Let's pray for God's blessing on our time in his word now, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the words of eternal life that you have breathed forth and preserved for your church through all the ages of time. And we are so blessed to have the Bible in its entirety in our own language that we can read and understand. And we bless you for the work of your spirit and sanctifying your church and leading her into all truth and guiding her through the great seasons of controversy and turmoil where Your light and your truth have shown forth brilliantly through the centuries. We thank you for the great creeds of the past, for the great reformation, the great revival of apostolic Christianity from the 16th century. And we pray that you would do that same work in your church today and relight that light, that fire, that it might shine bright once again. Be with us now as we read this all-important passage of scripture. We pray that we would understand rightly a subject that is enormously confused today, just as it was when the apostles wrote the New Testament books, as it's been a troubling subject throughout church history. The relationship of faith, what faith is and what justification is, how we're made right with God, and we pray you would help us to understand this rightly. That we ourselves would have that blessed assurance and that we would be able to explain to others What it is to truly know the one true and living God through simple faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient Savior we humbly ask in his name and for his sake Amen Please take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 3 again Romans chapter 3 And we'll read verses 19 through 31 and And the emphasis this evening is going to be on the subject of what the scriptures mean by faith and its relationship to God's almighty glorious work of the justification of sinners. Romans 3, 19 to 31, this is God's word. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. Because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, is one. Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be. On the contrary, we establish the law. May God bless the reading of his word. Last Sunday evening, we looked at how this precious truth of justification by faith alone, how a person is saved, how they can be saved from the wrath of God and go to heaven on the grounds of the cross of Christ, the satisfaction of divine justice and the imputed righteousness and obedience of Jesus Christ. That is the centerpiece of God's truth. An error here is fatal to salvation. And we looked at how there has been a concerted scholarly attack on the biblical gospel of justification by faith alone, apart from works, apart from anything that we do, for the past several decades. And if you think about it, really, since God promised salvation to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan has marshaled all of the deceptive forces of darkness, subtlety, and evil to distort, confuse, and muddy this doctrine since God first introduced it to the world. The churches that were planted by the apostles themselves had wolves in them, heretics in them, false teachers in them, false prophets, false apostles, et cetera. That we must battle for and defend this truth is no surprise. It's been attacked voraciously in my own lifetime. The lack of willingness on the part of elders and churchmen today, however, is very much a surprise. Their lack of willingness to fight for this truth and to defend it from all comers has been surprising to me ever since I was ordained 20 years ago. People will fight for what is important to them. And so much of what Christians have known and settled on in terms of what the Bible says and means has been challenged and buried under a lot of flowery, scholarly writing that has left many Christians with an attitude of supposedly humble, cautious agnosticism when it comes to what we believe and how we preach Christ to others. And I saw this again and again when I was in seminary. young men enamored by some of these high-powered scholarly treatises and writings and books, so much so that to think that you know what the gospel is with such clarity that you can identify something clearly as being contrary to it was seen as arrogant. And who are you to challenge these titans, these scholars that write all these books? Modern unbelieving scholarship has focused very hard on Paul, on the meaning of the phrase works of law, on the whole issue of Second Temple Judaism and being really a grace-based religion rather than a works-based religion and so on and so forth, on the very meaning and significance of the word justified itself in the New Testament, especially as Paul uses it in his letters. The so-called findings of modern scholarship have thrown a lot of dust and smoke around the simplest and clearest truths of the Bible. We saw how many of the gospel's modern detractors have given it their best attempt to restrict the phrase works of law to ceremonial works only and not to the Ten Commandments. And we saw in the opening section of Romans that clearly by the word law and by that phrase works of law, Paul is including the Ten Commandments as well as the ceremonial and the dietary laws. Nothing is excluded from that phrase. This argument of limiting the phrase works of law when Paul says we're justified by faith apart from the works of the law. The idea of limiting that merely to dietary or ceremonial works is common in the so-called new perspectives on Paul. It's very common in Rome. It's very common in Constantinople and Eastern Orthodoxy. Now, why is this so important? Why is that such an important point? Why am I harping on this now again? Because Paul repeatedly and emphatically excludes works of law from playing any role in our justification before God. It has no role whatsoever in how we get into heaven. If he is including anything done in us or done by us in that phrase, which he clearly is when he says works of law, he means anything that we would ever do in obedience to any of God's commandments, then how we are saved by faith in the gospel of Christ does not involve the works of the sinner at all. It does not involve the works of the sinner at all. And we looked at why interpreting the phrase works of law to refer only to ceremonial works is as unbiblical as something could possibly be. And I also want to point out to you that there's nothing new in that claim that's being made today. The federal vision makes the claim, the new perspectives on Paul makes the claim, Rome makes the claim, East makes the claim. John Calvin dealt with it in his own day. And listen to this wonderful quotation I found from Calvin on this one. He dealt with people that tried to restrict the phrase works of God. That's Paul just saying, you don't get into heaven by circumcision, but you still have to keep all the commandments of God with the help of God's spirit. And then that plays some role in getting you into heaven. Listen to Calvin's brilliant response to this. He says, quote, What I would ask is meant by the expressions, the righteousness of God without the law is manifest. The other expression, being justified freely by his grace, Romans 3.21, 3.24, justified by faith without the deeds of the law, Romans 3.28, Calvin's asking, what does he mean by those expressions? They, these false teachers, pretend that the works excluded are ceremonial, not moral works. Okay, he's writing this in the 16th century, so are these claims new? No, they're very old. Calvin says, do they think the apostle was raving when he produced in proof of his doctrine these passages? Quote, the man that does them shall live by them. Galatians 3.12, that's quoting from the Old Testament law from Leviticus 18. The one who does the law can go to heaven by it. That's the message of the law. Okay. If you want to include law and your understanding of how we get to heaven here, here's the good news. Then do it all perfectly. And you can go to heaven. Is that good news? That's the bad news. Cause there ain't a nobody that does that. And then he also quotes Galatians 3.10, another citation from Deuteronomy. Cursed be everyone that continue with not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. Calvin says, unless they are themselves raving, they will not say that life was promised to the observers of ceremonies. And the curse denounced only against the transgressors of ceremonies. Well, what's Paul denouncing there? Curse is everyone who doesn't keep all the commandments of God. All the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. The second commandment, you shall not make graven images. The third, the fourth, the fifth, all of them. Curse is everyone who doesn't do them all. That's why we need Christ, isn't it? Calvin says, if these passages are to be understood of the moral law, there cannot be a doubt that moral works are also excluded from the power of justifying, which they are. He says, to the same effect are the arguments which he employs. By the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Romans 3.20. The law brings about wrath, Romans 4.15, and therefore not righteousness. Faith is imputed for righteousness, and therefore righteousness is not the reward of works, but is given without being due. And then listen to his final statement. Calvin says, let them maintain if they dare that these things apply to ceremonies and not to moral works, and the very children will laugh at their sophistry. He's saying, seriously, if you give one of N.T. Wright's books to a child that's well-catechized, they will laugh at how silly it is. The idea that Paul is only excluding ceremonial or dietary works from what saves us and is in fact including our obedience to the Decalogue, to the Ten Commandments to get us into heaven. And Calvin concludes, the true conclusion, therefore, is that the whole law is spoken of when the power of justifying is denied to it. The law can't help you get to heaven in any way, shape, or form, at all, in any way. We then walk through Romans 3 19 to 25 last Sunday night to see how clearly, how forcefully Paul teaches this most sacred truth. And what we see clearly in Paul's thinking is that the law of God is useless for justifying any sinner by obedience to it. He is clear and forceful. Romans 3 20, you see it there in your Bible, if your Bible's still open, Romans 3 20. Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. And then look down at verse 28. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Now it should be quite obvious why so much unnecessary ink has been spilled over the meaning of the phrase works of law. If works of law means works of law, anything in the book of the law, in the Old Testament law, which it does, then all forms of pseudo Christianity are false. All of them are false. Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, a thousand other groups that make the same mistakes that they do. And all of man's religions are also false. It makes sense that Paul, the phrase works of law, the word justification would be a focal point for evil people to create confusion instead of clarity about the Christian faith. If we allow God's word to speak, all the contemporary and past purveyors of false doctrine are silenced. And let us remember what our great confession teaches us regarding the clarity of scripture, regarding how sinners can be saved from God's wrath and enter heaven. Always remember this, we believe in the clarity of scripture. We believe in the overall clarity of scripture. Listen, Westminster Confession chapter 1.7 says, All things in scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all. Yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and open in some place of scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, and a due use of the ordinary means may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them." You can understand the Bible. You don't need to have a theological education to understand it, although it doesn't hurt to have a theological education. You don't need one to understand it, how to be saved. You don't have to be an expert on Second Temple Judaism either. I remember being made to feel like that when I was in seminary. There were guys almost like, well, if you haven't read the Aramaic Targums in the original languages, you just can't understand the New Testament at all. I remember thinking, I don't even know what the Aramaic Targums are. What are you talking about? It means that one does not need to plow through thousands of pages of scholarly speak to understand what the phrase works of law means. You just got to read Romans 1, 2, and 3. It's right there. It means we don't need to take seriously all the nonsense that emanates from Rome and from the East, trying to assert that justification before God is by grace-enabled works as opposed to non-grace-enabled works and so forth. Like John Calvin said, these attempts to diffuse and cast fog over the simplest and plainest and most glorious and marvelous truths that the Bible gives to us, they need to be seen for what they are. And the people that push them need to be seen for what they are, they're Satan's ministers, masquerading as ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works, 2 Corinthians 11, 15 says. We also looked last time we were here on Sunday night and saw Paul makes the amazing statement that the righteousness of God by which guilty sinners enter heaven is revealed to us apart from the law. It is revealed to us apart from law. It is a righteousness that is not and never can be in any way tied to what we do in obedience to God's law. Keep that clear in your thinking. The righteousness by which a sinner enters heaven on the day of judgment does not and indeed cannot in any way at all be tied to that sinner's personal obedience to the law. It is a righteousness revealed and given to us apart from law, says Paul. It is not through law, but through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. And that we are justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Notice Romans 3 verse 24 does not say, as many believe today as, hello, many in reformed churches believe today. We are justified as a gift made possible by our works, cooperating with grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, which makes it all possible. Those kinds of things are being taught, believed, pushed in reformed churches today. No, the entirety of the righteousness by which sinners are accepted by God, accounted as righteous and are saved so they can go to heaven is a righteousness that is apart from law. Apart from law, any understanding of what faith is that blurs that distinction is gonna be fatal to your understanding. It is apart from law that righteousness is entirely outside of us. It is in no way produced by us. It is in no way influenced by our works, even after we're converted, even as we grow in our sanctification. Justification before God is a legal verdict rendered by God concerning our status before his law. It is based entirely and only upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's amazing to me. When I was in seminary and when I was learning the Westminster Confession, the larger catechism, you see those great questions. What is justification? What is sanctification? How do they differ from one another? I was so naive back then. I thought, well, of course, every minister is gonna be passionate about this. Of course, nobody would ever make this mistake of confusing justification and sanctification, of confusing what Christ has done outside of us to save us and what he does within us and regeneration and sanctification. No one's ever gonna confuse that, right? Prior to believing the gospel, our verdict was before condemned, going to hell and rightly so. Once the center has true faith in Jesus Christ, their legal verdict has changed to justified and acquitted from condemned. Once and for all, and once God has changed that legal status by uniting us to Christ, it can never be undone, ever. That legal acquittal alone, that legal act of justification gives the sinner a right to eternal life in heaven forever. I remember reading Charles Hodge's great systematic theology, his section on justification, and it was a salve to a weary soul. He said, once God has changed your verdict on the basis of what Christ has done, I just wanted to jump up and shout. He said, once he has made that change in your status based upon the cruel and bitter suffering of Jesus and the imputation of his righteousness to your account, you have a legal title to eternal life that can never be taken from you. And to say that it can be is to misunderstand who he is and what he did. Our works, our sanctification, our putting sin to death, our pursuit of holiness, our new obedience to God after conversion, and the dethroning of sin's tyranny, God does in us. They do not and they cannot play any role in that legal acquittal or in our being saved from God's avenging wrath. My progress in the Christian life has about as much of a chance of helping me get into heaven as a spider's web does of stopping an avalanche. I'm not aware of anything in scripture that's clearer than this basic truth. I've often sat down and wondered, how else could the Bible possibly say this? I'm also not aware of any truth that's more often attacked, muddied, and confused in our time. to make an error regarding the basis upon which a sinner enters heaven at death, such as mixing works with faith in Christ as somehow the confirmation that our faith was real and through which we're saved at the last day. That's not just an error, that's fatal to the gospel. That is an insult to Christ. That's an insult to the Lord Jesus. The reason for this is simple. When Paul speaks of a sinner being justified, he is in point of fact referring to the verdict of their judgment before God on the last day. I remember reading good reformed theologians, reading Calvin, reading Luther, looking at Robert Raymond and Burkoff and others, pointing out what justification really is. It's almost like you're instantly transported all the way to the day of judgment, and the verdict that you're going to hear there is brought back in time and applied to you right now at this moment. So our justification is not the initial step of the Christian life, and then there's a present process, and then there's a future completion by works. That's not it at all. That's not even close to true. Justification is the final judgment being applied to us right now, forever. And it's the very basis upon which we enter heaven because it's based solely on the work of Christ. And it's also the only reason we have assurance. Romans 4.16, you want to star, highlight, put something in your Bible. Romans 4.16, one of the summary arguments that Paul makes. Listen, he says, therefore it is by faith, justification is by faith, so that it would be by grace. If we get into heaven by anything other than the blood and righteousness of Christ received by faith alone, it's not grace anymore. It's not grace anymore. It's by faith so that it would be by grace. Now look at, or actually, let me just read this block of text. Stay there in Romans 3. Romans 8.32, Paul rhapsodizing about God's mercy and grace. He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Now listen to his question here. Romans 8.33, who shall bring a charge against God's elect? You hear what he's asking there? Who is going to charge me with sin on the day of judgment? Who can charge me with sin on the day of judgment? No one. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, he says. Who is he who condemns? Let Satan bring all of his accusations. I have one who stood in my place, who took it all away. There's a great scene, a great scene in the movie Luther, and it's based on real things he said when he preached. He says, so what about it when the devil comes to you and says to you, yes, you deserve death and hell. You deserve death and hell. Luther says, I've learned to turn to him and say, yes, I do deserve death and hell. What of it? I have one who stood in my place and took death and hell away. And his name is Jesus Christ. And where he is, there I will be also. And no charge of wrongdoing can ever be brought against me. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died. No condemnation can come because Christ died already. And furthermore, is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ, he says. Notice how Paul locates his entire confidence that no charges will be brought against him in the cross work of Christ. Who is he that condemns? It's Christ who died. No one can condemn me because Christ was condemned in my place. God justifies his elect. No charges will stick to them on that great day of judgment. Why? Because once God has justified the believing sinner, their legal verdict has been permanently changed from condemned to justified. Our day of judgment against all of our sins, it happened at Mount Calvary 2,000 years ago, one afternoon. As a really good reformed theologian taught me long ago, and none of us were there to mess it up. And that's why it works, that's why it's perfect. The righteousness which is legally credited into our legal account before God and his book was given to us purely as a gift, just like a Christmas gift, a birthday gift. Someone else purchased it and gave it to us, we received it. And it's given as a gift apart from our obedience to the law. The moment you try to earn it, you destroy it and you're not treating it like a gift anymore. All the redeemed of the Lord can bless God that he has thankfully left no part of our salvation in our hands. Jesus does all the saving and Christ's wise cross work even procured the faith itself by which we are justified by faith alone. So when we consider what God's one-time act of justifying us actually accomplishes, we need always to remember that it is a change in our legal status only. Please remember that. How are we saved? God changes our legal status before his law, from condemned to justified. It is not a subjective change in us at all, at all. Now, does God change us? Yes. Are we born again? Yes. Does He dethrone the power of sin? Yes. Do we make progress in sanctification? Yes. Does that save us? No. It doesn't play any role at all? Not at all. Well, aren't you just saying that people can sin all they want? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin live in it any longer? Says Paul. Think of it this way, when a defendant stands to hear his verdict and the judge renders the verdict, the judge's rendering of that verdict doesn't change the defendant subjectively at all. Once our legal status is changed by God from condemned to justified, our legal status will always be justified and acquitted before God. Why? Because Christ's death is a perfectly sufficient payment, which satisfies divine justice against us, and Christ's righteousness is really credited to our account. Look at verses 24 to 26 of Romans 3. Paul says, after that great verse, everybody has memorized, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Verse 24, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood. That word propitiation means sacrifice, which turns aside divine wrath. 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." Okay, stop there. Think about what that means. How is the cross a demonstration of his righteousness? It's what his holiness and his justice demand from us. It's a demonstration of what our sins deserve. That's what the cross is. That's what that word propitiation, that Greek term halosterion, to remove both the wrath itself, the righteous anger of God against our sins, and the cause of the wrath too, the guilt is laid on him. And you see the rest of verse 26, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. In other words, God is righteous and declaring me righteous and letting me into heaven because Christ really paid for it all. And Christ's righteousness really is mine. So he's just in declaring me righteous, even though I'm still inherently sinful. God is just and righteous in declaring that about us while we're still inherently sinful to be justified before him. How does he do that? That beautiful word, imputation. There's a great book, we have it on the rack out there on the table, called The God Who Justifies, chapter seven of that book. I remember reading it for the first time. The title of chapter seven was, Imputation, The Only Hope of the Sinful Soul. I remember reading that thinking, wow, this is beautiful. Christ shed blood at the cross is the propitiation of our sin. God legally transferred all my guilt, all my transgressions from my account to his and treated him accordingly at the cross. He was treated as if he'd done everything I'd ever done in my life. My original sin I inherited from Adam, all my envious, prideful, angry, lustful thoughts, all the lying, everything else I've ever done in my life, everything was laid on him. Imputation, it was legally charged to him. Jesus became sin in our behalf, legally. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, it says in Isaiah 53, six. He shall justify the many for he shall bear their iniquities, Isaiah 53, 12 says. The legal transaction by which we're justified and gain eternal life, it is accomplished entirely and completely outside of us. The transformation that we undergo as new creatures in Christ, it does not and cannot figure into our legal declaration of being justified before God. Does God change us? Yes, he most certainly does. Praise God, he does. He sets the captives free. The captives of sin are no longer captive to sin. They're released from captivity to sin and they're lent to another, to the Lord Jesus, the King of princes. But that change that God does to us, that's not justification. That change doesn't save us. That change is not part of what faith is. That's one of the huge errors of our time. People have tried to define faith as obedience. It's not obedience at all. It has nothing to do with obedience. Nothing to do with obedience. So justification is objective. It's a change in our status before the law of God from condemned to justified, whereby we're saved from the avenging wrath of God. Always remember that. I've had people tell me, man, you harp so much on this justification and this is such a long multi-syllable word. I just care about getting saved. I just want people to get saved. Memorize Romans 5.9, how much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath. How is a person saved from wrath? By being justified by the blood of Christ. Sanctification is the subjective change that we personally undergo in our Christian lives. And while sanctification, it can never be separated from justification and that they're always present in a person, it is absolutely essential to distinguish them from one another. Remember that question, I think it's question 77 of the larger catechism. Wherein do justification and sanctification differ from one another? In one, sin is pardoned, legally pardoned, legally forgiven. In the other, it is subdued. Justification is equal in everybody. Can anyone be more justified than someone else? No, not at all. It's equal in everybody. Are there people who are more sanctified than others? Oh yeah. So holier than thou is a real thing. There are people who are holier than me and holier than you. And thank God for that. That's a good thing. So we keep justification and sanctification together, but we always distinguish them from one another. And when that line becomes blurred between those two things, Very dangerous. Justification is a one-time act in which our status has changed. Sanctification is an ongoing process. It's only going to end when you're dead, and that's when it's finished. Justification is identical in everybody, equal in all Christians. No one is more justified than anyone else. If a judge justifies three people on trial for murder, once he justifies them, they're all equally justified, right? Sanctification is not identical, but it's different in everyone, because we're all going through that process. Now, for the rest of my message to you this evening, we're gonna look at the nature of faith and how faith justifies us before God. This is crucial because so many of the errors that are pervasive today are concerning the nature of faith itself. If false teachers can somehow get the sinner's works into the essence of what faith in Christ means, the entire gospel is destroyed by that. The entire gospel was blown to smithereens by that error. If we're justified by faith alone, and that is clearly what the Bible teaches, that's what justified by faith apart from works means, then the false teachers have no choice but to try to get the sinner's works into the definition of faith so they can say, yeah, we believe in justification by faith alone. And in effect, what they're actually saying is we believe in justification by our works. If you can smooch together our works into your definition of faith, then you can get them in there that way. That's what's happening today a lot. It's absolutely critical that we know what is faith in Jesus Christ. What does that mean? As I said, the larger catechism, I believe, is the greatest exposition of the Christian faith ever written in terms of its thoroughness and precision. I highly recommend studying it to everybody here. I just want to read through a couple questions, question number 72 and 73. Just listen to these questions and answers and hopefully this will help you a little bit. What is justifying faith? A few questions could be more important for a person to think about. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God. Okay, first of all, so justifying faith is not my autonomous freewill contribution to my salvation. It's a saving grace. Where does it come from? The Holy Spirit. It doesn't come from me. It's a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and the Word of God. Justifying faith is saving grace. It's something God creates in the heart of his people, just like he created the universe, ex nihilo, out of nothing. What could God have to work with in a heart that's made of stone? Nothing. God makes the dead sinner alive. And it goes on that definition of faith that he does it by the spirit and word of God, whereby he being convinced of his sin and misery and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition. That's the next part. What does saving faith involve? It involves me recognizing I can't save myself. That my situation is so bad, there's nothing I can contribute to getting myself saved. When Peter preached at Pentecost, remember what happened when he preached to them? I mean, seeker sensitive Peter told everybody there, you guys murdered the prince of life. You guys crucified the Lord of glory. You guys are murderers of the very son of God. And what does it say in the text there? They were cut to the hearts. And they said, men and brethren, what shall we do? Okay, that's the Holy Spirit causing them to recognize we're sinful, we're miserable, and there's nothing we can do to recover ourselves out of this condition. Remember what our Lord taught about the nature of the work of the Spirit, John 16, verse eight. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin. That's what the Spirit does. He convicts the world of sin. Apart from Him doing that, nobody's going to understand why Christ died. They're not going to have any context in which to make sense out of the cross of Christ and the righteousness of Christ and the grace of God. The Spirit has got to do this work. That's why we pray for that all the time. Holy Spirit, cut through the fouled grounds of the hearts of everybody that we know and love and of this whole community. If you would give people a glimpse of hell just for a minute, they'd be hanging out the windows of the church. Lord, do that, please. Convict people of their sins so they can see their need for Jesus. These men in Jerusalem, they were convicted by the spirit of their sin and they were convinced as our catechism teaches us of their own sin and misery and of the disability in themselves and all of the creatures to recover them out of their lost condition. That's why they say, okay, well, Peter, what must we do that we might work the works of God? They don't say anything like that. They just say, what shall we do? We're lost, we're hopeless. One's got to understand the bad news first and feel the crushing weight of their sin before the gospel has fertile ground in which it can grow. It's critical to our understanding of grace that we see that justifying faith in Christ is a gift of God, which is wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. And here's what justifying faith believes. Listen, not only a sense to the truth and promise of the gospel, in other words, he believes it is true, but receives and rests upon Christ and his righteousness therein held forth. What is faith in Jesus Christ? It is recognizing I can't do anything to save myself. No good works that I ever do, no good intentions. No, I can't turn over enough leaves in my life and get myself going on a new direction to get myself saved. So we believe we can't save ourselves and we receive and rest on Christ. Meaning, what are we relying on to get us past the final judgment into heaven? The shed blood and the righteousness of Christ and nothing else. We receive and rest on Christ and his righteousness there and held forth for pardon of sin and for the accepting and accounting, legally accounting of our person as righteous in his sight for salvation. Justifying faith is believing the truth of the promise of the gospel. What is the truth of the promise of the gospel? that we are perfectly and once for all justified before God and therefore saved from His wrath against our sins upon the grounds that Christ has fully paid for all of our sins and His perfect righteousness is imputed to our legal account. We receive and rest on Christ and His righteousness held forth to us in the gospel for the pardon of our sin and for the accepting and accounting of our persons as righteous in the sight of God for salvation. And that last phrase is critical. It's borrowing directly from Paul's discussion of this in Romans chapter 4 and many other places. Abraham, as a person, was accounted as righteous in God's sight, not for anything he had done, but only because he believed. To the one not working, but believing, his faith is accounted for righteousness, says Paul. Abraham's works played no role whatsoever in this accepting and accounting of his person as righteous before God. We as sinners are, before God justifies us, accepted and accounted as righteous before God, not on account of anything at all that we do before or after we're saved, but solely because of Christ's vicarious work in our behalf, it being accepted in our stead and place as the payment for all of our sins and his righteousness being accepted by God as our own. I hope that's clear enough to you. I hope that's clear enough to you. I've shared with you all, the night before I was examined by the presbytery, three denominations ago now, I remember thinking, if people go to hell, it's not going to be my fault. It's not going to be because I wasn't clear about this stuff. And I've held the hand of enough people while they were dying who weren't sure where they were going to go. And it has always troubled me greatly. You need to rest on Jesus Christ and nothing else. Don't let anyone smudge the definition of faith. I heard a guy say, I think that works are a little more organically connected to faith than merely fruit and evidence. Right out. That is wrong. Works are the fruit of salvation, not its cause. It's so simple. The fruit that grows on the tree does not make the tree the kind of tree that it is. It only makes it known what kind of a tree it is to people that see the tree. Works do not make you good or bad. You only make it known to other people whether you're a good tree or a bad tree. It is that simple. Question 73 of the larger catechism. How does faith justify a sinner in the sight of God? This is one of the most glorious answers. It's so biblical and clear and beautiful. Listen, faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God. Listen, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruit of it. Okay, so how does faith justify us? Not because of the other saving graces that always accompany it and not because of our good works that are the fruits of it, but only as it is an instrument by which he receives and applies Christ and his righteousness. What a beautiful definition, right on the biblical money. Notice how clear they're trying to be. Faith doesn't justify us before God because of those other graces that always accompany it, like the new heart, the new birth, new desires, a sanctified life, a desire to put sin to death, a desire to move on from this sin and to grow in grace and to be a better husband and be a better wife and be a better student and a better employee, not because of any of that, not because of the good works or the fruit of it, but only in that it's an instrument by which we lay hold of Christ and his righteousness. What does it mean by instrument? It's only an instrument by which we lay hold of Jesus. Faith is simply receiving and resting on Christ. What is faith in Christ? It's not works. It's not obedience. It's not following the law. It's not following Jesus. Faith is simply resting on Christ. And I took evangelism explosion training. Really good illustration was used. You could take a chair, put the chair next to you. And you can believe that the chair can hold you. Like if you said, do I believe that chair could hold me if I sat on it? Yes, I do. How do you know if I really believe it though? I got to sit in it, right? The same with Christ. It's not enough to know he can save. You have to trust in him yourself. You got to put your confidence in him and nothing else to save you. Him and nothing else to save you. To believe in Jesus, to have faith in Jesus means your confidence for entering heaven rests upon his person and work and nothing else, nothing else. That justifying faith sees Christ for what he is, the one whose cross satisfied divine justice and whose righteousness justifies us before the law. Faith is the instrumental cause of our justification and it is the sole cause of that justification and acceptance with God. You know why Martin Luther was such a troubled person? If you've never read The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul, if you just want to read one chapter of it, read the chapter titled The Insanity of Luther. You know, no human being has had more biographies written about him. No person has had more biographies written about him except Jesus and Martin Luther. There are so many books about that guy. And a lot of people today think he was crazy. He was neurotic. He was crazy, a maniac. He was a hyperactive conscious and everything else. You know what was really going on with Luther? He was under the convicting work of the Holy Spirit and he didn't know the truth. That was the problem. Why was he losing his mind? Because he was trying to become righteous enough to go to heaven and nothing will work. If the Holy Spirit is convicting you of your sin, none of that's gonna help you. And it was only when he saw what God demands from us in his law, he freely gives us in the gospel. How do we receive it? We rest upon Christ and nothing else. There it is. It's that simple. Faith is the instrumental cause of our justification. And it's the only cause of that justification and that acceptance with God. And in closing, it's critical that we recognize that there's often a great deal of unnecessary confusion created by the numerous biblical statements made concerning all the other gracious benefits that God gives to every sinner that he justifies by faith alone. I remember reading the Bible. long ago, really struggling with assurance and trying to understand what is justification and sanctification. Sanctification always takes place in the heart of every person that's truly redeemed by the Lord. He changes them. They are radically different. They go from being a heap of chaff to a fruit bearing tree. So radical is that change. Jesus can even describe it as those who have done good to the resurrection of life. Those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. Now, does that mean you get into heaven by doing good? Not at all. Not at all. The fruit that grows on the tree just tells you what kind of a tree it is. We looked at that issue of antinomianism last Sunday, the idea that you're just telling people you can sin all you want and still go to heaven. The gospel's freeness and the freeness of our justification, that it's not by any works that we do, it's solely by faith in Christ and not by works of law, works of anything that doesn't give us a license to sin. God's dethronement of sin takes place in the heart of every person that he saves, every single one. Even Augustine was asked that question. Augustine, who was the doctor of grace, he's known as the doctor of grace from the ancient church. He asked the question, or was asked the question, so you're saying that a Christian can do anything they want after they're saved? And he said, yes, I am. You can do anything you want. And then he would lean forward. And what is it that you want to do? You want to go sin all you want, if that's your heart's desire, the thing you want more than anything, you're probably not a Christian then. A Christian desires to be holy, but they still struggle with sin. Y'all struggle with sin this week? I did. True Christians are no longer slaves of sin because the old man died with Christ. Paul says that Romans 6, verse 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin would be done away with. True Christians have been given new life, new and holy desires. But as question 73 states, following scripture, following Paul's whole argument here, faith does not justify us because of those other graces which always accompany it. We're not saved from God's wrath in any way by those other things that God always does in our lives. but it is perfectly legitimate to describe people who go to heaven as those who live uprightly, those who live righteously, as opposed to who live in sin and wickedly. To summarize, what does it really mean? Rubber hits the road. What does it mean to really believe in Jesus Christ as your savior? It means that in the end, you're relying upon his cross work and his imputed righteousness alone as that which will get you into heaven. That's what a Christian trusts in. That's where their heart rests for going to heaven and then nothing else. And when asked the question, do you know that you have eternal life? A Christian should be able to say, yes, I know. I know that I have eternal life. And when followed with, well, why? Why should God let you into heaven? A Christian should respond, Jesus paid for all my sins. No charge of wrongdoing can be made to stick against me. Christ was condemned. He died. He was buried. He's destroyed and abolished the curse from my life. I'm saved from the wrath of God. I've been justified by his blood and I'm dressed in his perfect righteousness. That's the answer. That's the gospel. And that's what we want the whole world to come to know and to see and to understand. And I hope that that's where your heart rests always. Always. And if I have to hold your hand as you're dying, I'm going to ask you about this. You know the answer. I just hope that that is really what you're trusting in and nothing else. Christ alone. Christ alone saves. Let's pray. Blessed Heavenly Father, thank you for the good news. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his bitter suffering. His willingness to endure the scourging and the mockery, the crown of thorns, the spear thrust to his side, the nails in his hands and feet. And that he said it is finished when he bowed his head. It is paid in full. And we bless your name. He did not stay dead. He is risen. that the age of the resurrection is broken into this age by his resurrection. He's the first fruits and one day we too who know him will rise being glorified, will be openly acknowledged and acquitted and made fully blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. Be with us as we worship you and as we take communion together. May those that truly know you have their hearts strengthened. And if there are those that don't, Holy Spirit, would you convict them of their sins? Show them the disability in themselves to save themselves and cause them to receive and rest upon Christ and his righteousness there and held forth. We ask in his name, amen.