Are You Saved By Law Or Grace? (Part 2)

[SLIDE 1] Introduction

If you have your Bible, then I would invite you to turn to Galatians 2:15-16. We’re going to move away from the book of Acts, but we’re still continue asking ourselves this question, “Are you saved by law or grace?” (READ)

Illustration

As you may know that for the past several months, we at OBC have been going through church renovation. We’re grateful to see new floorings and paintings, especially the replacement of the heating system so that we can enjoy the warmth of this facility.

Now, one of the things I’ve been trying to do on the side of my job is to learn and study the history of our church and our denomination.

I do so because not only am I curious about our history, but it’s also because of my love for this church family and our forefathers.

The renovation helped unearthed some of the old documents and booklets of the history of OBC, particularly when this facility was built.

According to the plaque in our foyer, this church building was dedicated on December 3rd, 1967.

But, did you know that OBC existed way before the facility was built…probably in the late 1930s. That’s because OBC is not a building. She’s the bride of Christ. She’s the body of Christ. OBC is the gathering of God’s people.

While this church facility was built, the church gathered at Oakridge Centre Auditorium for their worship service (and Herb and Del may remember those days when they visited).

I’ll just say that our church has a rich heritage. I was deeply encouraged and edified just by reading our church’s history, what we believed, what our church experienced in the past and the challenges that she faced. She wasn’t perfect.

Nonetheless, God ultimately preserved this church family so that you can be a part of the church’s legacy.

I say all of this because it reminds me of a profound statement spoken by Dr. John Neufeld, who is the Bible Teacher for Back To The Bible Radio in Canada. He said this:

[SLIDE 2] “One of the tragedies of any culture is that great things that are won in one generation through bravery, conviction, sacrifice, and courageous faith, are forgotten by another generation who take things for granted, and then because of that lose what others have gained for them.”

The Protestant Reformation

Last Sunday, we looked at Acts 15 and discovered that the doctrine of salvation by grace was contended and conclusive. We may have thought that Acts 15 helped settled the question, “Are you saved by law or grace?”

However, Satan is a crafty being. The Devil isn’t stupid. He’ll do everything he can to move you away from the truth. He wants you to know the lies or even partial truth.

So long as he can convince you to fully believe in something other than the complete truth, he’s doing his job.

Knowing the reality of the work of the enemy, this question from our sermon title was confused with admixtures of false teachings for around a thousand years in Roman Catholicism.

After Constantine legalized Christianity in the 4th century, it did not take long before the church entered into the Medieval Era (also known as the dark age).

During this era, Rome stored the Bibles in churches and seminaries, and the Bibles were not meant to be read by ordinary citizens besides the priests, bishops, and the Pope.

As a result, they invented many teachings and traditions that were contrary to the Scriptures throughout the Medieval Era.

For lay people who had no access to the Bible, the way of salvation was fraught with uncertainty.

Steven Ozment (the historian) summarizes what happened:

[SLIDE 3] “For medieval theologians the present life remained an anxious pilgrimage; man lived in unresolved suspense, fearing damnation and hoping for salvation, ever in need of confession and indulgence, discipline and consolation, saintly intercession and the self help of good works. Nothing seemed more impossible than this-worldly certitude of salvation; such was self-deception and presumption at best, sedious rejection of God’s church at worst. Saving faith was constantly developing faith, faith formed by continuous works of love and charity.”

In other words, according to Rome’s teachings, your faith grows and develops over time by your deeds that eventually grant you eternal life as a complete merit.

So, the doctrine of salvation by grace was lost, but not necessarily forgotten.

On October 31, 1517 - 505 years ago - German Monk Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Castle Church door, marking the start of the Protestant Reformation.

The Reformation was a movement that aimed to recover the ‘lost’ teachings of the Bible and to reform the corrupt teachings for the better. And the story of the Protestant Reformation was meant to recover the centrality of the gospel as revealed in the Bible.

Perhaps, the doctrine that is most notable is the doctrine of justification by faith.

One author says that “There is perhaps no doctrine more closely associated with the teaching and legacy of Martin Luther than justification by faith alone.”

Martin Luther recovered this lost doctrine along with other Reformers in the 1500s. Some of you may know this doctrine quite well. Others of you may have heard of it, but not too familiar with it.

The doctrine of justification by faith is central to the Christian gospel message.

Without justification by faith alone, there would be no gospel at all. Without it, no one can be saved. Without it, the church has no reason to exists. Without it, the church ceases to be the true church of Jesus Christ according to Scripture.

As Luther once said, without the doctrine of justification, we lose Christianity.

And it was Johann Heinrich Alsted (in 1618) who once said that justification is “the doctrine on which the church stands or falls.”

This doctrine addresses the question of how sinners can have their sins forgiven by God and be reconciled to a right relationship with a holy and righteous God.

In other words, it answers the question, “how can sinful men become just with God?” Are they just with God on the basis of works or on the basis of Jesus Christ, which is grace?

We’re going to try and answer this question.

And the focus will be on justification by faith.

This doctrine was not invented by Luther. It’s found in the Scripture.

Therefore, we’re not basing our authority on the Reformation. We’re not basing our authority on Martin Luther.

We’re basing our authority on the sufficiency of Scripture.

Therefore, we as believers must submit to this Word. We are to understand and study justification as revealed in Scripture.

[SLIDE 4] And Galatians 2:15-16 is one of the many passages in the New Testament that teaches justification; therefore, this doctrine is essential in the Bible.

Context

The letter to the Galatians is one of the books in the Bible that grounded Luther’s understanding of justification by faith alone. It was an essential teaching from the Apostle Paul who penned down these inspired Words of God.

The background of Galatians was similar to Luther’s contemporary and similar to Acts 15 except Paul was not dealing with Roman Catholics.

Just as the Judaizers came to the Antioch church to teach salvation by circumcision and the law, they came to the Christians in the churches of Galatia to spread false teaching to lead the Galatians away from the true gospel.

The Judaizers had no issue with the Galatians for believing in Jesus as Savior, but they were telling the Galatians that they were missing something in order to be justified, which was practicing circumcision. They would say, “Yes, you can believe in the gospel, but you also need to obey the law.”

They added another element to the formula. It wasn’t faith in Jesus equals to justification. It was faith in Jesus PLUS works that equals to justification. That was legalism and it is a dangerous teaching. It’s all about obeying the law and the moral code in order to merit salvation and receive blessings from God.

Similarly, Roman Catholicism teaches that you are to practice indulgence, participate in the Sacraments, and follow the church tradition in order to be justified.

When you read through the letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul sounds very intense.

Unlike all the other letters where Paul generally offered thanksgiving to them, he does none of that in this letter.

Instead, after offering his greetings, he jumps immediately to the problem:

[SLIDE 5] Galatians 1:6–9: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

In some parts of this letter, the Apostle Paul uses some extremely strong languages to show his frustration and astonishment at the Galatians for deserting the gospel and turning to another “gospel.”

He also uses some sharp words to indict the Judaizers for teaching the false gospel.

Teaching that Gentiles have to be circumcised to be saved.

Therefore, we do well as Christians to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

And that we would uphold and teach the doctrine justification by faith because it is central to the gospel.

With that in mind, let’s return to Galatians 2:15-16.

Exposition

[SLIDE 6] Now, Paul says that a person is NOT justified by works of the law, but we are justified by faith in Christ.

Justification is the noun. Justified is the passive verb. I have mentioned justification several times already. What is justification?

[SLIDE 7] Justification means to be “counted righteous” or to be “declared righteous” by God.

It is a legal concept situated in a courtroom where you have the convicted criminal standing before a judge.

In a religious concept, justification presupposes that all are guilty and vile sinners who will one day stand before the holy Judge, God Himself.

[SLIDE 8] Hence, this term, justification, should cause us to answer this question:

How can I, as a sinful man/woman, become just with God?

How can I be right before God as a guilty man / woman.

The answer is that we cannot be right before God.

[SLIDE 9] You need need to understand three realities:

First, we are sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God.

Second, God is a holy and righteous Judge. And God MUST punish sin and pour out His wrath upon sinners.

Third, we are utterly helpeless and unable to be made right with God.

We need to be mindful of these three realities.

Perhaps we do not fully appreciate the gospel at the depth of our hearts is because we do not think we’re as sinful as the Bible makes it out to be.

We may just be like the Judaizers who think we can justify ourselves by works of the law in order to be declared righteous by God.

In our society, we can acknowledge that there are morally good and decent people around us. They may not be perfect human beings, but they did not commit any heinous crimes. They are not terrorists.

There are religious people all around us who do good work for others, such as feeding the hungry and looking out for other people’s needs. They seem to deserve justification.

[SLIDE 10] However, if you attempt to be justified by works of the law as a sinful person, then that is an utter impossibility.

Galatians 3:10–12 (ESV)

10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”

Paul clearly says that it is possible for someone to be justified by the works of the law, but no one has been able to do it.

In James 2:10, “for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”

Unless you feel the gravity of your depravity, helplessness and divine condemnation, you won’t understand the necessity of the gospel.

[SLIDE 11] Scripture is clear that it is not we who justifies ourselves, but it is God who justifies. Since God is the One who justifies, He has give us a standard revealed to us in His word. What’s the standard? The Law of God.

The point of the law was to reveal to us God’s divine standard of holiness.

Leviticus

As we compare ourselves to God’s divine standard, the law exposes our sins and our fallenness because we fail to live up to God’s standard.

As a result, we are guilty before God. The law is not a bad thing, but obedience to the law cannot justify us for we fail to live up to it.

Perhaps you may have objections because you know people who are morally good and decent. They lived a good life and they did not harm anyone, so they deserve to be justified by God and go to heaven in the future.

And my response to that objection is this: What standard are you using to make that judgment? Is it your relative/subjective standard that you are basing it on? Is it a community or cultural standard that you are basing it on?

Is it based on the divine objective standard of God’s law as revealed in the Bible? It all boils down to this: human standard or God’s standard.

However, it is not your place as a mere mortal human being to tell God to change His standard to fit with the human standard.

Human standards fail to make that judgment. Because human standard changes constantly from generation to generation, and it is different from culture to culture. Human standard may only measure the outward appearance, but it cannot judge a person’s heart and mind.

God’s divine standard will never change. Only the divine standard of God as revealed from sacred Scripture is able to make an objective judgment.

That is because God not only sees the outward appearance, but He sees the hearts and minds of a depraved sinner.

When we compare our standard to God’s standard, God is infinitely greater and holier and we are infinitely not.

Paul and the other apostles acknowledge and recognized that who they were and what they’ve done did not justify them.

So, how can sinners be justified by God? Well, I have been alluding to it through my message, but look at what Paul says again in verse 16.

The means of our justification is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith means placing our trust and confidence in someone who can be trusted. It means believing in the One who can rescue us from sin, hell, and the wrath to come.

And the answer to our justification is found in Jesus Christ because He is the basis, the ground, or the foundation of our justification.

God is a just God. For God to be just, He must punish evil doers who act and violate His divine standard of the law. Our sins and our act of sinning are a cosmic treason against a holy and righteous God.

Our sins, big or tiny, matter infinitely to God. Our sins are what make us guilty of punishment before God.

There is nothing you and I can do to be justified. Even apologizing or saying “sorry God, I won’t do it again” would not even cut it.

You would wish that you could just tell the judge that you’re sorry for speeding or checking your phone while driving so that you pay absolutely nothing for your fine.

You must pay the penalty of your own sins because you are guilty of it and you are not righteous.

But it is a penalty that you will never be able to pay off even in hell because you as a guilty sinner have sinned against an infinitely holy God.

By the mercy of God, He sent His Son to go to the cross and pay the penalty of sins.

[SLIDE 12] Theologians call this “Penal Substitutionary Atonement.”

Penal: Jesus is the Only one who can perfectly pay for the penalty of our sins.

Substitionary: We should have been the one who deserves to pay that penalty, but Jesus was our substitute in a sense that He took our place and pay that penalty for those who believe.

Atonement: Because Jesus was our substitute and paid the penalty for our sins, our sins can be forgiven.

Jesus, the perfect and righteous One, went to die for the unrighteous ones; the godly for the ungodly.

[SLIDE 13] In the doctrine of justification, two things must happen on the cross: propitiation and expiation.

Propitiation means the turning away of wrath by a sacrificial offering. Jesus went to the cross to suffer and to take upon Himself the sins of the world to satisfy the wrath of God.

Jesus’ obedience, and perfect and righteous life qualifies Him to be the perfect sacrifice. God’s righteous anger needed to be satisfied before sin could be forgiven.

Expiation means the removal of something by an offering. Christ takes away the guilt of those who would trust Him through the payment of the penalty.

[SLIDE 14] Listen to Paul’s statement in Colossians 2:13–14

Colossians 2:13–14 (ESV)

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Jesus’ death paid the penalty of our sins so that we do not have to pay for our indebtedness. Christ did it so that forgiveness of sin is made certain for believers.

That is why the basis of our justification is in Jesus Christ, our propitiation and expiation.

If the basis of our justification is in ourselves, then that is an impossibility. Our works can never satisfy the wrath of God perfectly. Our works can never cancel the indebtedness we owe to God for sins.

As Isaiah 64:4, our works are like filthy rags stained with sins and pride that continually provoke God’s anger and increase our indebtedness.

Therefore, the ground of our justification is in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the perfect Savior. The means of our justification involves faith in Jesus Christ.

When we trust in the LORD Jesus Christ, our faith does not contribute to our righteousness.

Rather, faith is entirely receptive. Faith receives the righteousness that God offers in Christ.

Even faith in of itself is a free gift of God’s grace given to you so that you would receive Christ and His righteousness.

We cannot stand before God and be declared righteous unless we receive the righteousness in Christ, which He fulfilled in His perfect obedience to the Father from birth to death. [SLIDE 15]

Romans 5:17–19 (ESV)

17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

What happens when we trust in Christ is that a “Great Exchange” occurs. [SLIDE 16] In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul speaks of this “Great Exchange,”

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Our sins would be imputed to Jesus Christ, and Jesus’ righteousness would be imputed into our status.

So, for those who are in Christ will receive His righteousness. The righteousness that we have as believers is not the righteousness that came from within us, but it came from Christ.

Therefore, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the one who places faith in Jesus. When God the Father looks at believers, He sees Christ’s righteousness in us.

As a result, justification happens. God declares us guiltless, forgiven, and righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness that is in us.

We are made right with God because we have been reconciled to a saving relationship with Him.

Once God justifies a believer, it is final. Once justified, always justified. We will commit sin and cause displeasure to God, but we cannot fall away from the state of justification.

And as a result of justification, we will grow to love and obey Jesus for the rest of our lives, and continue to surrender our lives under His Lordship.

Furthermore, we become a new creation with a new desire and love for the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates.

[SLIDE 17] Application / Conclusion

To summarize the doctrine of justification, listen to the article of faith that we hold to as a church and as a Fellowship Baptist denomination:

We believe that justification is the great blessing by which God accepts, accounts and declares man as righteous; that it includes pardon from the guilt and condemnation of all his sin, the gift of eternal life on principles of divine righteousness; that it is bestowed by grace through faith solely upon the grounds of Christ’s perfect life, and expiatory death whereby the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believing sinner.

[SLIDE 18] The doctrine of justification by faith was a critical truth that needed to be recovered during Luther’s day and the Reformation.

How true and applicable is this doctrine in the 21st century?

There are really only two religions in this world: Salvation based on human accomplishment or divine accomplishment. All other religions teach that salvation is accomplished by human achievement.

Those are Satan's religions and they are based upon man's effort, ability, and good deeds to earn heaven.

But, true biblical Christianity is the only unique religion that differs from all the other religions. Only Christianity is the religion of divine accomplishment.

Salvation is not a human doing. Salvation is ultimately the work of God in and through Jesus Christ’ death and resurrection.

The true way of becoming a Christian or to receive salvation is to be justified by faith alone in Christ alone, and not by works of the law.

And faith in Jesus is what will humble you of your pride because you have to look away from yourself and look upon Someone outside of yourself to save you apart from works of the law.

Today is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Repent of your sins, place your faith in Christ, and confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and you will be justified by Him.