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Justification Part 1 By Albert N. Martin

Some months ago, when the Allentown Church was planning the format of this particular conference,
I was asked if I would treat the doctrine of justification in these three evening sessions,
and any acquaintance at all with the history of this great doctrine of the Christian faith,
or any acquaintance with the wealth of solid biblical and Reformed writing
on this distinctive and particular doctrine, brings one to the conclusion that
even any effort to deal with it comprehensively in three messages is doomed to fail before it begins.
And so all I can hope to accomplish in these three evening lecture sermons,
for this is what I would call them, is to bring into focus some of the leading lines of biblical truth
relative to this doctrine, to warn you of some of the most frequent and recurring errors
with reference and in connection with this doctrine, and then seek to draw out some of the broad lines
of the implications and applications of this same doctrine of justification.
And though we welcome those visiting with us in the evening sessions who are not preachers,
and particularly the ladies whom I hope have no aspirations to be preachers,
we do welcome you, but the main burden in the format of these lecture sermons
is the preachers present and those who aspire to the office and work of the Christian ministry.
This is why I've carried some of these tones into the pulpit with me.
I want you to be acquainted with something of the tremendous wealth of good, solid biblical and Reformed literature
in this particular area of God's truth.
And if these sessions together can help draw out the broad outlines of the doctrine
and set in your mind the basic teaching of the word of God concerning the doctrine,
put some red flags up to warn you, then I hope you will be better equipped to go back to your own people
and have this doctrine spelled out not only explicitly, perhaps in a series of messages on the doctrine of justification,
but when in the regular course of expounding the word of God you come to any strand of truth that touches this doctrine,
you will be able as a result of our time together to speak forth the truth of God in this area
with greater precision and with greater unction of the Holy Spirit.
Now, the course I propose to follow in thinking our way through the doctrine
is first of all in our session this evening to speak for a few minutes on the importance of the doctrine of justification
by faith through the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the importance of the doctrine of justification.
And then secondly, I wish tonight to touch on what I'm calling the context of the doctrine of justification.
Then, the Lord willing, tomorrow night and Wednesday night we shall deal with the substance of the doctrine of justification
following the general framework of the larger catechism and the question concerning justification by faith.
So if you do not have a Westminster Confession of Faith and the catechisms larger and shorter,
let me encourage you to invest a few shekels. I think there are some out there on the book table.
And in order to prepare your own mind and heart concerning the areas of truth we will be covering,
read the section in the confession and particularly read and study the proof text under the larger catechism.
So then, having set before you something of the task that I feel is ours in these three nights
and how we propose to come at that task, let us then in the first place consider together
the importance of the doctrine of justification. And let me say by way of parenthesis,
it would have been a lot easier both on my flesh and on my spirit to have taken some of the great text on justification
and simply to have expounded them. That would have been much more to my liking.
It would have been much easier on my flesh, my eyeballs, and all the rest.
But again, I feel this particular burden to speak of the subject in such a sphere of reference
as will be of the greatest help to you who are preachers of the word of God.
So then, the importance of the doctrine of justification. Luther's words concerning this matter are well known.
It was Luther who first said that this doctrine is the article of the standing or the falling church.
If you want to know where a church is in relationship to spiritual health and life,
you examine the understanding and the experimental acquaintance with the doctrine of justification by faith.
Since the most basic religious question any man can ask is this, how can I be just with God?
And since the heart of the gospel is an answer to that very question, Romans 1, 16, and 17,
any error or confusion at this point is fatal and far reaching in its implications.
Let me suggest that this doctrine is important along two lines.
First of all, it is important to the glory of God and secondly, to the good of men.
And I believe the doctrine is important in that order.
First of all, this doctrine is important with reference to the glory of God.
The scriptures reveal that the great goal that God has in all of his works, both in creation, in providence, and in grace,
is the manifestation of his own glorious being to all the rational creatures of the universe,
to the end that they may praise him.
For of him and through him and unto him are all things to whom be glory forever and forever.
Three times in Ephesians 1 is the apostle is giving that sweeping panoramic picture of the work of redemption and of grace.
He says that we should be to the praise of his glory, that we should be to the praise of the glory of his grace.
The glory of God is not just some kind of a giblet injected into the bloodstream of reformed jargon and terminology.
Dear fellow preachers, it ought to be something that beats within our breasts with every heartbeat,
that the end of all of God's works, both in creation, in providence, and in grace,
is the manifestation of the excellence of his own being to those rational creatures made in his image as far as man is concerned,
and the angels to the end that they may praise him.
Now nowhere, nowhere is the delicate balance of all the divine perfections operating in perfect harmony
more fully displayed and more gloriously demonstrated than in the gospel method of declaring sinners righteous.
Nowhere. Listen to Buchanan speaking to this very point.
The whole plan of salvation which is revealed in the gospel is simply the unfolding and the execution of God's eternal purpose
to overrule the fall of man for his own glory by a signal manifestation of all his perfections in the salvation of sinners through the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ.
That's the heart of what Paul says in treating this doctrine in Romans 3 verses 24 and 25,
where he speaks of Christ being set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood to what end?
That God might be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus Christ.
So here in the Bible method of justifying the ungodly, love and justice, mercy and truth, kindness and holiness are displayed in their clearest light.
Here in the Bible method of justifying the ungodly, the law and the gospel are seen in their mutual dependence upon each other,
in their distinction one from the other, and in their subservience to the honor and glory of God who gave them both.
And those lines of thought come through again and again in the book of Romans.
Do we make void the law of God through faith? Nay, we establish the law.
But now apart from the law, a righteousness hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
Distinction, subservience, all of them to this great end, the manifestation of the glory and the perfection of the living God.
So where there is a perversion of the biblical doctrine of justification, God is always robbed of some aspect of his glory.
Either justice and holiness are obscured by some kind of unprincipled, anemic, bloodless thing called love,
or the rich overflowing grace of God is obscured by the bitter waters of legalism and Pharisaism
that fails to grasp the freeness of grace in the justification of the ungodly.
But a true understanding of this doctrine will cause us to see that God is altogether just and infinitely holy and yet wonder of wonders.
He is yet the justifier of him that believes in Jesus Christ.
The announcement of the angels at the birth of our Lord points the direction and the goal of all the work which he came to do.
Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace toward men of good will.
All that that babe is going to accomplish in the unfolding of his life of perfection, in the unfolding of his redemptive work,
this is the direction to which all of it points. Glory to God in the highest.
Man's peace will not be established at the expense of God's glory.
Rather it will be established in a way that most fully displays and manifests that glory.
Let me say then by way of application as to the importance of this doctrine with reference to the glory of God,
particularly to you my preacher brother, unless you have distinct and biblical views upon this subject,
unless you can articulate those views to your people, you are in some measure robbing God of glory that is due him.
In this doctrine that is the heart of the gospel of free grace, I say to you Christian men and women,
if you would give God the glory, do his name. Don't be content with dim, vague, and indistinct views of justification.
For the psalmist said the works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.
William Plummer in treating this subject of justification says,
God's honor is more completely staked on the maintenance, propagation, and reception of this doctrine than of any other in revealed religion.
God's honor is more completely staked on the maintenance, propagation, and reception of this doctrine than of any other in revealed religion.
So then I trust our studies together will be more than an intense intellectual exercise, though it will of necessity be that.
I trust God will catch us up together in something bigger than all of us and give us sights of the glory of God revealed in Christ by whom God justifies the ungodly.
But in the second place, the doctrine is important not only for the glory of God, but also for the well-being of men.
Now I want to break that down into two categories. Men not yet called into the gospel and those already called.
The well-being of men not yet called into the blessings of grace in great measure is dependent upon our understanding of and our clear proclamation of this doctrine.
For the instrument that God uses in calling out his elect is the gospel. 2 Thessalonians 3 verses 13 and 14.
God be thanked that he hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth whereunto he called you by our gospel.
So then God's electing grace comes as it were to a sharp pivot point in this matter of the proclamation of the gospel by which he calls men into the fellowship of his dear son.
So it is the gospel that is the power of God to effect this salvation. And what is the gospel? According to Romans 1 16 and 17, the heart of the gospel is a declaration of that righteousness of God by faith.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is revealed what?
Not a way of coming to a place of psychological satisfaction. Therein is revealed a righteousness from God or the righteousness of God, even the righteousness which is of faith and leads to faith.
This gospel then must be understood with clarity before it can be preached with biblical accuracy.
And it's only that which is preached with clarity and with accuracy that is likely to have the blessing of the spirit of truth upon it.
And historically this can be demonstrated. Whenever this doctrine has been obscured as it was in the dark ages, there were some here and there who broke through that obscurity through their reading of the scriptures.
But by and large there was no glowing powerful united testimony that is to this truth bringing multitudes out of darkness into light until God was pleased to bring an Augustinian monk to the understanding of this truth.
And then he brought some others and so through Luther and Zwingli and Calvin and Knox and the Reformers, both the British and the Continental, this truth began to be preached with power.
Why? Because men saw it with eyes illuminated by the Holy Ghost.
And a new day dawned upon the church of Jesus Christ and many of his sheep not yet called were called in in great abundance when this doctrine was preached with clarity and with power.
As then, so now, this gospel of the method of God in justifying the ungodly is the power of God unto salvation.
And if we long to see men brought into the blessings of salvation, we must proclaim this message clearly and without equivocation.
Once again, perhaps God will bless with power that preachment of his own eternal truth.
I quote now from Buchanan's classic work and if any of you have come without enough money to buy this, some of us will pool our pennies and go into hock to make sure that every preacher goes home with a copy of Buchanan, if you have them.
Jim, do you have Buchanan? Is Jim here? Jim Eshelman? He's in the back.
Well, if he doesn't, well then you've got to get hold of one at a library somewhere. If you only have one volume to give you a good sweeping historical perspective and then a biblical study of the doctrine, you must get Buchanan on the doctrine of justification.
But listen to what Buchanan says on this very point of how the good of men not yet called is bound up in an understanding of this doctrine.
There are many even in Protestant communities who have long been familiar with the sound of the gospel to whom this inward sense of it in its application to their own souls would be nothing less than a new spiritual revolution, revelation.
The doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ is the old doctrine of the reformation and still the older doctrine of the gospel.
Yet the vivid apprehension of its meaning and the cordial reception of its truth must be a new thing in the experience of everyone when he is first enabled to realize and to believe it.
The free pardon of all sin and a sure title to eternal life conferred by the mere grace of God and resting solely on the redemption and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This as the actual and immediate privilege of every sinner on the instant when he begins to rely on Christ alone for salvation as he's offered to him in the gospel may come home with all the freshness of new truth even to many who bear the Christian name.
And a realizing sense of them that is these doctrines in the conscious experience of their own souls will be the best safeguard against the prevailing errors of the times and the danger to which so many are at this moment exposed of being tossed about with every wind of doctrine.
Then he goes on to state that it is the gospel doctrine of justification expounded in all its fullness exhibited in connection with the great scriptural principles which it involves or implies which is the most effective instrument at once for rousing the conscience of the rationalist.
We would say the liberal out of his false security and for relieving the conscience of the ritualist, the man who thinks he's saved by his own merit from its slavish anxieties and fears.
Do we have a genuine desire to see men not yet called, called effectually? Then we must be concerned with the doctrine of justification by faith.
But what about the already called? It is for their good that we understand clearly and preach powerfully this doctrine.
For when you turn to a passage like Romans 5, 1 and 2, you see the effect of this doctrine in those already called.
Having therefore been justified by faith, we have peace with God. There is the immediate effect of this doctrine, peace with God, the sense that God no longer frowns but smiles upon me in Jesus Christ.
But more than that, through whom we have had our access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand, the confidence that I stand in grace, but more than that, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
The three great blessings that reside in the heart and the spirit of the man, the woman, the fellow, the girl, who understands this doctrine by the illuminating work of the spirit, and to whom this has become more than just an abstraction, but is very meat and drink.
There is the confidence I'm at peace with God through the justifying act of God. This peace gives me the liberty of present access and the absolute certainty and confidence of dwelling with him in the world to come.
This doctrine is that which drives the wheels of fervent devotion and sacrificial service. God's way of moving his people to holiness of life and zeal is not man's way. Man's way is to hold back on the control of blessing, saying if you do this, this, this, and this, and you're a real good boy or girl, then God may give you this.
So to drive the wheels of service and devotion and piety, man's way is do, do, do, that he may attain the justified state. God's way is totally opposite to that.
He freely confers upon men this grace and blessing, and the wonder of it so floods their souls with attachment to the Son of God and the Savior by whom the blessing is procured.
And out of love to him, the wheels of devotion and zeal are turned with a fervency and a drive that can never be known in any other way.
I beseech you by the what? By the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves. There's a lack of zeal and holy joy and sacrificial service in our own lives and in that of our people.
Could it be that part of the answer may be found right here? That this doctrine is not being preached with sufficient clarity and biblical power to our people?
And may I speak very pointedly at this point? In our very legitimate reaction against easy believism and cheap grace, I fear there may be in some of us as Reformed Baptists,
the leaven, the leaven of a work's righteousness that is acting like termites at the foundation of this biblical doctrine, God justifieth the ungodly who believes on his dear Son.
And the way to combat easy believism is not to say that we're justified by faith plus surrender or faith plus our devotion.
No, it's to show that that faith which lays hold of Christ justifying faith is, as the Westminster Confession so beautifully states, never found alone, but will be productive of all other graces as well.
So we do not tamper with the freeness of justification or with the fact that it is by faith that we are justified. Nowhere is it said we're justified by repentance or by surrendering to the Lordship of Christ.
True faith will always involve repentance. I'm not rescinding anything I've said in the past.
True faith will always involve submission to the Lordship of Christ as its necessary attendant, but the Scripture says we are justified by faith, never by repentance, never by surrender to the Lordship of Christ.
You won't find a verse that says it. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
And so the way to slay the air of easy believism is not to tamper with justification by faith alone, but to come at it as James does and say that faith which is unto justification will never be alone, but will work by love,
and will be found in connection with all those other fruits and graces of the Holy Spirit.
If you're never accused of preaching the Gospel in such a way as to give people the impression that they can go out and live like the devil, I wonder if you're really preaching the Gospel that Paul preached.
Because when he's done setting forth this doctrine, he anticipates the objection in Romans 6.1, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
He understood that the proclamation he had made of the freeness of grace and the only grounds of a sinner's justification being the righteousness of Christ and the only way of laying hold of that righteousness by faith,
he understood what some wicked people would think by way of implication. And how does he answer them?
Not by going back and tampering with the doctrine of the freeness of grace in the justification of sinners, but by showing that the same faith by which they embrace that free grace unto justification is a faith by which they're united to Christ in the virtue and power of his death and his resurrection,
so that they not only have been declared free from the penalty of sin, they have also died to sin in union with Jesus Christ.
But his answer, you see, to the accusation, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound, is not to upset the doctrine of justification, but to show its attendant doctrines.
Well, I would love to pause and draw that out much more, but I cannot if I'm going to at all get through what I want to get through and what I feel I must get through in our study together tonight.
If we would promote true holiness, true gospel zeal amongst those already called, then we must understand and preach and proclaim to our people this grand and glorious doctrine of justification by faith alone through the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
I think one of the peculiar gifts that God has given to Dr. Packer is the gift of writing wonderful introductions to other people's works.
How many of us are so indebted to his introduction to Owen's death of death? Well, his introduction to Buchanan is just as masterful in its own right, and I want to read a few paragraphs before we leave now the importance of the doctrine.
I quote now from Packer in his introduction in Buchanan's book.
Formal principle, the foundation upon which all is built, the scriptures alone. The material principle emerging out of that, justification by faith alone.
In fact, these two principles belong inseparably together, for no theology that seeks simply to follow the Bible can help concerning itself with what is demonstrably the essence of the biblical message.
The fullest statement of the gospel that the Bible contains is found in the epistle to the Romans, and Romans minus justification by faith would be like Hamlet without the prince.
And to those of us who don't know much Shakespeare, I advise you go to the local library and look up Hamlet and see if you can understand Hamlet without the prince.
A further fact to weigh is that justification by faith has been the central theme of the preaching in every movement of revival and religious awakening within Protestantism from the Reformation to the present day.
The essential thing that happens in every true revival is that the Holy Spirit teaches the church afresh the reality of justification by faith, both as a truth and as a living experience.
This could be demonstrated historically from the records of revivals that we have, and it would be theologically correct to define revival simply as God the Spirit doing this work in a situation where previously the church had lapsed, if not from the formal profession of justification by faith, at least from any living apprehension of it.
And then he goes on to say that this doctrine is like Atlas, and upon the shoulders of this doctrine rests the whole Christian system, and if Atlas falls, all falls with him.
But Atlas has to have some terra firma under his feet, and hence he then goes on to say there are certain presuppositions to this doctrine without which it cannot stand, and when it does not stand, all else falls with it.
And then one last quote from Packer speaking to this same thing.
It has long been my firm conviction that the only effective refutation of error is the establishment of truth.
Truth is one, truth is multiform. One truth firmly established in principle overthrows all the errors that either have been or may be opposed to it.
That's a wonderful bit of pastoral insight, and if your people are established in this doctrine and in the related truths which hang with it, or to go back to the figure of Atlas, those truths which rest upon its shoulders, they are being inoculated against error in many other forms.
Well, so much for the importance of the doctrine. Now let me attempt to deal with the context of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Justification, like all the doctrines of Scripture, does not come to us in isolation. There is an interrelationship, an interdependence, an interpenetration, and I like that word best.
For me, it helps me. Whenever I'm looking at one doctrine, I ask myself, what other doctrines interpenetrate with this doctrine?
Hence, when we come to study the doctrine of justification by faith, we cannot treat it as though it existed in a vacuum.
We must focus our attention upon those other truths which support and sustain and explain the doctrine of justification by faith.
Hence, I am calling the remainder of our study tonight the context of the doctrine of justification by faith.
That is, those truths of the Scripture without which this truth cannot be understood or appreciated, those truths which, if lost, even though the doctrine of justification may be maintained for a time, it is already slain in principle if these other truths are relinquished.
Now, what then is the context of the doctrine of justification? Let me at least tell you what I'd hope to do if time runs out on us and we can't do it.
Three things. First of all, the character and position of the living God with reference to man his creature.
The character and position of the living God with reference to man his creature.
Secondly, the character and position of man with reference to God his creator.
And thirdly, the ultimate intention of God in the salvation of his elect.
And it is my assertion tonight, and I would not be reluctant to go on record as stating this, having spent many, many hours marinating my mind and spirit in this doctrine in the past weeks, that without these three facets of divine truth, the context of justification, without this, we cannot understand nor sustain this doctrine in our own minds and hearts and in the minds and hearts of our people.
First of all then, the first facet of the context of justification is the character and position of the living God with reference to man his creature.
First of all, the character of God.
The Shorter Catechism asks the question, what is God? And the answer given, God is the spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Now my purpose is not to speak on the attributes of God in general, but to underscore those particular facets or aspects of his attributes, which impinge most forcefully upon the doctrine of justification by faith.
And I believe they are two, his holiness and his justice in a context of his truthfulness.
It is God's character as holy, which forms the context of justification by faith.
Please turn over the tape.
And I believe they are two, his holiness and his justice in a context of his truthfulness.
It is God's character as holy, which forms the context of justification by faith.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the almighty, Isaiah 6, Exodus 15, 11, who, O Lord, is like unto thee among the gods, glorious in holiness.
Our God is a consuming fire. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
God's holiness has been called his foundational attribute, the cohesive attribute, which, as it were, binds all the other attributes of his glorious being together.
He is holy in his love, holy in his justice, holy in his wrath, holy in his mercy.
Being holy, everything within him is opposed to sin with a pure and violent reaction of anger and of wrath.
Thou art of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity.
God cannot be indifferent to that which is the contradiction of himself, Professor Murray tells us.
His very perfection requires the recoil of righteous indignation, and that's what the Bible means by God's wrath.
So when Paul would formally expound the doctrine of justification by faith, where does he begin? Romans 1 18.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.
It's as though someone says, oh, this is wonderful. Paul's going to open up to us this truth.
That gospel which is the power of God unto salvation, in which is revealed a righteousness from God received by faith, Paul leads us into the doctrine.
And he says, I will. Let me take you by the hand and bring you before the burning throne of infinite holiness.
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.
Because Paul begins there, wise is the man, the woman who would understand the doctrine who begins where he began.
Let me quote again from Buchanan at this point in Packer's introduction.
Just as modern Protestants are reluctant to believe that man has to deal with God, not his father, but as a judge,
so they are commonly unwilling to believe that there is in God a holy antipathy against sin,
a righteous hatred at evil which prompts him to exact just retribution when his law is broken.
He goes on to say that the concept of the wrath of God must be the foundation for proclaiming justification,
where there is an unwillingness to allow that sinners stand under the judicial wrath of God.
There is no foundation for the preaching of deliverance from that wrath, which is what the gospel of justification is all about.
And it is not an accident that the dominant node in modern gospel preaching is not a declaration of the righteousness of God,
the way where a man may be righteous.
It is in terms of some of the peripheral implications of the gospel in terms of man's peace, man's joy, man's becoming a whole person in all these other emphases.
Why? Because the God of infinite holiness is no longer understood and proclaimed.
The second attribute of God which is pivotal as the context of justification is his justice.
Psalm 84.14, justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne.
Because he is just, he must give to every one of his creatures what is his due.
Hence the scripture says he will by no means clear the guilty.
If a man is guilty, he deserves justice, and justice will be meted out upon him.
So the great question which the Bible doctrine of justification answers is, how can God be just and justify sinners? Romans 3.25.
But until that question becomes a burning issue to us, the gospel answer is not good news.
It may be interesting religious information, but it isn't good news.
So then the context of the doctrine of justification is the character of God as just and as holy.
The implications of this for our preaching, I trust I need not verbalize.
I quickly move on to his position with reference to his creatures.
For it's not only the contemplation of his character, but also his position.
That is the relationship he sustains to us.
Now again, I'm not dealing in this general field, but specifically the relationship of God to us as his creatures as it comes into play in the matter of justification.
And I would suggest two things.
He is God our creator, and he is God the moral governor and judge of man the creature.
Paul assumes this in Romans 1.25 and in Acts 17 when he's dealing with man's guilt, he sets it in that creator creature relationship.
And then he constantly emphasizes God as the moral governor and judge of his creatures.
One time I did an interesting thing in doing an intensive study of the book of Romans.
I took a bright yellow felt marking pen and in the first three chapters I ran through every word dealing with judgment and condemnation and guilt.
And it's amazing how again and again phrases such as these tribulation and wrath in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men who judges according to truth.
And on and on this concept that God stands in the relationship of a judge to his creatures.
And in that position he will act consistent with his character as the God of infinite holiness and the God of inflexible justice.
Whatever the eye of omniscience detects of sin, the arm of omnipotence must crush with fiery indignation.
And until men see that's the God with whom I have to do. He made me. I'm accountable to him. He knows me. He will judge me.
When that begins to weigh on them and begin to press in upon them, then the gospel method of declaring guilty sinners righteous becomes blessed and good news.
Again I'll pass over some of the obvious implications of this because I do want to touch on this last aspect.
The second part of the context, or the second part of this context of justification, it is the character and the position of man.
Not only the character and position of God with reference to the creature, but the position and character of the creature with reference to that God.
The position of man, what is it that needs to be understood? That he is a creature made in the image of God. A creature made accountable to God.
That's the whole mood of Romans 1.18 to 3.20. If man is not accountable to God, Paul's words are meaningless.
Whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty.
Before God he assumes that the creature is accountable whether he wants to be or not.
And if our people do not understand this, it must be taught, it must be preached, it must be expounded to them.
I need not remind you as pastors that many of the people with whom we deal in our day because of the almost total ignorance of biblical principles need to be taught this truth as Paul taught it on Mars Hill.
Beginning with God as creator and ending with God as judge.
Then and only then, taking aside those who showed an interest and opening unto them the more distinctive central truths of the gospel of Christ.
Not only man's position as creature and accountable to God must be understood in this context of justification, but man's character.
Man's character as he was originally in innocence. Man's character as he now is in his waywardness, in his defilement, and in his guilt.
All error on the subject of justification says Buchanan springs from the defective views which prevail almost universally among men concerning the spiritual requirements of God's law.
For there are invariably connected with a slight sense of sin a false or exaggerated estimate of the virtues of their personal character.
And this can be demonstrated again from the scriptures and can be demonstrated historically.
Let me show that this is a note that everyone who has written on the subject that I've read constantly emphasizes.
I quote a couple of paragraphs from Professor Murray in Redemption Accomplished and Applied.
If we are to appreciate that which is central in the gospel, if the jubilee trumpet is to find again its echo in our hearts,
our thinking must be revolutionized by the realism of the wrath of God and the reality and gravity of our guilt and of divine condemnation.
It is then and only then that our thinking and our feeling will be rehabilitated to an understanding of God's grace in the justification of the ungodly.
Listen to Owen as he speaks to this same issue in his monumental work. It's found in volume five of the complete works of Owen and this is one of the original volumes that Jay Green brought out.
He says a clear apprehension and due sense of the greatness of our apostasy from God and of the deprivation of our natures thereby of the power and the guilt of sin
and the holiness and severity of the law are necessary unto a right apprehension of the doctrine of justification.
Pelagianism in its first root and its present branches is resolved there into for not apprehending the dread of our original apostasy from God nor the consequence of it in the universal deprivation of our nature.
The Pelagians disown any necessity either of the satisfaction of Christ or the efficacy of divine grace for our recovery or our restoration.
Until men know themselves better, they will care very little to know Christ at all.
And I've cataloged reference after reference in Owen's treatment of this subject where he says unless a man has come to see himself in the fall of Adam and unless he's come to feel something of the pollution of his nature,
he said I'll not discuss the doctrine of justification by faith with him. He cannot understand it. He's in no position to understand it.
And I say to you, my brethren, you and I are not in, not only excluded from understanding it, how can we preach it with the glory of it and the wonder of it?
Unless we have been brought to what Owen would say, not only something of the awareness of our guilt but of the depravity of our natures.
And would to God that once again our halls of theological learning would find men who do not stand merely to pronounce with theological and exegetical accuracy this truth,
but who carry into their classrooms an inward experiential acquaintance with their own guilt in pollution and who speak of the wonder of this truth in living experience.
May God help me thus to speak of it or I prostitute the doctrine in my attempts to teach it to you.
Until something of our character as sinners in guilt and pollution and defilement has gripped us, we will not understand this glorious and wonderful doctrine.
I quote not only from Murray and Owen, and I've shortened the quotes because time is running away from me, but I want to quote from Cunningham in the first 120 pages of volume 2 of his historical theology.
Cunningham has a masterful treatment of this doctrine, and I quote now from pages 43 and 44.
All false conceptions of the system of Christian doctrine assume or are based upon inadequate and erroneous views and impressions of the nature and effects of the fall,
of the sinfulness of the state into which man fell, producing of course equally inadequate and erroneous views and impressions of the difficulty of effecting their deliverance,
and of the magnitude, value, and efficacy of the provision made for accomplishing it.
Every one of those phrases ought to be exegeted.
There are few things more important either with reference to the production of a right state of mind and feeling in regard to our religious interest or to the formation of a right system of theology
than that men should be duly impressed with the conviction that they are by nature guilty, subject to the curse of a broken law, condemned by a sentence of God, and standing as already condemned criminals at his tribunal.
And then he goes on to enlarge upon this.
If we would come to a fresh understanding of this doctrine, may I suggest that one of the things we pray when we have our own times with God this week and when I hope we pray together.
Oh, may we be found praying together, brethren, not just shooting the bull in our rooms, but be found praying together.
Let us cry to God for a renewed sense of the depth of our apostasy from God, a renewed sense of the awfulness of guilt, the glory and majesty of God's holiness and justice,
so that this truth, though coming in a semi-classroom framework, may come with freshness and unction and power upon our own sin-smitten hearts.
And we shall then be unable to magnify him by whose righteousness we are accepted.
Again, I pass over some quotes I'd love to touch on because I do want to speak for the last few minutes on the third facet of the context of the doctrine of justification.
There must not only be some awareness of the character and position of God with reference to man the creature,
some understanding of the position and character of man the creature with reference to his God,
but this doctrine will suffer greatly in our hands if we do not understand the ultimate intention of God in the salvation of his elect.
And when justification by faith through the imputation of the righteousness of Christ has been lifted out of its connection with the broader intent of God in redemption,
it has suffered most miserably in the hands of some of its most apparent friends.
Now what am I talking about? Well, turn to Romans 8 and Paul will explain me.
Romans chapter 8, speaking of course in verse 28 of those who are called according to divine purpose,
Paul then opens up what the divine purpose in the calling of his people is.
Verse 29, For whom he foreknew, and for any who may be among us who've been taught this erroneous idea that that means
those whom God saw would believe on his son. He then ratified their election of themselves and that's the Bible doctrine of election,
Bible doctrine of election. Notice what Paul says. He doesn't say what he foreknew, but whom he foreknew.
God doesn't know for know things in this kind of foreknowledge. He foreknows people whom he did regard with distinguishing love and affection.
Foreknowledge is a parallel and a corollary of election. He also then foreordained to be what?
Conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Now follow what he's saying. All upon whom he set his love, he has predetermined that that love will express itself in the accomplishment of this goal.
They will be so radically and pervasively transformed by grace that when the work of redemption is all done,
there will be such likeness between Christ and those whom he's redeemed.
Such moral and spiritual conformity that he will appear as the elder brother amongst all his brethren.
The family likeness will be so complete. That's God's intention and he's not going to stop until he has that.
Now within that broad purpose of God in redemption, notice verse 30.
And whom he foreordained to that ultimate goal, them he also called.
Effectual calling subserves that greater perspective.
And whom he called, them he also justified.
Justification is a subpoint under this major issue of conformity to Christ.
And whom he justified, them he also glorified.
So that calling and justification and glorification and all the other blessings of grace implied in those three.
No one of them is the end of God's goal in redemption or the goal of God.
The goal is that we should be conformed to the image of his son.
Now when the doctrine of justification by faith is taken out of that context
and made to be the end for which God lays hold of us,
simply that we might be accepted before him and declared righteous in the light of his law as though that were the end in itself,
I say this doctrine suffers in the hands of its friends when it's wrenched out of this larger context of the purpose of God in redemption.
This being true, God never justifies a man without bringing him under the power of and within the orbit of all the other facets of his saving work.
All of which have as their goal likeness to Christ.
Christ loved the church and gave himself to the church. Why?
That he might present it to himself a glorious church.
So justifying faith will never be alone.
Rejoicing in forgiveness and acceptance will never be alone.
The imputation of righteousness will never be alone.
And so, my dear brothers, my fellow ministers, whenever we preach the doctrine of justification,
whenever we think of it, let us never wrench it loose from that larger context.
I believe that this is one of the errors into which the early Reformers fell.
Luther was so enamored, and rightly so, by being brought out of the bondage of the legalism of Rome.
You won't hear me often quoting Luther publicly and giving Luther to young immature preachers.
Because there are times in his statements when he does not at least explicitly give indication
that he was conscious of this larger context, though I'm sure he was, and speaks of it in other places.
As you think of the doctrine of justification by faith, never wrench it loose from that which is stated here in this passage
as the ultimate intention of God in the work of redemption.
Then, as I close, let me just briefly recapitulate.
No, not recapitulate, go back over.
I looked up the word, and that's a wrong use.
We use it that way, and I remember I was going to use it one place, and I said I'd better look that thing up.
It's been a long time since I have, and I've been using it wrongly, so I take that word back.
If we would come to the doctrine of justification by faith, we must see that doctrine
flanked on the one hand by the God of the Bible in his infinite holiness and inflexible justice,
by man the creature made in his image, falling from him in guilt and in bondage,
and flanked on the other hand by the gracious, comprehensive purpose of God
to take out of that mass of humanity a people whom, when God is done with them,
will reflect the moral likeness of his own dear Son.
And everything he does to accomplish that will be from beginning to end grace, grace, all of grace.
So may God by the Spirit then be pleased to burn into our hearts and into our understandings
this context of the doctrine of justification, keep before us the tremendous importance of this doctrine
with reference to the glory of God and to the good of his people.
And, God willing, tomorrow night we will attempt to begin to understand in a new way
the Lord helping us in opening up his word to us, the substance of this glorious doctrine,
the article of the standing of the falling church.