Justified by Faith

Aspire Women’s Conference, an evening full of laughter, learning, stories & music. This is the third year that we have hosted Shine. This year, it will be on Friday, September 13, from 7 to 10 pm. You can get tickets in the church office, or online at aspirewomensevents.com. Flyers are available in the foyer on the Get Connected Table.

The REAL Women’s Conference will be held the following weekend, and it is a two-day conference to encourage, inspire, and equip women to shift their focus from “Why is this happening?” to “I wonder what God is working through this?” It will be Friday and Saturday, September 20 and 21, 6-9 on Friday night, and 8:15 am to 3 on Saturday. You can get more information in at getrealwithgod.com, and cards are also available on the Get Connected Table.

Opening

Galatians 2:15–21 CSB

15 We are Jews by birth and not “Gentile sinners,” 16 and yet because we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus. This was so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified. 17 But if we ourselves are also found to be “sinners” while seeking to be justified by Christ, is Christ then a promoter of sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker. 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 I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Pray

In the last couple of weeks in this series called “Dear Church,” we have looked at a couple of related issues: two weeks ago, it was legalism: Right actions without right belief. Those under legalism believe that through the things that we do, we earn salvation or earn merit with God.

Last week it was hypocrisy: Right belief without right actions. We specifically looked at hypocrisy in relation to the church, by considering a conflict that arose between Paul and Peter about eating with those who weren’t Jews. The issue wasn’t just that Peter had stopped eating with the Gentile believers in Antioch… It was that his reasons for doing so did not line up with the Gospel being for all people as God had revealed to Peter in Acts 10 and 11, and that his doing so was hypocritical: Peter knew better because of the work that God had performed through him.

Now, there is some question as to where what Paul started saying in verse 14 ends.

Galatians 2:14 CSB

14 But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Some translators would place the quote in verse 14 only. Some end it after verse 16. Some take it all the way through verse 21. Ancient Greek did not have quotation marks. I personally am fine with it being just 14, or all the way through 21, because regardless, what we see in our focal passage today is Paul making an argument, and whether that argument is directly to Peter or directly to the Galatians is unimportant. We have to keep in mind that Paul is using this argument to address the issue at large in Galatia: the issue of legalism. So it doesn’t matter whether this is a continued quote from his conflict with Peter or not: the intended result and meaning is the same.

In this passage, we find a concept about which Martin Luther said:

And this is the truth of the Gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually. (Luther, Commentary, 206)

This concept is “justification,” and it will be our focus this morning. First we’re going to see Paul’s declaration of the doctrine of justification, and then Paul’s defense of it. We’re going to be looking at a lot of Scripture this morning as we consider this core doctrine of the Christian faith.

Justification or being justified is a legal concept. The word is the opposite of condemned.

When I was a freshman in high school, one night a couple of friends and I made some very poor choices and we found ourselves down at the police station in Silver City. After that night, I ended up having to go with my parents to meet with the district attorney to see if they were going to press charges against me for the crimes I had committed that night. The DA ended up saying that their office had decided that I would not be prosecuted for my actions, and that I was to make different choices in the future. It was such a relief.

Now, did the DA say that I did nothing wrong? No. In fact, just the opposite: he knew I had, and so did I. What the DA said was that I was going to be allowed to have a right standing in the community despite the fact of my wrongdoing.

The idea of justification is that we have a right standing before God not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done. I really like the definition of justification that David Platt and Tony Merida use in their commentary on Galatians:

Justification is the gracious act of God by which God declares a sinner righteous solely through faith in Jesus Christ.

We will unpack this definition bit by bit as we go.

Paul uses this term for the first time, in fact that first three times in Galatians in verse 16. Let’s look at our focal passage then, beginning in verse 15:

Galatians 2:15–16 CSB

Why does Paul open with this “we are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners?” The CSB puts “Gentile sinners” in quotes as a show of sarcasm on Paul’s part. Remember that the Judaizers would have taken issue with the fact that Peter and Barnabas were eating with Gentiles. Often at the time, Jewish people would include the term “sinners” with the word “Gentile” as a matter of convention. The Jews were the chosen people of God, they held, so everyone else must therefore be a sinner.

In addressing this in this way, and in what follows in verse 16, Paul denies any form of racism in Christ. In the ancient Jewish perspective, there were only two kinds of people: Jews and Gentiles, and the Jews were good, and the Gentiles were bad. But the Jews had forgotten that they were God’s chosen people not because they were special, but they were special because they were God’s chosen people. And they were chosen so that they could put God’s glory on display for the nations to see. The Jews, and thus, the Judaizers, had equated Jewishness with justification, and they had missed the mark.

Paul’s argument is that it doesn’t make any difference whether you are a Jew or a Gentile: justification comes through Christ and only through Christ. Paul speaks more about this in chapter 3, which we will of course get to eventually, but for now, let me give a couple of verses for reference on this issue:

Galatians 3:28 CSB

28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:11 CSB

11 In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.

Justification in Christ has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with our race. Our justification is completely based on the work of Christ received by faith. So racism is completely antithetical to the Gospel.

Let’s move on to verse 16:

Galatians 2:15–16 CSB

Assuming Paul is speaking to Peter, it’s easy to know the “we” here: it’s Peter and Paul. If he isn’t speaking to Peter, he’s referring to other Jewish believers, either the “brothers who are with” him (Gal 1:2), or the Judaizers themselves, who are also Jews who claim to be in Christ.

Paul here says that even though they are Jews, that didn’t mean that they were justified before God: in fact, he clearly says that it is not through the “works of the law” that one is justified, but “by faith in Jesus Christ,” and that “even we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus.” Paul here is developing the doctrine of justification: that there is no way for us to be justified and have right standing before God other than through faith in Jesus.

At the end of verse 16, Paul alludes to what the psalmist wrote in Psalms 143:1-2:

Psalm 143:1–2 CSB

1 Lord, hear my prayer. In your faithfulness listen to my plea, and in your righteousness answer me. 2 Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one alive is righteous in your sight.

No one has the right, based upon his own merits, to stand before holy God and demand salvation. There is nothing that requires God to justify us: nothing about who we are, or what we have done, or what we might do makes it so that Almighty God MUST justify us. This is why our justification is such a gracious act! Only Jesus Christ lived a life that was completely unworthy of condemnation. Only God has the right to declare anyone righteous. This is why Paul wrote in Romans 5:1:

Romans 5:1 CSB

1 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have been declared righteous by faith. We do not earn it, or merit it, or deserve it. God declares it, and we have it through faith in Christ.

So we have considered the first part of our definition of justification:

Justification is the gracious act of God by which God declares a sinner righteous solely through faith in Jesus Christ.

Justification is God’s gracious act, and that gracious act is by God making a declaration. That declaration is about the fact that left to ourselves, we are sinners. Think about it: if we were totally righteous, God wouldn’t have to justify us at all: we would be able to justify ourselves, because we’d deserve it. But Jesus made it clear who he had come to save: sinners:

Mark 2:17 CSB

17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance, not to pass out awards for righteousness to those who don’t deserve it. In Romans 3, Paul clearly painted the picture of all of our existence:

Romans 3:9–18 CSB

9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, 10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, 17 and the path of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Our sin separates us from holy God. It makes us lost. And as we talked about every week during our recent “Who’s Your One?” series, Jesus’s mission was to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). But this is what makes the next part of our definition of justification so crazy:

Justification is the gracious act of God by which God declares a sinner righteous solely through faith in Jesus Christ.

God, in His grace, declares the sinner to be righteous through faith in Jesus. In something much more incredible than when the DA just decided not to press charges against me, when we trust Christ for our salvation, God in His grace takes the righteousness of Christ and credits it to our account. This is called The Great Exchange, and Paul references it in one of my favorite verses of Scripture, 2 Corinthians 5:21:

2 Corinthians 5:21 CSB

21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

So, instead of us receiving the guilty verdict that we deserve, if we belong to Christ by faith, God makes a one-and-done declaration: He renders the verdict of, "not guilty," because of what Jesus has done, and we go from condemned to justified, enemies of God to friends of God, children of wrath to children of promise, from dead in our sins to being alive to God through faith. And that life isn’t just new life now, although it is that. But it’s also new life forever with Christ in the presence of the Father.

Since our righteousness is a declaration of God based upon Christ’s righteousness, and not upon our own, there is incredible freedom here! We’re not absolved from accountability for our choices, for “we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ” according to 1 Cor 3:12-15. But it does mean that the fact of our having a right standing before God is nothing we can eventually deserve in the future, and nothing we can work to earn in the present, because it has already been determined in the past because of Jesus’ perfection.

Now to finish up our declaration of the doctrine of justification:

Justification is the gracious act of God by which God declares a sinner righteous solely through faith in Jesus Christ.

It is only through faith in what Jesus has done that we can be made righteous before God, because the only One who ever lived out the commands of God perfectly is Jesus. So it is only through surrendering our lives to God through trusting belief in what Jesus has done that we are saved. We looked at Romans 3:9-18 a moment ago. But for this point, notice how Paul continues:

Romans 3:19–26 CSB

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. 20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. 21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 24 They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as an atoning sacrifice in his blood, received through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. 26 God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus.

“The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ.” In Christ’s death on the cross, God has done all the work necessary for us to be declared righteous in His sight, because Jesus has done the perfect living, and taken the wrath of God against our sins in punishment on our behalf. Through a trusting belief in Jesus, and only through a trusting belief in Jesus, we are declared righteous before God.

The Heidelberg Catechism, which was written as a way of teaching people the basic doctrines of faith in the mid-1500’s, is a series of 129 questions and their answers. Question 60 is, “How are you righteous before God?” Here is the answer it gives:

“Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. In spite of the fact that my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have not kept any one of them, and that I am still ever prone to all that is evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of my own, out of pure grace, grants me the benefits of the perfect expiation (removal of guilt) of Christ, imputing to me his righteousness and holiness as if I had never committed a single sin or had ever been sinful, having fulfilled myself all the obedience which Christ has carried out for me, if only I accept such favor with a trusting heart.”

So in verse 16 of Galatians 2, we see Paul’s declaration of the doctrine of justification.

This was so important because if we go wrong at this point, we will go wrong at all points eventually: We are justified by through faith in Jesus and only through faith in Jesus, or we are somehow required to earn it. We’ll come back to this idea in a bit.

Now we move on to Paul’s defense of this critical doctrine.

Galatians 2:17 CSB

17 But if we ourselves are also found to be “sinners” while seeking to be justified by Christ, is Christ then a promoter of sin? Absolutely not!

I believe that this is an echo of an argument that the Judaizers were making against the idea of justification by grace through faith. Basically, I see that the argument goes like this: “But if someone is still not completely sinless, even though they claim to be justified by Christ, then doesn’t that mean that the person who claims to be justified can just live however they want to live, and they’re still saved? Doesn’t that mean that Jesus gives them a license to sin? Isn’t that unjust?” Paul’s answer here is stern: “Absolutely not!”

We aren’t going to address the doctrine of sanctification today. We’ll save that for later in the series. But that’s part of what is going on here. The fact of the matter is that all of us in Christ are in the same boat: we live in a tension between who we are now, and the fact that we are not yet all that God intends to make us (which is ultimately the doctrine of glorification).

But the rest of this argument and the reason Paul could so strenuously object to it is because of the wonderful freedom that is found in Jesus: we’re free to live a life to honor God, rather than being slaves to sin. Paul spoke clearly about this in Romans chapter 6:

Romans 6:15–18 CSB

15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, 18 and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

Let me illustrate using my arrest story from my freshman year. The DA justified me: declared me “not guilty” even though I was guilty. Did that mean that he was okay with my sin, and even encouraged me to go and make more choices like it? No! In fact, you couldn’t make that argument even if I went and duplicated my same foolish choices: it was his decision to make, and he made it. In response (honestly through both fear and gratitude), I never made those same choices again. In fear, I never wanted to take the risk of the punishment, and in gratitude, I didn’t want to squander the fact that I didn’t go to the boys’ home at Springer, which was within the realm of possibilities (one of my friends, who already had a record, actually was sent there following this).

In the work of Christ and the justification that God has declared, God has provided not a license to sin, but a means of living for Him out of love and gratitude instead of a misguided sense of having to maintain our right standing, because it has been declared as fact. And truly, it is partially in the truth that we are still not perfect that we most clearly see God’s incredible work of grace:

Galatians 2:18 CSB

18 If I rebuild those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker.

If I go back to the way I used to live, I show that I am a lawbreaker, and that I am still in need of grace, which God has already poured out. For Paul, if he went back to trying to justify himself by some perfect adherence to the law, all he would have discovered is exactly what he had found in the first place: that He couldn’t live it out… that he isn’t perfect. And he would have been brought right back around to the same place: his salvation is only through faith in Christ.

Again from Romans 6:

Romans 6:20–23 CSB

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness. 21 So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death. 22 But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the outcome is eternal life! 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So no, being justified by grace through faith in Christ is not some form of approval of sin. In fact, it is exactly the opposite: it shows sin for the horror that it is in the cross of Christ, and our response to should be faithful gratitude: that we live for God, because we have been made alive through faith in Jesus.

Galatians 2:19–20 CSB

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 I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Paul here says that he has died to the law: that it no longer has any power over him (Romans 7:4-6). This again doesn’t mean that he now just gets to live however he wants to live: he has died to the law so that he can live for God. How? Because he has been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer the man Paul alone who lives, but Christ is living in him. Now obviously, Paul hasn’t physically died in this scenario, because he goes on to say that, “The life [he] now lives in the body,” he lives by faith in Jesus.

John Calvin said, “It is faith alone that justifies, but the faith that justifies is not alone.”

Yes, we are justified by faith in Jesus, and only by faith in Jesus. But once we trust in Christ, then we are to die to ourselves and live for God, NOT for merit or earning anything, but because Jesus is worth our all.

Luke 9:23–24 CSB

23 Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.

Taking up our cross daily is exactly what Paul called it: being crucified with Christ. Wanting to save our lives on our own is trusting in the law. Losing our lives because of Jesus is how our lives are saved: we live by faith in what Christ has done, because Jesus loves us and gave Himself up for us.

There is one last verse to address: the end of this section about justification.

Galatians 2:21 CSB

21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Paul is going to live by (not set aside) the grace of God, because Christ’s death is for no purpose if righteousness comes through the law.

Earlier, I said that having a right understanding of the doctrine of justification is so important because if we go wrong at this point, we will go wrong at all points eventually: We are justified by through faith in Jesus and only through faith in Jesus, or we are somehow required to earn it.

Timothy Keller said it this way:

Christ will do everything for you, or nothing. You cannot combine merit and grace. If justification is by the law in any way, Christ’s death is meaningless in history and meaningless to you personally.

If our having a right standing before God is based at all on our own earning it, then all of it is based on our earning it, because Jesus’s death would then be less than sufficient for our salvation. This goes completely against the message of the Gospel.

Jesus’ death was either absolutely necessary to save us, or not necessary at all. If we get this wrong, we will think that we must earn our salvation somehow, and the Gospel is no longer a gospel (“good news”), as I said in our second message in this study of Galatians: The Galatian Situation. It is through faith in Christ’s atoning work on the cross that we are saved: and that faith is a faith that is surrendered, no longer trusting ourselves to save us, but falling into the loving hands of our Savior, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

Closing

The doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ is one of the central tenets of the Christian faith. I know I just spent 35 minutes talking about it, but let me say it one more time: Justification is the gracious act of God by which God declares a sinner righteous solely through faith in Jesus Christ.

Are you justified this morning? Do you know that you stand before God not on your own merit, but through the merit of Jesus, who took your sin and the punishment you deserve, died in your place, and rose from the grave so that you can inherit eternal life through Him? This morning, stop working to save yourself and surrender your life to God through faith. This is how we are saved: by no longer trusting in ourselves, but trusting in Christ alone for our salvation. If this is you this morning, we want to celebrate with you, so I’d like to ask that you come down and share your surrender to Jesus with me or Camille, or with Joe or Kerry at the back.

If God is leading you to make Eastern Hills your church family, then come and share that with one of us as well.

The steps are open for prayer, or if you need prayer this morning, you can come and pray with us as well.

Pray

Invite to the parlor.

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