necessary to get you to heaven, but in reality they were barely enough to keep you out of hell. And they ushered you into a place called purgatory where you would spend hundreds or thousands of years continuing to work and suffer for your sin until eventually hopefully you're able to make it into heaven. Grace was swallowed up by merit, usually someone else's merit like Mary's or any number of other saints who were so superhumanly holy that all their extra good works were deposited into a treasury of merit in heaven. I'm not making this up. And could be accessed and dispensed to help out ordinary people like us get a little bit closer to heaven.

Accessed and dispensed by whom, you might ask. Well, that's where the next one comes in. Christ was actually supplanted by the church as the necessary mediator between man and Christ. The priesthood, baptism, communion, confession, all the sacraments, all these became necessary to mediate the benefits of Christ and the merits of the other saints to us, to common ordinary sinners.

And because of the man-centeredness of all these previous distortions of original truth, God's glory in salvation therefore ended up being overshadowed by man's glory, man's accomplishments, man's achievement, man's contribution to this whole enterprise. Now as part of our recognition of the Reformation in this semester's series, we've begun focusing, as of last week, we've begun focusing on what are known as the five solas that were recaptured by the Reformation. Sola Scriptura was last week, sola fide, sola gratia, sola Christus, and sola deo gloria. And in each of those phrases, the nouns are the weight-bearing words.

Scripture, faith, grace, Christ, God's glory. But in each case, the sola is the indispensable modifier, the indispensable qualifier. The sola simply highlights the fact that these were not newly discovered truths by the Reformers.

Each of them had become, over time, diluted with additions and accretions that fundamentally changed the nature of each of these truths. All the solas revolve around the issue of salvation, atonement, how to be put in right relationship with God. The last sola answers, why?

What is God's ultimate goal or purpose in doing this? The first sola answers, says who? Answers, how can we know? What is the ultimate authority on these questions of salvation? And the three middle solas basically answer the question, how do we get it? We are saved by faith alone, by grace alone, by Christ alone. But if those three middle ones are all answering the same question, how do we get it, aren't they kind of self-contradictory? I mean, how can I say that I'm saved by Christ alone, if it's also by grace alone, and also by faith alone? The solution, of course, is that importantly flexible little word, by.

It can signify basis, or it can signify means, or it can signify agency, among other things. So, I'm saved by faith, but that doesn't mean that my faith is my savior. My faith does the saving.

I'm not saved by faith in the sense that the faith is the thing that is saving me. If you're lost out in the wilderness and literally starving to death, I don't mean you've missed a meal, you're starving to death. And you come across some food and you start shoveling it into your mouth, it would never occur to you later to say, this hand saved me from starvation. I mean, I came across this food and my hand reached out and took it and that's why I survived. I was saved by my hand. If that's what you would say, you're probably still a little touch of sunstroke or something.

Was it your hand? It was the food that actually saved you. It is not the faith that does the saving. That's the sense in which I am saved by Christ. It's Christ, the bread of life, who does the saving. He's the savior.

He's the agent who does the saving. My faith is just my outstretched hand by which I willingly access and appropriate the salvation that Christ has procured. Now, with all that as kind of background context, our focus today is specifically on Sola Fide.

So here's the question. How will you be accepted by and admitted into the presence of the righteous God who has a holy hatred of sin, who is in fact described as being so pure that he cannot even look on iniquity and evil passively, let alone acceptingly? Our problem is sin. Our need is righteousness. Enough righteousness to be granted entrance into God's presence.

How much is enough? Total. Total righteousness. There can't be any evil mixed in or God will not look favorably on that. There will be no one in heaven who is not as righteous as God himself. So I need God to justify me so that I can have access into his presence.

How does that happen? The text I want to lead you to addresses that need and the solution in remarkably reformational terms. And we're going to start in Romans chapter 3 with verse 9, where Paul writes, What then? Are we better than they? Are we as Jews better than the Gentiles?

Are we better off than them? No, and no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Greeks, Gentiles, that they're all under sin. Well Paul, where did you prove that Gentiles are all under sin? Romans chapter 1. Where have you proved that Jews are all under sin?

Romans chapter 2. As it is written, he goes on, verse 10, there is none righteous, no not one. That's the problem. That's the issue that separates us from God. We're not righteous.

None of us. So what do we do? Well, earn it. Start becoming righteous by obeying God, by keeping God's law. I mean, after all, isn't that what the law is for? To tell us what to do to get right and stay right with God, right? Well, let's see what Paul has to say about that. Drop down to verse 19.

Here's his conclusion about that. We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world, Jew and Gentile, may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified.

That's what I need. But by the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Well, that's not very encouraging. The law doesn't justify us by helping us become more righteous.

Righteous enough for God to accept. The law actually has the opposite effect. In fact, the law has the opposite intent. The law is designed by God to identify our offenses, to specify our sins, to quantify our failures, to prove our guilt, to demonstrate our unrighteousness and our unworthiness of God. Now, let me make a quick clarification here.

Most of you probably are aware of this, but maybe somebody's not. If you look back at verse 10 and see the word righteous, there is none righteous, no not one. Now drop down and look at verse 20 and see the word justified. There shall no flesh be justified in his sight by the law. Those are totally different words in English, righteous, justified, justified.

But they're actually exactly the same word family in Greek. You could say verse 10 like this, there's none just, no not one. Or you could say verse 20 like this, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be rendered righteous in his sight. That's the issue at stake in the passage. We're not good enough in ourselves. We can't become good enough by our works. Even when we try to keep God's law, it only condemns us.

So what can we do? Well, actually Paul says there's another way. In fact, it's the only way. By the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight.

That's what I need. Look at verse 21. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. He's just said we need to be justified.

We can't be justified in his sight. But now you could almost think of this in terms of, but God's justification can be obtained without the law, apart from the law. Being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God himself which is attainable by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all those who believe.

Jew or Gentile because there's no difference. Because as he's already proved, verse 23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Being justified, here's how it works. How are we justified? We're justified freely by his grace, there's sola gratia, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, an appeasement of God's wrath against our sin.

God has set forth Christ to be a propitiation, here's how it works, through faith in his blood. To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time, his righteousness that he might be both just and retain his justice, and at the same time justify ungodly, unrighteous, undeserving sinners.

How can he do that? How can he be both just and yet also justify, declare righteous, the unrighteous? He does it through believing in Jesus. The end of verse 27, therefore we conclude, okay here it is, what do you conclude Paul? We conclude that a man is justified, that's the need, that's the issue, righteousness, justification by God. A man is justified by faith, there's the fide, apart from the works of the law, there's the sola. That's the whole message wrapped up in a single verse. That is as clear an affirmation of sola fide in a single statement as you will find anywhere in the New Testament. So is Paul making this up? Is he just kind of improvising his own theological agenda? He says that the law and the prophets actually teach this way of justification, back in verse 21.

So where do they teach that? Paul, can you give us an Old Testament example that validates what you're saying? He says, sure, chapter 4, verse 1. What should we say then that Abraham, our father, is pertaining to the flesh as found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. In other words, what he's saying in verse 2 is Abraham was not justified by works.

For, verse 3, what sets the scripture? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. That's how he got what he needed to come into the presence of God, by faith, he believed. Now, you might think, wait a minute, I seem to remember about ten years before Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, James, the half-brother of Jesus no less, one of the pillars of Jerusalem church no less, James wrote a letter that seemed to argue the exact opposite of what Paul says here. And he even uses Abraham to prove his point, just like Paul does. So Paul says, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law. Abraham, he says, was not justified by works, for what sets the scripture? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. But James says, chapter 2, verse 21, we'll turn there in just a moment, was not Abraham our father justified by works?

When he offered Isaac his son upon the altar? So you see then that by works a man is justified and not by faith only. So Paul says Abraham was justified by faith apart from works. James says Abraham was justified by works. Paul says a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. James says a man is justified by works and not by faith only. Paul says sola fide, Romans 3.28, and uses Abraham to prove it. James says not sola fide in 2.24, or so it seems, and uses Abraham to prove it.

So who's right? Well we worked through Paul's argument here in Romans 3 quickly but fairly carefully. I think we understand what Paul is arguing. We need to be sure that we understand James accurately and contextually and on his own terms. So would you go back to James chapter 2, or forward to James chapter 2, so we can see exactly what James says about this, because it sure sounds like James is blowing Paul's sola fide out of the water, or Paul is coming along later and blowing James out of the water.

One of them seems to be blowing the other out of the water. How can these two possibly be agreed on this topic? James chapter 2, he begins his argument in verse 14, when he writes, Oh, what profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works. Oh, though a man say he has faith. That's not a minor detail if we're going to accurately understand James' whole argument. James continues, what is the profit of man, says he has faith but doesn't have works, can faith save him? Literally James writes, can the faith save him? There's a definite article there that you may not see in your translation. Some translations you'll see it.

It's actually functioning as a demonstrative article. So what he means is, can that faith save him, or can that kind of faith save him? That's what James is writing. And then James now turns from the abstract argument to a concrete example.

It works like this. If a brother or sister, verse 15, is naked, destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace. Be ye warmed and filled.

But you don't give them the things that are needful for their body. What good does it do? What's the point of that?

What does it profit? Even so, faith. And again, it's even so, that kind of faith, a faith of mere words. Words like, be ye warmed and filled. That kind of faith, he says, verse 17, if it doesn't have works, it's dead.

Being alone. In other words, if that's all there is to your so-called faith. James makes it perfectly clear that he's talking about a guy who merely says he has faith.

And that is a problem. Up to the present day, because anybody can claim anything, especially in a spiritual realm. The only way to validate the genuineness of an invisible claim is by some kind of visible result. I mean, you can tell your history of civ teacher that actually, you really do know everything you need to know about history civilization.

And they'll say, that is great, congratulations. In that case, I'm sure you'll have no difficulty taking this little exam to demonstrate all that knowledge. In the academic realm, a person is justified by works, not by his professed knowledge. And if quotation marks had been invented back in the first century when James wrote this, I suspect he would have put quotation marks around the word faith in verse 17. Even so, faith, that kind of faith, a claimed faith. Someone who says he has faith. Because from his first introduction of the subject in verse 14, he's obviously talking about professed faith, claimed faith, someone who says she has faith, someone who says he has faith.

But there's no evidence, there's no works to back up that claim. And if you ignore James' starting point in verse 14, if you ignore the fact that he's not talking about faith, he's talking about faith, claimed faith, professed faith. If you ignore that starting point, you will completely misunderstand his entire argument.

So James, how about an example of what this looks like, what does your argument look like? Chapter 2 verse 21, wasn't Abraham our father, justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? When did he do that? Genesis 22. Seest thou, verse 22, he writes, how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made complete, or perfected, or completed.

In fact, he's going to use a different word next, verse 23. And the scripture was fulfilled, what scripture? Seven chapters earlier, back in Genesis 15, the scripture that said Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. So you see, verse 24, how a man is by works justified and not by faith only.

That's what he's talking about. James acknowledges the scripture that declared Abraham righteous on the basis of his faith. He acknowledges the legitimacy of that back in Genesis 15.

And that declaration, he says, was fulfilled, was proved, was demonstrated by Abraham's act of obedience later in Genesis 22, for example. James is simply arguing that works are the natural, inevitable outflow of a real, genuine faith. In other words, works demonstrate that faith is in fact faith. So where there are no works, where there is no appetite for obedience to God, where there is no hunger for righteousness, where there is no thirst for God's truth, where there is no compulsion to Christ-likeness in a person's life, there is no saving faith there. That's James' argument.

Whatever you may claim, whatever you may claim, that's his entire argument. For, verse 26, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. In other words, a claimed faith that doesn't produce works is a dead faith, and a dead faith can't save. So which is right, Romans 3.28 or James 2.24? Who's right, Paul or James?

The answer is yes. There is no conflict. James wrote to combat a very common problem, a claim to a faith that doesn't work and therefore cannot save. Paul wrote to combat another common problem, a misconception that law works and good works are adequate to save. And as somebody has picturesquely put it, Paul and James are not swordsmen crossing swords with each other.

They are swordsmen standing back to back fighting opposite errors and in the process defending each other's back. Or to modify the metaphor a little bit, both of these passages, Romans 3.28, James 2, both of those passages melded together make a single sharp-edged, two-edged sword to combat two opposite errors. The one error is the necessity of works to earn salvation. That's the error that Paul fights. The other is the sufficiency of mere profession to secure salvation. That's the error that James fights. The teaching of James had been, I think, so abused and misconstrued by the Roman Church for so long that Luther, somewhat understandably perhaps, didn't have a very high opinion of the book of James, as you may know.

And yet ironically, in his preface to the book of Romans, Luther summed up the teaching of both Paul and James. He wrote, faith is not that human illusion and dream that some people think it is. They fall into error who say, faith is not enough. You must do good works if you want to be virtuous and get to heaven. That's the error that Paul is dealing with in Romans. And yet just a few paragraphs later, he says this, it is impossible that faith should ever stop doing good works. Whoever does not do such works is without faith.

That sounds just like James. It is impossible, excuse me, it is as impossible to separate works from faith as burning and shining from fire. That sounds surprisingly like the error that James is battling in his letter.

So Luther and the reformer didn't discover the doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from the works of the law. They simply uncovered it from where it lay right there in the text of scripture buried beneath the dust and dirt of traditions and additions by an unfaithful church. If the church is to fulfill her role as the pillar and bulwark of the truth, as Paul describes it in 1 Timothy, then we, you, will have to be prepared to understand that truth accurately, celebrate it joyfully, defend it vigorously, proclaim it confidently so that the faith, once delivered to the saints, will not be lost again, especially in your generation. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful that you've given to us a reliable record of your truth. We thank you for free and full access to it. And we pray that you would give us hearts that are eager and curious and desirous to know it and that we'll be faithful to it when we do. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Leighton Talbert, a Bob Jones University Seminary professor. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue this series about the Reformation here on The Daily Platform.