The Crucial Importance of This Doctrine

In this part of the sermon: He explains that Adam's sin plunged humanity into complex legal and personal problems, illustrating this with the analogy of a drunk driver facing legal and physical consequences.

A man gets drunk, drives, kills a child, damages property, and injures himself, facing both legal and personal problems. This illustrates how Adam's sin brought complex legal (before God) and personal (internal) problems upon humanity.

That is, they have to do with effects of sin within Adam and each one of us as the sons and daughters of Adam. Let me illustrate it this way. A man, irresponsibly, gets involved in sin. Let me illustrate it this way. A man, irresponsibly, gets involved in sin.

2:50 - 3:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Put on your thinking cap and plead with God to teach you the doctrine of justification, for a profound and accurate understanding, and for your heart to be inflamed with appreciation.

Martin Luther's famous quote that justification is 'the article of the standing or the falling church' is used to underscore the doctrine's critical importance for the health and truthfulness of the church.

I have but one major central concern, and it is this. I want to set before you and persuade you of the critical importance of the doctrine of justification. I want to persuade you that it is in your best interest to put on your thinking cap, to put on your and to plead with God that by the Spirit, through the word, God would teach you, perhaps for some of you for the first time, what this great blessing of God's salvation is for others, that He would give you a more profound and deep and accurate understanding of it, and for all of us, that our hearts would be inflamed with tremendous passion,...

6:12 - 7:37 Read in full sermon

The point: If you long to behold more of God's glory, determine to deepen your understanding of the doctrine of justification, in which God's glory most brilliantly shines.

A quote from James Buchanan's book on justification is used to precisely articulate how the entire plan of salvation unfolds God's eternal purpose to overrule the fall for His own glory, especially through the manifestation of His perfections in justifying sinners.

James Buchanan in his classic book on the biblical doctrine of justification has expressed this truth with unusual precision when he wrote the whole plan of salvation which is revealed in the gospel is simply the unfolding and 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 Christ. Profound words. Very, very densely. The whole plan of salvation revealed in the gospel is simply the unfolding and execution of God's eternal purpose to overrule the fall of m...

12:44 - 13:57 Read in full sermon

The point: If you are a stranger to the righteousness found only in Christ, tremble before God and feel the pressure of the law upon your conscience, being driven out of yourselves and into Christ for righteousness.

The historical account of Martin Luther's tortured soul finding understanding of justification, leading to the Reformation, illustrates the doctrine's power to overturn spiritual darkness and bring about revival.

a righteousness which he can put to your account which gives you perfect standing in the court of heaven not only the pardon of all of your sins but a declaration that you stand as though you had kept every single precept of God a positive righteousness that constitutes a title and a warrant to heaven and it's in the gospel that this is revealed therefore the gospel must be understood and preached with clarity if we are to pray and expect God to attend our gospel and make it the power of God unto salvation now church history teaches this so clearly for hundreds of years this truth that the gos...

27:15 - 28:44 Read in full sermon

Driving home: when Atlas falls everything that rested on his shoulders comes crashing down too

Dr. Packer's analogy of the doctrine of justification as Atlas, carrying the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace on its shoulders, illustrates how all other doctrines are interpreted and sustained by it.

advance our understanding of all of the truths that are related to it let me use the illustration that Dr. Packer used in his introductory essay to Buchanan's book on justification by faith he writes the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas remember the mythical figure he carries the whole world on his back he says the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas it bears the world on its shoulders the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace the doctrines of election of effectual calling regeneration repentance adoption prayer the church the ministry the sacraments all hav...

39:05 - 40:35 Read in full sermon