Cosby, the pastor of Tucson Reformed Baptist Church. We'll be reading Romans chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. Romans chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. I'll be reading from the ESV. Let us hear the word of God. 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 Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was 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. May the Lord bless the reading of His word. In the event that anyone falls asleep during the lecture slash sermon, I will be calling you out by name. No, I would never do that. I'm so warm, soft, and fluffy, as I tell my students. Yes, that's right, like a comforter. That tyrannizes me in the middle of the night. OK. The doctrine of justification and the work of the Holy Spirit. Eschatology isn't necessarily a word that we might associate with the Spirit's work in the doctrine of justification. And in fact, when you hear the word eschatology, perhaps at least in the ecclesial culture in which we live, we might have visions of Kirk Cameron and the Left Behind series, although they tried to reboot it with Nicolas Cage. I was quite surprised by that. And now, none other than Hercules, Kevin Sorbo, has taken over the series. We'll see where it goes. But we think of those types of ideas, the end times, the Antichrist, those are common associations when we invoke that term, eschatology. But it was Gerhardus Voss, a biblical theologian that taught at Princeton Seminary in the days of B.B. Warfield, who said that eschatology is older than the doctrine of salvation. Eschatology is older than the doctrine of salvation. You know, the way that he put it much more succinctly is eschatology is the exponent of protology, not of soteriology. Well, let me unpack that very briefly. And that what he's saying here is that there was an end in view before sin ever entered into the world. There was an end in view before sin ever entered into the world. And that's why the end or eschatology is older than the doctrine of salvation, because God placed Adam in the garden of Eden and told him, here's the work you are to do. And had he completed that work, he presumably would have eaten from the tree of life and thereby ushered in the end, apart from any need for salvation. Now this is, in my estimation, no minor thing. I want to say that eschatology, or the end, shapes the goal of our salvation because it is the very goal that God set forth at the outset of the creation. So what I want us to do here as we consider the Spirit's work in justification is I want to show a couple of things. First, we want to take note of the fact that the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ in our salvation. The Holy Spirit applies the work of our salvation. But what is important to note is the context in which He applies the work of Christ. And that context is an eschatological one. Or to state it more simply, the context for our justification for the declaration that God makes over us that we are in conformity to his law and thereby righteous, the context for that declaration is the new heavens and the new earth. Or you could state it again succinctly, the context is eschatology. And so factoring in the context of the Spirit's work in our justification is important because it speaks both to the finality of the verdict of our justification as well as its irreversibility. the finality of our justification as well as its irreversibility. In other words, when God declares you righteous by faith in Christ, you are as righteous as you will ever be. whether now or at the final judgment. You are as righteous now as you will ever be, but then I suspect it is an equally important and comforting truth to us that there is nothing that we can do to overturn that verdict. Nothing that we can do to overturn that verdict. You know, it was a thing in the press this past week that our former president was convicted of a crime. okay and you know as well as i do and this is the first thought that came to my mind as soon as he was convicted i thought he's going to appeal he's going to appeal he wants to seek to reverse the verdict to overturn the verdict praise god with with with our justification there is no reversing of that verdict there is no one who can appeal to god and say that verdict needs to be changed That's an important truth that we need to remember. So what we want to do as we consider the Spirit's work, is I want us to look first at the context of eschatology. We want to place it in its proper context. Secondly, we want to take note of the Spirit's work in terms of our effectual calling and faith. Jason talked in the last lecture about our effectual calling, so I want to touch upon that as the lead-in to the doctrine of faith. So first, the context of eschatology. Second, our effectual calling and faith. And then third and finally, the context of the verdict of our justification, where we basically kind of put everything together so that we can see not only the verdict, but its context and how it all works. So let's give first thought here to the context of eschatology in that we first want to establish the place, if you will, in redemptive history where the Spirit carries out His work of applying Christ's work in our justification. And this is where we have to note the broader context of both pre-redemptive history, that is, the context before the fall, as well as post-redemptive history, in other words, after the fall. We want to look at the whole picture from Adam all the way to the end, from the covenant of works to the covenant of grace. And here, this is, I think, an important passage that few, I suspect, in this discussion factor, and that's 1 Corinthians 15, 44, where the Apostle Paul says, if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Now, when we hear Paul say those words, or when we read those words, we might associate the natural body with fallen, sinful humans, especially given what Paul says about the natural man in 1 Corinthians 2.14, that the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God because he is natural. He is sinful in that sense. But we have to remember that what Paul is saying is that first there's a natural body, then there's a spiritual body. He's saying in the grand scope of things that Adam first had a natural body, albeit one free from sin. So Adam first had a natural body. Had Adam been obedient, had he been obedient and passed his probation, passed his test, he would have unleashed the new creation, the new heavens and earth, the outpouring of the Spirit. Now if this sounds familiar to you, you think, wait a minute, isn't that what Christ does? And we say, yes, that's what Christ does. But remember, Christ is the last Adam. God does not rewrite the job description for Adam. He instead sends someone who will faithfully fulfill it. So that when Christ, through his obedience, unleashes the outpouring of the Spirit, that was Adam's original vocation. That was his original job. He was supposed to be obedient, and he was supposed to go from having a natural body to a spiritual body. A body dominated by the Spirit. But he fails, Christ comes along, and he fulfills the work, and he unleashes the Spirit. But notice here in this, when Paul writes, for example, in Romans 8.10, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. The Spirit is life because of righteousness. We could state it this way, there is the outpouring of the Spirit because of Christ's obedience. There would have been the outpouring of the Spirit because of Adam's obedience. But of course, we know that this is not what happened. And so this is why Paul contrasts the first and last Adams in the very next verse in 1 Corinthians 15 45, where he says, thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. There's the natural body, there's the spiritual body. Adam became a living being, the natural body, and then the last Adam became a life-giving spirit, the spiritual body. Okay? We can pick up this thread as well in Hebrews chapter six verses four and five. I'm going to do what I tell my students. I'm going to pull the pin on a theological grenade, roll it down the aisle, and run away. I'm not going to answer any questions about that passage right now. You can get it during the Q&A if you want. And you can give it to Jason. But listen to what the author of Hebrews here says, for it is impossible in the case that those who have been once enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and who have shared in the Holy Spirit, okay, so they've shared in the Holy Spirit, and so here, is he talking about losing his salvation? There's the grenade. Alright, I'm running away. I don't want to focus on that. They have shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come. He describes the Holy Spirit as the powers of the age to come. Or He describes the Holy Spirit, we can put it this way, as the powers of the new heavens and the new earth. Or he describes the Holy Spirit as the powers of the eschaton, of the eschatological age. So to put all of this together, we should note that this about the structure of pre-redemptive and redemptive history is that it was Adam's job to offer up the necessary righteousness and to unleash the spirit and the new creation. This places, therefore, justification prior to the existence of the doctrine of salvation. How so? And that we often associate justification with the doctrine of salvation because we're sinners and we need God to justify us and to declare us righteous. But we have to recognize that justification is a judicial verdict. And that had Adam been declared, or had he been obedient, apart from sin, God would have declared him righteous. So here you see his justification, apart from the fall, had he been obedient. Okay? And that we can say this as well as about condemnation. I always ask my students this question, in what way are justification and condemnation alike? And the right answer is, they're both judicial verdicts. We know, and we'll look at this in greater detail in a moment, we know that when God came into the garden after Adam had sinned, he pronounced a judicial verdict over him. He judged him. He condemned him for his sin. Had he been obedient, he would have declared him righteous. Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou art righteous. You have fulfilled the law, and now we can unleash the Holy Spirit and the new creation because of your obedience. So notice here, then, we can say the connections between the Holy Spirit, eschatology, or the new creation, and the doctrine of justification. These three things come together. Now, so this brings us to our second point here, which is considering effectual calling and faith. Now, as children of the Reformation, all of us, I hope, are familiar with the idea that when God justifies us, he justifies us by faith alone. This is that Reformation slogan, we are justified sola fide, sola fide, right? And so this is what the Westminster Confession says, chapter 11, paragraph 2, you'll find the same stated in the Second London Confession. Faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness is the alone instrument of justification. So we need to think about justification by faith. But if we're thinking in terms of the order of salvation, logically, prior to faith, we first have to consider effectual calling. Effectual calling and faith occur together at the same temporal moment. But we logically disambiguate them, if you will, by saying that logically, effectual calling comes first, then the gift of faith. As Jason said in the last lecture in John 3, 3, "...truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." So you can't believe in the gospel, let alone see the gospel, apart from being born again. And so this is why effectual calling comes first. Listen to what the Westminster Shorter Catechism, therefore, has to say about effectual calling. It says this in question 31. What is effectual calling? Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, He does persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the Gospel. That vivid imagery I think we could put to this definition is to say that we were once dead in our sins and through God's effectual calling by the Spirit, He raises us from death to life, thereby enabling us to believe in the Lord Jesus. Again, what does Jesus tell Nicodemus? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, John 3, 5, and 6, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. That's eschatological language. You just may not realize it at first glance. Think about what was going on in the initial creation. The Spirit was hovering over the water. Think about God's act of new creation as He created Israel. We talked about this yesterday. The Spirit was hovering, Deuteronomy 32, 11, the Spirit was hovering over Israel as they passed through the water of the Red Sea. That's an act of new creation. Remember we talked about the flood. Noah sends out a dove, the New Testament image of the Holy Spirit. He sends out the dove over the waters of the flood as the renewed creation emerges from the waters. And then of course, think of Jesus, the last Adam, As he emerges out of the waters of baptism, with the Holy Spirit descending upon him as a dove, this is of course the definitive act of new creation. So when Jesus tells Nicodemus, you have to be born of water and spirit, you have to be called by the effectual call of the Spirit. He says, you have to be called by the Spirit's work of new creation. This is the same kind of imagery we see here in 1 Peter 2.9, but Peter takes a different image from creation when he says in 1 Peter 2.9, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Where have you seen things called out of darkness and into light, but the very creation itself where in Genesis 1, 1 and following, God says, let there be light. And there was light as there were the chaotic waters and the spirit hovering over those deep primordial waters. So notice here, The effectual call is a call of new creation. It's the Spirit's call, and it's calling us. It's the call of the last days. It's a call of the eschaton. It's a call of the new heavens and the new earth. And here, of course, John says it this way when he says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, old creation, That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit, new creation. So here, Jesus is announcing the coming of the kingdom, the coming of the new heavens and the new earth, and especially spirit giving birth to spirit. Think of it this way, effectual calling is the voice of God breaking forth in the darkness of the sin fallen world, raising sinners from death to life through the power of the spirit. It's like God calling into the darkness of the creation, let there be light. It's like the prophet Ezekiel calling by the Spirit-empowered prophetic word to the valley of dry bones, arise and the bones come to life and it brings Israel to life. It's like Jesus calling into the tomb of Lazarus, Lazarus come forth. And so this is the means by which God calls us through the word of Christ and raises us from death to life through that new creating power of the Holy Spirit. As the Son and as the Spirit formed the initial creation, so the Son and the Spirit are forming the new creation, the new heavens and earth. Or you can put it this way, so often it's the case that we conceive of a hard break between the new creation and the old creation. This is how so many evangelicals put this together. They think, well, the new creation will not start until the old creation is complete. So, final judgment, then new creation. But instead, it's not that they are buttressed one against another. Rather, the new creation overlaps with the old creation. The new creation is breaking forth in the midst of the old creation. Again, you see this imagery in the creation account when light is called out of darkness. So in the darkness of this sin fallen world, the light of the gospel emerges in the midst of the darkness announcing the new heavens and the new earth are breaking forth into the creation. And this is how it happens. It happens through the Spirit's effectual call. The Spirit's effectual call, of course, produces the gift of faith, which enables us to believe. Galatians 3.2, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Galatians 3.14, that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Or Ephesians 2.8, a text that's probably familiar to us all, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Remember, what did we say yesterday was one of the names of the Holy Spirit, but the gift of God? And so it's the Spirit through effectual calling who produces the gift of faith within us. And so it is by faith, faith is the instrument by which we receive the righteousness of Jesus, the suffering of Jesus, His perfect obedience and the law, the curse of the law that He bears on our behalf. We can say that faith is the empty hand in which God places the obedience and suffering of Jesus Christ so that we can grasp it and we can be justified. Now to be clear, Westminster Shorter Catechism question 33 defines justification as this, justification is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, or we could say accredited to us, accounted to us, and received by faith alone. So when the Spirit effectually calls us and freely gives us the gift of faith, this is the light and the air of the new heavens and earth piercing the darkness of this present evil age. It's the light of the gospel piercing the darkness. It's the new creation bursting forth in the midst of the old. Again, this is foreshadowed, I believe, in the Old Testament in the creation account. Why is it? Why is it in Genesis that we, how do we account our days? We say that a day begins with light, and then darkness, and then the next day light, and then darkness. Why is it that in the Genesis account, a day begins with darkness? There's darkness, and then there's light. is because I think it's foreshadowing the new heavens and the new earth and the light of the new creation, the light of the gospel of Christ breaking forth in the midst of the sin darkened world. This is the same light we can say that shone in the midst of Goshen where Israel dwelt in Egypt as Egypt was engulfed in darkness, but there was light where Israel dwelt. This is the light that is manifest in the incarnation of Christ as he preached the gospel message, John 1, 5. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. This is the light of the new heavens and the new earth, the light that emanates from the throne of the Lamb and the new Jerusalem where there is no night. You know, I don't know about you, but sadly I live a great degree of my life in darkness. Literally. Not sin, I hope not. But in darkness, it's like I get up before everybody else does. And it's at that time in the morning, in the early hours of the morning, where turning on lights makes noise. You know, it's not the switch. It's the light itself. It makes noise. And I'm not talking about the buzz. It's the physical light that all of a sudden somebody would go, oh, what's going on? So I live my life in the early morning hours by the light of my cell phone. I can't tell you how many casualties I have suffered. I cannot tell you how many Lego pieces I've stepped on with bare feet. I can't tell you how many times I've stubbed my toe. I can't tell you. This is one of the most annoying things. And some of you may know what I'm talking about. You get dressed in the dark, and then you walk out into the light and realize, why is my shirt on backwards? I cannot believe it. That annoys the living daylights out of me. I cannot stand it. I mean, I shouldn't. I should be more sanctified. But I get angry. I'm like. There's no darkness in the new creation. There's no night there. There's no darkness of sin. There's only the light of righteousness, the light that emanates from the Lamb and from the throne of God. No darkness. And this is, we can say, the light that comes to us through our effectual calling, our faith, and our justification. But thirdly, let's give some thought here to the context of our verdict as we kind of put all of the pieces of the puzzle together here and think about this. It's that in our justification, God declares us righteous. Now this is so, so, so important that we understand this. We often characterize justification as God says, I'm forgiven of my sin. God says, I'm not guilty. And I say, no, it's much, much more than that. It's not merely that you're not guilty or that you're innocent, but rather that you have positively, completely, and totally fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law. That's what it means to be righteous. The Heidelberg Catechism, question 60, asks the question, how are you righteous before God? And to me, this answer is perhaps one of my most famous passages in any confession or catechism of the Reformation or of all time, because it speaks so much truth and so much comfort only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments, of never having kept any of them, of still being inclined toward all evil, Nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, and as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. All I need to do is accept this gift with a believing heart. What a blessing! That by faith, by the gift of faith, through the work of the Spirit, God looks upon us as if we had been totally obedient to every jot and tittle of the law. And as if we are perfectly free from sin. Why? Because He credits to us the suffering and perfect obedience of Jesus. But given what the scripture says about the natural body and the spiritual body, flesh giving birth to flesh, spirit giving birth to spirit, or the present evil age and the age to come, the spirit's work of the new creation both before and after the fall, what does this mean for the context of our justification? This is where we need to go all the way back to the Garden of Eden. and the first Adam to compare the judicial sentence that was passed on him and compare it with the judicial sentence that was passed over the last Adam, Jesus. In Genesis 3, 8, we read this, and I'm gonna tweak the translation here because it doesn't, the English doesn't accurately reflect the Hebrew in my assessment. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, and then most translations say in the cool of the day. But here, the Hebrew is quite literally in the spirit of the day. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the spirit of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves, not from the presence of the Lord, they hid themselves from the face of the Lord. Face of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God was walking in the garden in the spirit of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. The Son of God is the judge, but the Holy Spirit has a role in judgment. The triune God came before Adam and judged Adam by the Spirit. This was Adam's, if you will, his final judgment. The spirit of the day hearkens us unto that Old Testament phrase, the day of the Lord. Isaiah 13, 9, Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. Listen to how Isaiah describes judgment when he says in Isaiah 4-4, he combines judgment with the work of the Spirit. When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. A spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning. Here, it's Isaiah talking about the Holy Spirit burning away the iniquities. Burning away the sin, but it's a spirit of judgment. This is what the Genesis 3.8 text means when it says, and the Lord came in the spirit of the day. The triune God judged Adam by the spirit and it was a spirit of burning and he pronounced a guilty verdict over Adam. He did not justify Adam, the spirit condemned Adam. But what about the verdict passed over the last Adam? We commonly associate the work of the Spirit with the resurrection of Christ, which is correct, but listen to what Paul says about the work of the Spirit and particularly its connections to judgment and its connections to judicial verdicts. Concerning his son who is descended from David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead Jesus Christ our Lord. The Father reversed the unjust verdict against His Son by the Spirit reversing the verdict and raising Christ from the dead and the Spirit declaring to the world, this is the Son of God. Notice the Spirit involved in this act of judgment. Or we can put it in more technical terms, note the forensic character, the judicial character of Christ's resurrection by the Spirit. This is the means by which the Spirit declares Him, You're the Son of God! Listen to what Paul here says, Virtually, very similarly we can say, but much more directly, when he says in 1st Timothy 3.16, and here, again, I want to tweak the translation because the underlying Greek says something far more specific. Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, justified by the Spirit, is what Paul says. Justified by the Spirit. You see, Christ was perfectly sinless and righteous and thus, when God declared the judicial verdict over Him, unlike Adam, the Spirit justifies Christ. He declares Him righteous because He is perfectly obedient. and perfectly sinless. What a world of difference between the verdict passed over the first Adam versus the verdict passed over the last Adam. Now notice how we can tie all of this together in terms of the Spirit's work and our justification. John the Baptist told us that Christ would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Remember the spirit of burning, Isaiah 4, 4? Spirit of judgment? Christ received the Spirit, suffered, died, was raised by the power of the Spirit, which was His justification by the Spirit, pivots, and then pours out the Spirit in Pentecost. Acts 2.33, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. Acts 2.38, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, we would also say the gift of justification, the gift of faith, the gift of effectual calling. And when does Peter locate all of this? He quotes Joel, Joel 2.28, and it shall come to pass in the last days. So the Spirit's outpouring comes in the last days. The gift of faith comes in the last days. The gift of new creation and effectual calling comes in the last days. The gift of justification comes in the last days. This is, if you will, the Spirit of the day by whom God justifies us. Christ pours out the Spirit. and the Spirit, the call of the new creation goes forth and calls us out from death to life out of the sin and the mire and the chaos and gives us the gift of faith and places us in Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. By faith alone, the triune God declares us righteous, but this is no ordinary verdict. This is the verdict of the final judgment come forward into the middle of history. You have already passed through the final judgment in Christ because Christ suffered the final judgment on the cross of Calvary. As far as God is concerned, you're done. You've passed through the final judgment. You've had that Last day's verdict passed over you. Why? Because you're in Christ and Christ has been justified. All of this is eschatological in nature. And we make the transition from this present evil age to the age to come, or the old creation to the new creation, by the Father sending the Son, and the Son providing His perfect righteousness, and the Spirit applying the Son's righteousness by faith alone. Now listen to how Paul describes all of this in Romans 4.17. As it is written, quoting Genesis 12.2, I have made you the Father of many nations, in the presence of the God in whom he believed, how does he describe this? Who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. That's creation language. Through your justification, he's calling into existence things that do not exist. He's calling into the darkness, let there be light. And you come forward out of the darkness of death. And he seats you with Christ in the heavenly places because he has declared you righteous by faith alone in Christ alone. Now we can observe that while Pentecost constitutes the long-awaited outpouring of the Spirit of justification, that last day's outpouring of the Spirit, the Old Testament saints enjoyed this same blessing, but we could say in smaller measure. And this is evident first and foremost because who is the model New Testament believer? Abraham. Abraham is the model New Testament believer, and this takes us back to the earliest days of the scripture in Genesis 15. We can also remember that there's only one gospel. There are not two gospels, there's one gospel. There's only one Savior. There's only one gift of faith, as the book of Hebrews in the 11th chapter makes abundantly clear. There's not two kinds of faith, there's only one kind of faith. There's only one Holy Spirit. When Old Testament believers received the gift of faith and were united with Christ, we can say they received an anticipatory dispensation of the Holy Spirit. Here's the way that Gerhardus Vos explains it. He says that when you're traveling in a plane, and you're approaching a landmass, like a continent, you can look out the window and the closer you get to the landmass, to the continent, you can see little atolls, little landmasses popping up out of the ocean that signals you're soon approaching a continental mass. I can't help but think that he used this illustration because he often traveled. He lived in the Netherlands and would go back and forth at times, and I can't help but think maybe he was in a plane and saw land popping up as he was getting ready to approach the Netherlands. So think of the Aleutian Islands. The closer that you get to Alaska, the main portion of Alaska, you see islands starting to pop up. Those little islands are like the Old Testament believers popping up, and then the land mass is Pentecost. But here's a better way to think of it. Here's a better way to think of it, because I remember once I wrote this, and I had a colleague, educated man, PhD, you know, all kinds of academic accolades, and he wrote in the margin, what's an atoll? I'm like, well, haven't you ever heard of the Bikini Atolls? You know, that's one that sticks in my mind because of the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb test, right? Okay, so let's switch the image because let's get something that we can wrap our mind around. All of us, I suspect, have stood out on a day, whether it's at the game, whether it's at a parade, whether it's like more recently for me at an outdoor graduation ceremony, and you're sitting there, and you're minding your own business, the clouds look a little darker, and you're thinking, man, I hope this holds out, and then all of a sudden, boop, one raindrop bops you on the nose. You're like, oh no. And you start holding out your hands thinking, okay, wait a minute, is it going to rain? Please don't let it rain because I didn't bring my umbrella, right? We've all done this. You get those initial raindrops as they start falling. before the deluge hits you and it just pours and pours and pours, it starts raining cats and dogs. We can say that the salvation of the Old Testament saints are those initial raindrops that anticipate the deluge, the outpouring of the Spirit when it starts raining, if you will, cats and dogs with the outpouring of the Spirit and the gift of salvation. Or you can change the metaphor to say that the salvation of those Old Testament saints, such as Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, it's the first breaking of light over the horizon. And that Pentecost is when the sun finally rises completely over the horizon and bursts forth onto the scene. We can say it, whichever metaphor appeals to you more, the salvation of the Old Testament saints is substantively the same as our salvation. It's just in lesser degree. It was more external. They had to make sacrifices. They had to be in a local place. We now worship in spirit and in truth. But all of this is to say is that the context of our justification is eschatological because it's a part of the Spirit's eschatological work. It's a part of the Spirit's work of new creation, the new heavens and the new earth. So whenever we discuss the doctrine of justification and especially the Spirit's work in our justification, I think we need to go far beyond the doctrine of faith. As important as it is, faith is the sole instrumental cause of our justification. If we only discuss the gift of faith, I think it's as if we were treasure seekers, we scratch beneath the soil a little bit, we discover some gold coins, and in our excitement, we run away to take them to the bank. And if we simply stayed, stopped, and dug just a little bit more, we would find a whole treasure chest. You see, when other traditions, whether it's Roman Catholic or broadly evangelical, speak of a defectable justification, I think they fail to consider the full weight of the Spirit's role in our justification. They failed to consider the eschatological nature of our justification, as well as the eschatological nature of the Spirit's work. As with Christ's indefectible, immutable, and irreversible justification, so anyone who shares in that same verdict because they've been united to Christ through the gift of faith, we too share in that indefectible, immutable, and irreversible verdict. That is vital. Because I suspect all of us have had those times where we look in the mirror and we're ashamed to look in the mirror because we're ashamed to even look at ourselves because we are burdened by the weight and the guilt and the shame of sin. We don't want anybody to know. Maybe it's not even something that we have said, or something that we have done, but it's only in the recesses of our mind, and it's something that we've thought, and we say, okay, nobody knows what I think, but I know what I think, and terrifyingly enough, God knows what I think. How am I supposed to look myself in the mirror, let alone, how am I supposed to stand in the presence of a holy God, and might my salvation be in jeopardy? And we can say no. Not at all. Surely we should repent of our sin, but we should also rejoice that God has irreversibly, indefectibly, and immutably clothed us in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Remember Romans 8.1, if you don't have these words memorized, memorize them. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's because it's an act of the new creation. There's no going back. You've been put into the new creation. And there is nothing, nothing in the whole creation that will ever separate us from God's love in Christ. What does Paul say in Romans 8.33 in that rhapsodic passage that he writes, marked by such beauty and glory? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn Christ Jesus as the one who died? More than that, who was raised? Who is at the right hand of God? Who is interceding for us? You have passed through the final judgment in Christ Jesus already. And Christ has poured out the spirit upon the creation and is flooding the earth with his spirit. And you have passed through the waters and Christ has set you safely on the opposite shore of Jordan. So rejoice therefore that Christ has poured out his spirit upon you and justified you by faith alone in Christ alone and given you the gift of faith by which you are justified. The gift of faith alone. Remember when God came into the garden in the spirit of the day and judged Adam, and both Adam and Eve fled from the face of God. Well, remember this too. Because of the Spirit's work in justification, because of the gift of faith, because of Christ's work on your behalf, in the spirit of the day, You will not have to flee. You will not have to hide yourself, but rather you will be able boldly to go into the presence of our triune God. As we read in Revelation 22, 3, and 4, remember, Adam hid himself from the face of God. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him, and they will see his face. Amen.