Sermon for midweek of Reminiscere – Lent 2

Biblical Emphases: Justification by Faith Alone

Galatians 2:11-21  +  John 3:14-21

Last week we considered how doomed our race is because of original sin. The Scriptures are very clear that there is no one righteous before God, because all have sinned, whether those sins are gross outward offenses or the hidden offenses of the heart, where there isn’t true fear of God, true love for God, and true faith in God. If you get that, if you get original sin and how thoroughly it has damaged our race, then the next Biblical emphasis shouldn’t be hard to grasp: that the only way for sinners to be justified is by faith alone Christ Jesus.

Let’s define again the verb ‘justify’ and the noun ‘justification,’ as the Bible uses the terms. It’s a “forensic” term, a courtroom term. It’s the ruling of the judge who declares the defendant to be innocent of the charges against him and, therefore, free to go, free to live. In spiritual terms, it’s God’s act of declaring a person to be just, to be righteous, to be acceptable in His sight, a son of His kingdom. According to the Scripture, there are only two ways to be justified. There’s the Law way, and there’s the Gospel way.

The Law way is very simple, and at the same time, impossible. The one who does these things shall live by them. In other words, if you keep all of God’s Law, both outwardly and inwardly, with the hands and with the heart, with perfect love toward God and perfect love toward your neighbor, with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength, then you will live. You will be justified in God’s courtroom. But if you slip up even once, you will die. You will be condemned. Because there is no forgiveness under the Law, and no weighing of good vs. bad. If a person is judged by the Law, then he has to be sinless in order to be justified. Justification by works, justification by the Law, only works for sinless people.

But again, as we saw last week, we all start out life already sinful and unclean. And the Law offers no forgiveness. There is no justification available for sinners under the Law. For sinful people, only the Gospel will do.

Of course, that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul was saying in Galatians 2. Even he and the Apostle Peter, as Jews who had a good record of moral behavior compared to the Gentiles who didn’t have the Ten Commandments, had become convinced that their works weren’t good enough, that their works didn’t provide even the slightest reason for God to justify them. Instead, they had come to know Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, who offered them justification in a completely different way than the Law did. Not by obeying the Law well enough, but by faith in Him who was crucified for us, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

The justification of the Gospel is the free forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ alone, which is applied to sinners through faith alone. As Paul wrote, a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. He clearly sets the two methods of justification at odds with one another. Not a justification that takes place on the basis of works, but a justification that takes place on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ.

So faith can’t be considered a meritorious work, that is, a work that we do that earns God’s forgiveness. This is one of the greatest problems with Baptist theology, what we sometimes call “decision-theology,” which the now-departed Billy Graham popularized in his preaching and in his magazine entitled, “Decision.” First, it ignores original sin, which we considered last week, because it gives sinful man a power that the Scriptures don’t give him—not much power, but power, nonetheless, to be able to decide for himself whether or not to invite the Lord Jesus into his heart. It makes man responsible for his own conversion. It places the emphasis on man’s decision, like the children’s song, “I have decided to follow Jesus.” It turns faith into that one work that man has to do. Jesus did the suffering and dying. You have to do the deciding, the believing.

But that’s not how the Scriptures present faith and believing. Instead, the Holy Spirit, through the promise of the Gospel that God will be merciful to you in Christ, calls out to sinners, not, “Make your decision! It’s all up to you!”, but, “Repent and believe the good news! Look to Christ and be saved!” It’s that promise of the Gospel, the very power of God, that moves sinners to look to Him who was lifted up on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation, even as the snake-bitten Israelites were moved by Moses’ word to look up to the serpent on the pole and were healed. Faith isn’t a work that earns anything from God. Instead, faith lays hold of Christ. Faith is the means by which God credits us with Christ’s works and with Christ’s death, so that the divine Judge can turn to all who believe in Christ and pronounce them to be righteous, innocent, free to go, free to live in His kingdom forever, not as enemies, not as people whom He tolerates there, but as sons and beloved children.

This is the faith by which we are justified, not just a knowledge of who Jesus is, not just believing that God exists, but trusting and relying on Jesus as the One for whose sake alone God accepts us.

But justification by faith alone doesn’t mean and has never meant that love and good works are unnecessary for believers. Far from it! It doesn’t mean, go ahead and sin! Works of love, works in obedience to God’s commandments are certainly necessary. We don’t discount them from the Christian life. We discount them from the matter of justification, from the earning of God’s grace. We discount them as the reason for which God justifies or accepts anyone. In fact, it’s only because of justification by faith alone that anyone can begin that “new obedience,” as we call it, of starting to truly fear God, love God, and trust in God, of starting to care selflessly about our neighbor, of starting to take God’s commandments seriously as something that we want to obey, because we’ve received forgiveness from our Father for the sake of Jesus.

This is justification by faith alone, the heart of the Gospel, the teaching on which the Church stands or falls, the simple teaching of John 3:16. It’s constantly being attacked from the devil with false teachings, both big and small, whether it’s the Roman Church including works of love in its definition of faith, or the Baptists turning faith into a decision and work of man, or the “Lutheran” synods creating a third way to be justified—neither by works, nor by faith, but “objectively.” So give thanks for the simple teaching of John 3:16. Take comfort in it and guard it. Guard it with your life. Guard it throughout your life. And never let anyone move you from the simple but profound truth that you, a poor sinner, have been declared righteous and acceptable to God through faith alone in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.