We're going to talk tonight about questions 37 through 39. And also, if you have your catechism in your left hand, take your Bible in your right hand and turn to Romans chapter 4. We're going to be considering a significant passage from Romans chapter 4. The most important question in the Bible appears many different ways, but it came most forcefully by the hearers of Peter after his sermon on the day of Pentecost. And that question was very simply, what must I do to be saved? I would argue that that is not only the most important question in the Bible, I would argue that's the most important question in religion, and I would say that that is the most important, yea, verily, the most cosmic question that can be asked because it is of the most extreme importance. Why? Because at the end of the day, How you are made right with God is going to determine your eternal destiny So you get 80 maybe 90 years if you have strength as the psalmist says on this life and then after that well The rest of your eternity is contingent on the answer to that question. Well, that question is about justification, how man is made right with God. And last week we talked about Jesus' work in the history of salvation by establishing that justification through his person and work, his obedience in his life, and his yielding and submission to his atoning death. So that was the history of salvation. Then we talked about the subjective application of that in the order of salvation by the Spirit. And we said that all of these things in the order of salvation, the ordo salutis, are given to the believer by faith, and that gives them union with Christ. And so we talked about calling, regeneration, um faith you know repentance and faith conversion justification adoption sanctification and glorification so over the next few weeks what we're going to be doing is we're going to be taking that order of salvation and just unpacking it one by one and the three that we're going to with god's help unpack this evening is justification adoption and sanctification now remember just as we head into this Remember the broader context of the order of salvation is union with Christ. Now, some of you last week were probably wondering, why am I making so much about union with Christ? And the reason is, is because in New Testament thought, union with Christ is everything. It is everything. You're either in Christ or you're in Adam. That's really what it comes down to. And if you're in Adam, you have death, disease, destruction, the absence of life. If you're in Christ, you have justification, sanctification, glorification, adoption. So the idea of union with Christ is that everything that Christ accomplished by faith becomes yours. So Christ was justified. You say, huh? Yes. First, Timothy 316. He was justified in the flesh. Some English versions say vindicated, but the word is Dick, which is the very word from which we get the idea of justification. Jesus was justified. And he was sanctified. He grew in his obedience. That doesn't mean he was disobedient. It just means he grew in his obedience. And then he was glorified. And if you are in Christ by faith, all of those things are yours. And so we want to consider, first off, justification. So let's look at question 37. And the question is, what is justification? And we answer, justification is an act of God's free grace in which he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. Now, John Calvin said, and he was right, the article by which the church stands or falls is justification for all the reasons that I've already articulated. You get that right, you're good. You get that wrong, All of your theology, all of your doctrine, all of your sacramentalism, all of your ecclesiology, everything is a house of cards and it collapses. Justification is the foundation of everything. Now, I'm gonna spare you the many different views on justification and just talk about two specifically, and that is what I'm gonna call the Roman Catholic view and the biblical or Protestant view, okay? So very simply, let me start with this illustration. I think I saw on a tabloid. I could be wrong. It's horrible to start an illustration with what I saw on a tabloid, but here we go, okay? I think I saw on a tabloid that OJ Simpson came out and said, hey, you know, I did it, okay? Because so many years have passed, and I think in the U.S. legal system, after so many years, you know, you can't be held accountable for a crime. Plus, he can't be charged two times for the same crime, because that's called what? Double jeopardy, good. So let's go back with that knowledge to the 90s, you know, white bronco down the freeway, whole drama, okay? The Glove. I think there's a show on Netflix now going through that. I haven't seen it. I don't really have any desire to see it. But anyways, let's go back to the courtroom. He's declared innocent. Now, is he innocent? No, he's guilty. He's guilty, okay? But the declaration of the court is that he's innocent. That is a perfect example of what the Bible talks about when it says we are justified. So let me just make it very simple. When God says we are justified, it's not because we are actually justified. In other words, we're not actually 100% holy. We don't actually have the righteousness of which we are justified with, okay? And the act of justification doesn't make us righteous or holy, okay? The act of justification in the Bible, some of you know this term, some of you don't, but learn it. This is speaking like a Christian. Justification is a legal term that we call forensic, which if you watch a lot of these legal shows, Law and Order, you pick this stuff up, right? It is a forensic declaration that you are just, which means that it's nothing more than a declaration, not in actuality that you are, but it's just a declaration. And to show that, many places we could go to, we're gonna just look at Romans chapter four. So very simply, I'm gonna start with verse one. Paul says, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was, and I want you to mark this word, counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Now I want you to jump to verse 13. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. Now watch this. in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. There's justification right there. What does not exist? I am not actually righteous, okay? What justifies me? The righteousness of Christ, which is to say his 100% perfect obedience. I don't have that. Okay, so the righteousness needed to justify me does not exist, but what is verse 17 says is beautiful. This is the God of Abraham who calls into existence the things that do not exist. So the Protestants have always understood justification to be forensic. It is a courtroom declaration that you are justified, okay? Now, Rome has always had a problem with this. Their principal objection to this, when Luther came out in 1517 in his lectures on the Psalms and said, I've had this breakthrough, you know, justification's by grace alone, through faith alone, and God's righteousness is reckoned to us. They said, well, if you say that, then people are just going to go and live however they want. Right. And that's that's a fair pushback. We still deal with that in the Protestant church, because there are people that so overextend this idea of forensic justification that it seems as if there's no reason or logical conclusion that they would then be sanctified. But if you've understand everything we've said up until this point, that union with Christ means that everything is yours, justification and sanctification, it's not a problem. But Rome basically says this, now I'm giving the Rome side. Rome says God doesn't declare that you're just, God makes you just. So here's how it works. They have taken justification and sanctification and they've put them together, okay? So for Rome, you've got justification, sanctification is all one package. So here's what happened. God infuses grace into you when you believe, okay? I've used this example before, like take a turkey baster and just, you know, inject that turkey juice into the turkey. Well, it's like God injecting grace into the believer, and then watch this, this is Rome, classic Rome, to the degree that you cooperate with that grace, okay, you are justified. So what they say is you are justified to the degree that you're sanctified. Okay? So as you're sanctified, that establishes your justification. It's a whole life thing. So Geneva or Protestants rightly separated these and said, no, justification is a forensic declaration. And then now sanctification is gonna grow out of that. But your justification has absolutely nothing to do with your sanctification. Now that is a separate thing from saying, oh, you will be sanctified. Oh, works will follow. They said faith justifications by grace through faith alone, but your faith will never be alone. Okay. So this is a legal term that we've talked about to be justified now. In the Protestant understanding of justification, and this is a wonderful example, it's really helped me to kind of distinguish between the two. This is how they distinguish between justification and sanctification, okay? The difference is this, it's the difference between the act of a surgeon and the act of a judge, okay? So let me swap those. So justification is the act of a judge, right? He declares, but then the surgeon, He removes the inward cancer. This is something he does in us. The judge declares something over us. The surgeon works within us. So justification is the act of a judge. Sanctification is the act of a surgeon. So this is the difference between justification and sanctification. Now, while the declarative act of God's justification is by faith alone, as I said, it is not always alone. So of course, we need to look at James, don't we? What did Martin Luther call James? A right strawy epistle, which is kind of like saying it's a scarecrow, okay? He didn't like it if it were up to Him, if he were Pope for a day, it wouldn't be part of our canon. By the way, did you know that the Lutherans have a category of scripture in the Bible called Antilogomena, which means that they're a lower level, a lower level of inspiration? Hebrews is in that category. James is in that category. Of course, Song of Solomon is in that category. Ecclesiastes is in that category. Well, obviously Luther didn't like James because if you look in James chapter two, Verse 24, he says, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Uh-oh. Well, what do we do with that? Well, let me just say a few things, and we could spend a lot of time. I'm going to try not to do that. I just want to make a few overall comments to try to bring some harmony here, okay? So here's the question. Are Paul and James contradicting one another, okay? By the way, just in all fairness, Paul nowhere ever says that justification is by grace through faith alone. That word alone never appears in anything that he says. Now, he does say justification is not by the works of the law, but by faith, so you might as well say it's alone. I mean, he has clearly distinguished the two categories by which somebody claims to be saved, by faith and works or just faith, and he nixes the faith and works and just says by faith. Did you have a question? Okay, sorry, all right. But here, James 2.24 says, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Boy, the Roman Catholics love to beat Protestants over the head with that one. So here's the few things I would say. Number one, Paul is dealing with a different group than James is. Very simply, Paul is dealing with a group who is trying to say, as Judaizers, like in Galatia and even in Rome, that You could get into the people of God by grace alone, but if you're going to stay in the people of God, you've got to work. Justification is a future event after you're sanctified. So very simply, they were saying, you need works to be justified. You need works to be saved. And it was to those people that Paul was saying, no, justification is by grace apart from works. Okay. Now James is dealing with a different kind of group. And if I had time, I'd go through systematically each chapter where he is very clearly showing the disparity or the lack of a connection in somebody's life before other men and women as they view the life of this person between what somebody says and what they do. Okay, so he's saying you have an inconsistency here. All right, so notice just let me just point out a few in James 2.18 and 3.13. Let me read these real quick. James 2.18, he says, But someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Look at this word, show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works. And then chapter three, verse 13, he says, who is wise and understanding among you by his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. In both of those contexts, the word show comes up, and in both of those contexts, what is assumed is showing a person's faith, the validity, the vitality, the robustness of somebody's faith to another living human being. In neither context is it talking about before the tribunal of God, okay? Now, that's very important. James, old camel knees, the pastor is trying to say, look, you hypocrite, stop going around and saying that you're a Christian if you're a flaming hypocrite. And he's saying, look, even the demons believe in shudder. You think that was a little harsh? Read the things that James says. He has some very strong words for people who want to talk a big talk and don't want to walk it. Even the demons believe, chapter two, verse 19. And what do they do? They shudder, which is to say they believe that God is there. They believe that he justifies by grace through faith alone. And yet that doesn't change their conduct. And so, and they're damned to hell. And so James, you could see the connection that he's making. So, but then secondly, let me show you this. Back in James 2.24, who is he talking about? He's talking about Abraham. And he says that Abraham's work justified him. But those who want to hang their hat on this, they miss the fact that James quotes Genesis 15.6. where the Spirit of God clearly intimates that Abraham was justified by faith. Genesis 15.6 is the passage that Paul uses in Galatians, it's the passage that he uses in Romans. He uses it all over the place as the paradigm, the master example of how we are justified by faith. Now here's where it gets interesting. And this is where two things read your Bible and understand the chronology that comes out of the Bible. When did Abraham? Sacrifice Isaac with respect to Genesis 15. It was 30 years later Okay. Now that's important Because if James is saying Abraham was justified by works, not by faith alone, by obeying God's voice and sacrificing Isaac or being willing to sacrifice Isaac, he's talking about an event that is 30 years after the Spirit of God said, you are justified by your faith. So was he saved again? No, of course not. All of this goes up to, goes up to, all of this points up exactly what James has been doing in the rest of his epistle, which is saying, look, you guys, his faith, everybody around could look at his faith and say, oh yeah, there's a work that confirms his faith when he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, okay? So the bottom line is this doesn't present a contradiction between Paul and James. They're simply dealing with two different things, okay? Now, let's move on to adoption. And I'm just going to be quick on this. Question 38, what is adoption? And we answer, adoption is an act of God's free grace by which we are received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. Bottom line, 1 John 3.1, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Adoption is a beautiful picture or motif that the Lord uses to show that we were not by nature children of God. We were by nature, in Ephesians 2, children of wrath, but because of God's condescending grace, he has made us his own children, legitimate children, so that we are just as much his children as if we were natural children, okay? And that's all I'm gonna say about that. Question 39, what is sanctification? Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, by which we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. Okay? All right. Does anybody know what this is? Anyone? Okay, you need a senile doctor. What's that? Oh, OK, OK. All right. It's not a coffee cup. You ever seen a knob like that? Huh? This is my shaving cup. OK? Now, I'm bringing this to make an illustration, OK? I don't use this for coffee. It's not like a multi-use thing, OK? I simply use this to put my shaving brush in there and put it on my face and shave, OK? This is a shaving cup, all right? It is sanctified for the use of shaving. What does sanctify mean? Wholly given over to mark that down. Wholly given over to it is specifically for the purpose of one thing. That's what sanctification is. We are wholly given over to God. OK, now let me just unpack that just a little bit more in the New Testament. What that means is now we've been declared righteous. OK, but we are we are. Simul justus et peccator. Anybody know what that means? Oh, very good, man. If you need Latin lessons, see that man right there, okay? At once, similarity, that's where we get that, at once, righteous or just, and sinner. This was Martin Luther's famous dictum. Because really, if you understand justification the way he does, that's exactly what we are. We are at the same time a sinner and a saint. So the process of sanctification is the spirit of God taking your justified status and now working that through your heart so now you, out of gratitude, desire to obey him, to submit to him, to love him, and bit by bit, slowly over time, you begin to look more and more like Jesus Christ. Sometimes it's painfully slow. And then sometimes you have these quote unquote camp experiences and boom, you have this like big growth spurt, okay? But over the long haul, it is a slow process. Now, so let me make a few points and then we'll wrap up, okay? The Bible, the New Testament talks about sanctification in three different ways. Number one, number one, positional, positional sanctification. This is the one that most of us have not heard about, positional sanctification. You see this in 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 through 11. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. but you were washed, you were sanctified. In the Greek, that's a past tense, eris, which means one and done, okay? It doesn't have ongoing effects. It's a one and done event. You were sanctified, and then notice its position. What's it before? You were justified. So you were sanctified before you were justified. It's a debate on whether Paul really wanted to stress the chronological order there or not. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. Positional sanctification is very simply the idea that the moment you were saved, the Lord put you aside and sanctified you for a greater purpose, okay? But now the second way, and this is the most common way in the New Testament, is what's called progressive sanctification. Now this is how it's most commonly used in the New Testament. There's a lot of passages. I'm just going to look at 1 Thessalonians 4, 3 through 7. But this is the will of God, your sanctification, verse 3, 4 and 7, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. God has not called us for purity, but in holiness. Hebrews 10 14 this is a beautiful juxtaposition of sanctification and progressive sanctification for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified okay so he has initially sanctified us set us aside okay put aside the shaving cup it's only going to be used for these purposes And then now he continues to sanctify us by word and spirit, okay? And then the final one is future sanctification. You might just call this glorification. Yeah. Okay, and we see this in 1 John 3, 2. Beloved, we're God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. Now, how does, how does that sanctification work? Let me just make a few comments. Number one, the spirit works in you to bring about obedience and submission to God's word. Okay. So the question is, is this something that just the Spirit does, or is this something that we and the Spirit do? For some of you who know the categories, the question is, is sanctification monergistic, the work of one, or is it synergistic, the work of two? You might be surprised. I do believe it's monergistic, and here's the reason why. I do believe it's only the work of the Spirit, because here's the thing. Cooperation only comes about if we're made new by the Spirit in the first place. Okay, so I can't cooperate with the Spirit unless the Spirit regenerates me. And so do I cooperate? Yes, Philippians chapter two. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Watch verse 13. For it is God who works in you, there's the Spirit, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Now look at Colossians 1.29. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. I love that, there's both right there, Colossians 129. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. So I do think it's monergistic, but I'm not willing to get in a gunfight over that, okay? Can we achieve perfection in this life? No, next question. Heidelberg Catechism. Question 114, I love this. Can those who are converted to God keep these commandments perfectly? No, but even the holiest men while in this life have only a small beginning of such obedience, yet so that with earnest purpose they begin to live not only according to some, but according to all the commandments of God. Last question, very important, okay? Listen to me very carefully. Does the law play a role in your sanctification? Do we have any answers? Okay, good. Blessed are you? That's a good answer. Okay. Now I say that because some people want to say, Oh, we're not under the law. And doesn't Paul say that? And you know, first, Roman chapter six, verse 14. We're not under law, we're under grace. Yes, that's true. That's true. But the reformed tradition has thought long and hard about this. And I think they're right. And I want to say three, a few things. Number one, we must understand there are three divisions of the law, civil, ceremonial, and moral. Okay. Now, If you don't like those distinctions, you say, well, that is a scholastic, reformed, unbiblical, imposition of theological categories. Fine, let's just go to Paul. 1 Corinthians 7, 19. Listen very carefully. 1 Corinthians 7, 19. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Okay, now time out. Is circumcision a commandment of God? In the Old Covenant, yeah, it was a commandment of God. So he's thinking about the law in the Old Covenant, and he said circumcision doesn't mean anything. Uncircumcision doesn't mean anything. Well, what matters, Paul? Keeping the commandments of God. Well, wait, circumcision is a command. Oh, so it must mean that the ceremonial, which is the circumcision, is now done away. and only commandments of God moral remain. Okay. So I think that the distinction is valid and I think the reformed are correct. So what is the moral law of God? I would submit it's the 10 commandments. Okay. There's much more to be said about that. Now, secondly, there are three uses of the law. Number one to restrain evil in society. This is why we pray for the president whether it's Barack Obama Donald Trump This is why we pray for the all three branches of government because we believe that the God God through common grace uses the civil magistrate to restrain evil Romans 13 in society that is one use that the law has Secondly, Galatians chapter 3, the law functions as a tutor to lead us to Christ. And then third, and this is the sometimes disputed category, is the use of the law in sanctifying Christians. Now, so we don't want to say we're under the law, but we do want to say the Lord uses the law to sanctify us together with the Spirit, and we call this evangelical obedience. And let me just give you a few verses, and then we'll conclude, okay? Okay, number one, just write down Jeremiah 31, verses 33 and following, and Ezekiel 36, 25 and following. Both of these passages are the old covenant prophets giving the prophecy of the new covenant. And how do they describe the new covenant? They say, I will put my spirit within you. And what do they say they will write on their heart? The law. What law? Certainly not the U.S. law. We're talking about the Ten Commandments, the law of God. Now, they're talking about new covenant realities. So I think it's valid to say yes, the law is something the Lord uses to sanctify us. Now, Romans 3.30, I love this, whenever I have to deal with my antinomian people. Okay, Romans 3.31. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? The context is he's gone on and on about how justifications by faith not works. And then he says, do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Again, I don't think he's talking about ceremonial law because Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 just said, circumcision means nothing. He's talking about the moral law of God. Okay? So finally, if you, like Paul, want to call this new law, if you will, the moral law that continues over from the old covenant, the law of Christ, like he does in 1 Corinthians 9.21, or with James, you want to call it the perfect law or the law of freedom in James 1.25, that's fine. I don't care what you call it. But the fact of the matter is we're not lawless Christians. The Lord uses the law to sanctify us, okay? So justification and sanctification are the double benefit of union with Christ. If you're justified, you should desire to be and will be sanctified. And I hope, dear congregation, that that is something that is exciting for you. I hope that when we look in the mirror every morning, we say to ourselves, I wanna look more like Jesus today. And then know that it's not just a desire, a vapid desire without any anticipation of fulfillment, But the Lord has promised that we would be sanctified. And so it's something that we can anticipate with great hope. All right. So let me pray and let everybody go. And if anybody has questions, I'd be happy to answer them. OK, Father in heaven, we thank you for the double benefit that Christ has given us in justification and sanctification. I pray that you would make us walk more like him. And we ask these things in your son's name. Amen. All right.