Grace Alone: The Power of Justification
Notes
Transcript
If you leave here with just one thought I want you to leave with this thought:
We are justified by faith in Christ alone!
We are justified, made right, by faith in Jesus Christ alone and not by our works. It is a gift of grace from God.
Paul’s gospel teaches us that justification comes through faith in Christ alone and that this is apart from any works of the Law. Our salvation is not based on us in any way. It is not given to us as a reward for being good or being better. It is not given to us based upon a merit system. It is given to us based upon God’s grace.
If we are going to live a life based on this grace then it means we live a life based on the finished work of Christ on the cross. Grace highlights the sufficiency of Christ’s work for our salvation.
1. Grace Begins with Belief
1. Grace Begins with Belief
Paul teaches that grace begins with belief.
Galatians 2:15-16:
15 “We are Jews by nature and not sinners from the Gentiles;
16 nevertheless, knowing that a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by works of the Law no flesh will be justified.
John Stott asked the question:
How did we become his people? Answer: ‘According to the good pleasure of his will.’ Why did he make us his people? Answer: ‘For the praise of the glory of his grace.’ Thus everything we have and are in Christ both comes from God and returns to God. It begins in his will and ends in his glory. For this is where everything begins and ends.
John Robert Walmsley Stott (English Preacher)
It is through our faith that grace is at work in us.
This faith begins with and comes from God. It is a gift to us in order that we might use this faith and by grace be justified. Whether Jew or Gentile, whether believer or not, every person comes into a relationship with God because of God’s grace to justify that person.
We cannot do any works, no matter how much effort we put in, no matter how great those works seem, we can never earn God’s grace. Our righteousness comes to us through faith in Jesus because of the grace of God in our lives. It is this grace extended to us that allows us to use this faith for salvation.
2. Guilt Gives Way to Grace
2. Guilt Gives Way to Grace
As grace works in our lives, guilt gives way to grace.
This is an important concept in our understanding of grace and justification. It is used as an argument by many against grace. Paul writes in verses 17-18:
17 But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Far from it!
18 For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a wrongdoer.
No matter how hard we try, we will eventually fail.
It seems to be an inevitability that humans will fail at some point. Everyone of us knows this about ourselves. We might not admit it or even want to think it is true but we all know it.
But why is this crucial for us to understand grace and justification?
In context, some thought that by not having the law, people will freely sin. The idea is that without the Law to constrain you, you will just do whatever you wish and since the Gentiles were not given the law, they had to be sinful people, meaning they were outside the law, outside the relationship with God.
The freedom that grace gives isn’t a freedom to live as you please but a freedom to obey God as He desires, apart from the Law.
If we live like there is no law, it doesn’t mean we don’t break the law. It only means that we live according to our sinful nature.
However, God chose to justify us so that we would no longer be held by the law but we would be held by His grace. We don’t cling to the Law to justify us or to make us righteous. As a matter of fact, when we try to cling to the Law, we prove ourselves to be sinners. It is only as we cling to grace; it is only living through faith in Christ that we can be made righteous and rid ourselves of guilt.
So what makes the idea that justification by faith alone is not good enough? Why do we question it or want to add something to it?
John Stott said:
The real reason why the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone is unpopular is that it is grievously wounding to our pride.
John Robert Walmsley Stott (English Preacher)
The fact is that we cannot pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off and be OK. Life begins with God’s grace, continues through God’s grace and ends with God’s grace. There is nothing we can do which will ever cause us to be justified. Even when we fail, we stand again on grace.
3. Grace Galvanizes a New Life
3. Grace Galvanizes a New Life
As our guilt goes and we are strengthened by God’s grace, this grace galvanizes a new life.
19 For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live for God.
20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
The symbol of the bloody crucifixion is a shocking symbol.
We are used to the cross in our midst. Sitting in front of the church, being placed on a steeple at a church, worn as jewelry and for decoration. The cross is a reminder of the resurrected Jesus.
However, at times I think it is good to remember the crucifixion. That was a horrible, excruciating death that Jesus experienced in our place. When we think of the cross and the crucifixion, it should galvanize us to rely on grace.
The bloody, beaten, nailed body of God the Son hung for all to see on a tree. That is shocking and the shock of it should be something that helps us depend on God’s grace. It was God’s grace that put Jesus on the cross; it was God’s grace that took Jesus off the cross and placed Him in a tomb and it was God’s grace that resurrected God the Son to life so that we can have a great and High Priest living in the presence of God.
And that was God’s plan from the beginning. That His grace would be offered to us so that we might have life. Anything else other than grace does not fit God’s plan and anything else is nothing but our own attempts to justify ourselves before Him.
Robert Patrick, who played in the second Terminator movie, also owns a Harley Davidson shop in CA. About twice a year he makes trips from the west coast to the east coast for different events. One year he was riding through AZ when he had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. He was able to get his bike to a stop safely. Now, alone, in the desert, he realized he didn’t have water or anything to snack on with him. Standing beside the road and his bike, he was trying to come up with a plan to rescue himself. However, he realized he didn’t have to come up with a plan. He had a cell phone and he belonged to AAA. All he had to do was to use the plan already in place.
We don’t need to figure out how to save ourselves. We won’t ever be able to rescue ourselves. God has the plan and has already enacted that plan. All we need to is to put our faith in His plan and live the new life He has given to us.
His plan is simply; through love, He gives us grace so that we live a life of faith to Him.
4. Grace Guards Against Nullity
4. Grace Guards Against Nullity
Live a life of grace guards against nullity.
21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
We are presented with two options; grace or Law.
The Judaizers and false teachers of today, want us to be bound to the Law. They want us to submit to the Law which cannot bring righteousness. If we start to follow the Law as a means of salvation, as a way to make ourselves right, we have nullified God’s grace.
Paul presents God’s grace as the only means of growing closer to Him; as the only means of being holy.
Leviticus is a book that is not often used when we talk about grace. We are familiar with Levitical Law, or at least the term Levitical Law. However, the truth is that the Law we have in Leviticus points us exactly to what Paul is teaching us. It points us to holiness, to righteousness but not to our righteousness.
It points us to God’s grace and justification, our only way of being made holy.
When we read about the Tabernacle and the Temple, there is a place that is referred to as the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place. It is the very center of the structure and it is the Most Holy Place because God said he would be in that place.
It isn’t holy because of the way the Tabernacle was built. It is the Holy of Holies because God said His presence would reside there. It is God that makes it holy.
From the OT, we know the only other person allowed into the Most Holy Place was the High Priest and then only after being purified. The reason the High Priest went into this place was to represent all of Israel; to stand before the very presence of God as the embodiment of the whole nation.
If the presence of God is what makes the Most Holy Place holy, then what makes a person holy? God?
We become holy people, not because we are holy but because we come closer to God. As we enter into a relationship with God, we enter into His presence. Though we are in this relationship, we have not completely entered into the presence of God.
So, how can we become holy; how are we made righteous if we are not yet in the presence of God? We are made holy through Christ.
Christ, who is now our great and High Priest is in the presence of God. When God looks at His Son, He sees us; God sees His people as embodied by the very living Jesus. And just as the High Priest represented the nation before God in the Most Holy Place, Jesus represents us before God in heaven.
And this all works because of God’s grace. Living through faith alone, trusting in God’s grace does not nullify anything. What God’s grace does is give us the way in which we can live according to how God has instructed us to live. God’s grace points us to the sufficiency of what Jesus has already accomplished and shows us that the Law, our works, anything other than grace is insufficient.
We are justified through faith in Christ because of God’s grace. It is this grace which brings us into God’s presence through Christ and it is this grace which allows us to live the life God calls us to live.
What do you base your relationship on? Your works or God’s work of grace?
Let’s pray.