God's Free Grace Unto Sinners

The Condemned Man and the Letter: An Illustration of Humanity's Spiritual State

0:04 As we begin our meditation in the word of God this morning, I wish to urge you, and that means you children, as well as moms and dads, I would urge you to try to marshal all your powers of imagination. That's your make-believer, you know, let's make-believe. The thing you kids use when one of you is playing policeman and one of you is playing teacher, and some of you is perhaps playing the role of preacher, that's your let's pretend-er. That's your imagination.

0:35 Well, I want children, moms and dads, adults, any other category of thinking humanity that may be present this morning, to marshal all of your faculties of imagination and construct in your mind with me the following scene. There is a certain man who's been convicted of a crime which warrants execution. He happens to live in one of the few states which has not totally abandoned the biblical doctrine and the biblical mandate, whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he him. He sits in a cell on what's called death row, and it's only a matter of 48 hours until the time of his appointed execution.

1:27 While he sits in his cell, the guard comes to the door, calls him to the door and passes a letter through the door that has stamped in bright red, ink on the front, urgent time value. He tears it open, and there printed on the top of that letter in very bold print is the following statement. This letter contains information as to how you may justly and righteously avoid your impending sentence. Please read slowly and carefully the following facts, and then comply.

2:07 Please comply. Please comply with the directions. Now get the picture. Here's a man in death row, 48 hours from execution.

2:16 He receives a letter that appears from all outward indications to be a bona fide letter from some recognized authority, and it announces its contents in terms of giving him away, whereby he may avoid his execution. Now imagine. If you were there, as it were, looking over his shoulder, you see him tear the letter open, you watch his eyes as they scan across those opening words, this letter contains information as to how you may justly and righteously avoid your impending sentence, you see that those words have registered on his brain, and then an amazing thing happens. He gets a very smirkish kind of look on his face, and he takes the letter and very casually, flips it across the other side of the cell, and it flutters down to the floor. He turns his back, picks up the morning newspaper that's been delivered to his cell, and begins to glance over the sport page and the comic strips.

3:26 Now what would you think if you were there, seeing a man do what I've just described?

3:35 Assuming the man could read, assuming that his impending death sentence is rude, if he should take the very thing that announces a way in which he may justly and righteously avoid his sentence and simply flips it across the cell to watch it flutter to the floor, only to be ignored and trampled upon.

4:02 Well, you'd say, Pastor Martin, if he is at all rational, if he has not totally lost his ability to relate to reality, he would do that, either because, because he has no love for life, he has no confidence in the validity of the letter, or he has no conviction of the certainty of his condemnation. It would have to be one, two, or all three of those reasons.

4:30 If he could treat the thing that announces his reprieve with indifference, perhaps it's because he has no love for life. He would rather be executed than continue to live, in which case he can afford the luxury of flipping the letter to the other side of the cell floor. Or it may be that he regards the thing as a cruel joke. He has no confidence that what the letter announces is worth his confidence, and so he may then treat it with scorn and indifference.

4:59 Or it could be that he thinks the whole matter of his planned execution is just a scare tactic to try to get him to go straight, and at the last minute everyone's going to go soft, and he's not going to die anyway.

5:12 Well, my listening friends, the situation I've described is precisely our situation, for the word of God says concerning every single one of us that we have already been convicted of crimes that demand capital punishment. And the capital punishment of which I speak is not the punishment that says we will receive death from the hand of any human government or governor, but the word of God says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and the wages of death. The wages of sin is death, and we are already in that sense shut up in death row by the very word of the living God. And yet God before the hour of execution has come in mercy. He has come with a message which declares how God may be just and righteous and yet pardon guilty sinners. And more than pardon, actually turn them loose and treat them as though they had perfectly kept his law at every point of its demand.

The Gravity of Indifference to God's Message of Justification

6:33 And it is precisely this doctrine which we are presently studying, the doctrine of justification, which is a transcript of that which God has done in Christ to come to guilty sinners under the sentence of death and to bring them to the cross. And announce a way of just and righteous pardon. Now, my friend, if you have no love for life, you can afford the luxury of letting that announcement be flipped across the cell and float to the floor and manifest total indifference to it. If there is any man, woman, boy or girl in this place who is so foolish as to choose the company of the devil and demons and hell itself in place of the company of God, of God and his Son and the redeemed, then, my friend, you can afford the luxury of looking at your sport page and at your comic strips. You can afford the luxury of glutting your mind with other things than the great truth of God's way of justifying sinners. But if you have any love for life, if you have any desire to escape the wrath of God and to know the consummate bliss of that which the Scripture says, that which the Scripture describes as heaven, you better take seriously what the Word of God says,

8:00 what this letter says concerning God's way of justifying sinners. Or perhaps some of you are indifferent to these things because you have no confidence in the letter. You think it's all a holy ruse if there is such a thing. It's all a sham.

8:17 It's all just a collection of wonderful religious notions, but there's no substance to them, my friend. And listen. This book does not...

8:25 This book does not come to us as the mere... I shouldn't even use the term mere.

8:30 It does not come to us at all as the record of the philosophical and religious thoughts of men just floating by with no hooks in the world in which we live. There's an open tomb in Palestine. There were living witnesses who beheld the Son of God and bore witness to that which they saw. We can trace the Christian faith in its tap roots back to the beginning of the world.

8:55 We can trace the Christian faith in its tap roots back through every epoch of human history right to the garden. Therefore, you cannot afford the luxury of regarding this as just some kind of a sham letter. Or it could be that some of you are indifferent to God's way of justifying sinners because you have no conviction of the certainty of your coming death. You have so stifled the thunderings of your own conscience that you cannot afford to believe in the truth.

9:26 That you've almost convinced yourself well, you live and you die like a dog lives and dies. Well, my friend, if you're honest with yourself, you know that cannot be. God has stamped upon the deepest consciousness of your being the fact that you are his creature, accountable to him, and that you will stand before him in the last day. Oh, may none of you, man, woman, boy or girl, regard lightly that which is the focal point of your life.

Review: The Meaning of Justification

9:57 The focal point of our study this morning. For to do so would be as foolish as that poor condemned criminal taking the one thing that is his hope for life and shooting it across his cell and letting it flutter to the floor only to be ignored and trampled underfoot. In our previous studies of this great biblical announcement of God's way of declaring sinners righteous, we've considered, we've considered the importance of the biblical doctrine of justification, the context or the setting of that doctrine, and then last Lord's Day we looked at but one aspect of this truth, the meaning of the biblical word to justify. And we saw from a study of many passages that it simply means to declare, to pronounce, to accept, and to treat as just. That's what it means to justify. To declare.

10:57 To pronounce. To accept. And then to treat a person as just. That is, we regard him as under no liability to punishment and as entitled to all the privileges of a law keeper.

11:15 You kids, you can understand what this means. Think with me for a minute. Mommy's baked a whole batch of cookies because she's going to have company maybe Tuesday night. And she's got to stay up all night.

11:27 She's got to step out for just a few minutes to run an errand down at the local store. And in a situation that would not be irresponsible, she says to the children, now Mommy's going away for just half an hour. Now I don't want any fighting while I'm gone. I don't want any snitching of the cookies because Mommy needs those for tonight.

11:45 And if you do what I tell you, Mommy will have something special for you. So Mommy comes home in half an hour and she checks. Any fights? And all the kids say, nope, they've been very good.

11:55 And then she goes, anybody take any cookies? They say, no. And knowing that kids can sometimes lie, she checks to see. And sure enough, all the cookies she baked were there.

12:04 So you know what she does? She then justifies the children. She says, you were very good children. You kept Mommy's law.

12:13 She declares them what? Just and righteous. She accepts them as just. And so she says, no spankings are in order.

12:23 And furthermore, I promised you something if you'd obey me. Then she takes out of, her purse, their favorite candy bar. She doesn't feed them on junk food. But once in a while, she breaks down and she gives them a candy bar.

12:36 Now see, she's justified them. She has declared them just. They're not liable to a spanking. And they are to be treated as those who've kept her laws.

12:46 But now if she comes home and she finds out, as she comes through the door, she sees the red eyes on one of the kids and the tear-stained cheek. She says, any fights?

12:58 Well, he started it. No, but she started it. Well, she knows there have been some fights. And then she goes and looks at the cookie jar and sure enough, it's down a bit.

13:08 Now what does she do? She condemns them. She pronounces them guilty. And then that pronouncement leads to a spanking and a deprivation.

13:18 They do not get the favorite candy bar. Condemnation, you see, the pronouncement of guilty then leads to punishment and to a withdrawal. A withdrawal or withholding of that which would be the rewards of obedience. When you come to the Scriptures and read, God justifies sinners.

13:38 He declares them, accepts them, and treats them as just. That is, He no longer regards them as liable to punishment. And then He treats them as law-keepers and confers upon them all the benefits due to those who've kept the law. Well, that's a rather lengthy introduction and review, but I believe it's necessary to keep honing in on this vital biblical issue.

Framework for Understanding Justification: The Westminster Larger Catechism

14:09 For if we do not think biblically and clearly on this, we will have no foundation for the entirety of our Christian experience. Now what we're going to do this morning is we're going to start in to an examination of what I'm calling the major elements of the biblical doctrine of justification. Having seen the importance, the context, God is creator and judge, man is created and sinner, having looked at the meaning of the word, now we're going to break down the massive weight of biblical teaching into some of its major categories so that you'll be able to think through and appreciate the privileges that are yours in Christ as a justified person. Now, the minute you begin to do this, you ask the question, what shall I use as a teaching framework? Some would say a teaching model. How shall I serve up all these rich dainties that are in the word of God?

15:11 Well, as I've so often done from this pulpit, I'm going to use the Westminster Standards as a teaching framework. Now, I'm not preaching the larger catechism to you. I'm to preach the word. But I'm going to preach the word within the framework of a definition of justification found in the larger catechism.

15:33 In other words, I'm simply serving up the food, the substance of the Bible, in dishes that are likened to the confession. You don't eat on the dishes. You don't chew the dishes, if you have your sanity. You eat the food that is served in those dishes that help separate the various courses and the various elements of your meal.

15:54 Now, that's all we're doing with the Westminster larger catechism is using it as the dishes on which to serve up the word of God with reference to the doctrine of justification. Question number 70 in the larger catechism is, what is justification? And the answer? Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in the Lord.

16:28 In his sight, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ by God imputed to them and received by faith alone. And you say, Pastor Martin, I thought you had more sense than to know you can't communicate effectively to 20th century people who are used to five word sentences and nothing but news headlines with all that massive verbiage. Now, come off it, man. Use some good sense.

17:05 All right, I've heard your objection. May I respond?

17:10 I can do no better than to set before you not a massive verbiage. You know what that long sentence is? It is what one theologian said, perhaps the closest thing to inspiration in uninspired literature.

17:30 It is the fruit of a keen grasp upon the teaching of the word of God and that teaching as it has been attacked by the enemies of truth and error and of error all through the history of the church. Not a word is wasted.

17:50 If someone were to look at the hope diamonds and say that's too big and wieldy, please condense it for me. You'd destroy its beauty. This is a hope diamond. You can't condense it without destroying it.

18:03 So we're just going to unpack it over a period of a number of weeks. And all I propose to do this morning is to take these opening words. What is justification?

Element 1: God as the Author of Justification

18:14 Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners. That's as far as we're going to go. And the first thing we discover in that definition is this. That the author of justification is God himself.

18:32 The author of justification is God himself. Now will you open the scriptures? And we're usually not this long actually coming to the text. And I wrestled long and hard with whether I could justify standing on my feet for 15 or 17 minutes and not open the scriptures. And all factors being considered, I chose to do so. And I trust I've made the right choice. Turn please to Romans chapter 3.

19:02 What we are concerned to discover first of all as to the major elements of the doctrine of justification is that the living God himself is its author. In Romans 3, the apostle having given that classic statement concerning the universal sinfulness of man then goes on to declare that which God has done in Christ to turn away the sentence of guilty. And now we read in verse 26, for the showing I say of his righteousness at this present season that he might himself be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus. Now it's this phrase to which I direct your attention. It is God who is the subject of this rather involved sentence. Back in verse 25 we read whom God set forth.

20:07 A propitiation through faith in his blood. And it is that God who is said to be in verse 26 it is this God who is the justifier.

20:21 And in language that cannot be misunderstood, the apostle here sets before us this first strand of the doctrine of justification namely that God himself is the author of this declaration. He emphasizes the same thing in verse 30. If so be that God is one and he shall justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. Again, language is clear and at this point this part of the emphasis is unmistakably clear. God himself is justifier. We turn over to chapter 8 of the book of Romans and we find similar statements. Now please do not feel insulted that I am underscoring what is so obvious because the history of the church proves that often people fail to grasp what is most obvious. And so by assuming it and not clearly expounding it and teaching it men have irresponsibly sowed the seeds of error by their silence. Paul has

21:39 opened up again this broad scope of God's saving work of Christ in verses 29 and 30 of Romans 8. Then he asks the question in verse 31. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

21:59 He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? And now the question is hurled as it were into the teeth of the entire moral intelligent universe. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who will come through the door and find any of God's children guilty?

22:26 Who can lay a just charge of guilt before any of the people of God? And his answer is this. It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? In other words, you see, the apostle says in this passage that if the living God himself has made the justifying declaration, where is the being, the moral creature that can come and cancel or negate the declarative act of God himself?

Implications of God's Authorship: Irreversible and Truth-Based Declaration

23:09 And the whole point of emphasis is, that the author of justification is the key to understanding the non reversible nature of the justifying declaration. And we could bring to the service of this point other scriptures, 1 Corinthians 1.30, Galatians 3.8, but I'll not weary you with doing that. I want now simply to trace out several lines of thought showing how important this is for our understanding of the doctrine of justification. First of all, if God is the author, then it is a declaration which none can cancel or alter. If God is the author, then justification is a declarative act which none can cancel or alter. All sin is ultimately against God and his law.

24:11 All judgment is in the hands of God. That's why we dealt with the context, you see, of justification. God is lawgiver, God is judge, and none can take that prerogative from him. Well, you see, if the one who is the lawgiver and the one who is the judge, if this one says, no liability to punishment, if this one says, that individual deserves to be treated as one who has fully kept the law, who can come along and negate or cancel or alter the declarative act of the living God?

24:54 You see, we have a system of appeals in our system of jurisprudence. It's gone to seed and made of much of our jurisprudence, much of our legal and penal code. It's made it a sham, this whole system of appeals. But be that as it may, once an appeal has reached the Supreme Court in the Supreme Court has spoken, apart from discovering some technicality that would negate the whole proceeding, there is no higher court to which an American citizen can appeal. Once it's gone to the Supreme Court, there is no supreme, supreme court above the Supreme Court. That's the highest court of appeal. Well, you see, God's throne is the Supreme Court. As one has said, it is God's government that we live under.

25:47 It's His law that we've broken. It is His Son that has died as it is His court before which we must all appear. So it is right that He and none other should pass sentence upon us. In the moral government of the universe, God's authority is so supreme and exclusive. He alone is the lawgiver. He alone is the judge. No one has jurisdiction but himself. No one can really or effectually justify or condemn us but this God.

26:23 Now again, some of you say, Pastor Martin, aren't you beating the things thin at the edges? I see the point. Now let's get on to the next point. Do you really see it, my friend? In counseling with numbers of you, I doubt that this has ever come home to the chambers of your consciousness in the power of the Holy Ghost. Because if it did, all of this stumbling and groveling and unbelief and defeat would at least materially be done away with. And your basic problem is you've not yet learned this simple principle. The author of justification is the living God.

27:07 If He has pronounced the sentence justified, then let all the demons in hell come together. Let them come together under the great archer's enemy of God, the devil himself. Let them with one united course, with perfect cadence, without anything to indicate that there is any break in their aggregate conviction and with their one voice, let them hurl into the ears of a child of God the remembrance of all of his sins, the remembrance that God is holy, the remembrance that sin deserves wrath. Let them try to rake his conscience and his memory with all the realities of his sin and of the judgment of God. But if that child of God knows, it is God that justifieth, it is He that condemneth, then you'll be able to say, though all the host of hell put all vicious accusations before me, I can trace them all. In the confidence that if Almighty God has declared me righteous, believing

28:34 in His Son, then that sentence will in no way be retracted because of the din of the combined voices of all the imps of hell and the devil himself. It is an irreversible, non- retractable declaration. On the other hand, on the other hand, if all the angels of heaven were to rise up and to declare you or me righteous, if all the saints were to come forth and add their testimony to the testimony of the angels and the entire universe of redeemed creatures were to make a pronouncement that I was just, my friend, if Almighty God has not made that pronouncement, there is nothing that their combined testimony can do. To negate that which God has made. You see, this thing cuts both ways. It cuts for the consolation of the tempest tossed, distressed, conscience-tormented child of God who is seeking with every fiber of his inner being to cling to Christ and Christ alone as his hope of justifying mercy.

29:57 You see, this should be his comfort, clinging to Christ, albeit with a weak and a vacillating faith, but clinging nonetheless is God that justifieth. What is the voice of your memory? What are the accusations of the enemy? It is God that justifieth. Are you not dishonoring him by failing to give credit to what he has said? And on the other hand, my friend, you may be taking great comfort that professing Christians regard you as a justified person. You may take comfort that others regard you as such, but you see, the ultimate issue is not that of standing before the court of men's judgment, but standing before the court of the living God himself. And if you do not know sitting here this morning that in the only court that counts a declaration has been made, a declaration

31:02 of righteousness. Give yourself no rest until you know that court has made that pronouncement.

31:14 But then there is a second deduction from this element of our study that God is the author. First of all, if he is, it's a declaration which none can cancel or alter. Then secondly, it is a declaration which must be founded on truth and on reality. Since God himself condemns the judge who pronounces the guilty innocent and the innocent guilty, God will not be guilty of that sin. God condemns a judge who pronounces innocent people guilty, who pronounces guilty people innocent. In this very epistle to the Romans, one of the scathing denunciations that comes to the moralists, to those who have further light than some of the pagans, God says, you're without excuse. The thing you condemn in others, you yourself do. Well, will God condemn unrighteous judgment and then be guilty of it? It's unthinkable.

32:07 There can be no injustice with God. Well, you see, if God declares sinners righteous, then that declaration must be founded on truth and on reality. May I say it reverently? God himself cannot close his eyes to truth and simply exercise his sovereignty and declare something that isn't. He can make worlds out of nothing when he chooses. All he does is open his mouth and speak. He spake and it was done. But you see, God cannot speak on truth. The scripture says he cannot lie. And the text says, it is God that justifies. It is God that makes a declaration. He declares, accepts, and treats sinners as just.

32:57 Well, if that declaration is according to truth and reality, then wonder of wonders. God must have done something and must yet do something that actually puts sinners in such a relationship to his law and to truth that when he declares, no condemnation. You are to be treated with all the favor of one who's kept the law. He must be constituting that reality before he declares that reality.

33:33 You see, justification must be constitutive before it can be declarative. And though that awaits down the line when we come to the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, suffice it to say at this point, that's where that orbit of all our blessings comes into play. For when we are in Christ, united to him, then indeed there is this constitutive act. The righteousness of Christ does indeed become ours.

34:07 Not by being infused into us, but imputed to us. Put to our account and having put it to our account, God declares the account to be what it is in reality. You see, this is no kind of just juggling notions up in the court of heaven somewhere. And when that comes home to your heart, my friend, that'll take the most phlegmatic of you and raise you out of your seat at least six inches.

34:32 That almighty God actually does something in a constitutive manner that he may declare in truth that a guilty sinner is justified. That ought to make you as a Christian determined to understand everything that is revealed about the way and the grounds on which God who can only pronounce according to truth can pronounce me just as if I'd never sinned. I frankly don't understand how a man can claim to love God, love his word and be indifferent to this matter of seeking to grasp clearly the grounds of his justification. But suffice it to say, if God's the author, then once he's declared us just, none can alter that declaration. If he declares us just, that declaration is founded on truth and reality. And then, since it is the very God against whom we've so fouled, and wickedly revolted, we should be prepared immediately to understand that justification must be gracious. And that moves us into the second

Element 2: Free Grace as the Source of Justification

35:54 area of our study this morning. Look at the definition. Justification is an act of God's free grace. If God is the author, then free grace is the source of our justification. Now the term free grace, as used in the confession, in the catechism, and used in theological literature, is used basically in two ways. For us, usually the word free means without cost, without money. But the word free we also use in the other sense unbounded, unfettered. We say the man was free as a bird in the air, that is as unfettered as the bird who has the entire expanse of the heavens in which to fly.

36:43 Well, often theological literature speak of free grace. That is God's grace that is unfettered by any strictures that man can lay upon it, by any external laws. It is as free as the exercise of his own sovereign will. I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. And God is free in that sense, in the display of mercy, as well as in the display of his power. But then it's also used in the sense of Romans 3.24, and I want to direct your attention to that portion of the word. Having announced again man's sinfulness, verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

37:35 Those of you who were in the adult class a few weeks ago will remember, Mr. Garlington pointed out that this word freely means as a gift, without payment, undeservingly. Now the word grace certainly has that implicit in it. Grace is God's favor to the ill-deserving.

37:56 God giving just the opposite of what the object of grace deserves. But to underscore the gratuitous nature, the undeserved nature, he piles up these words and so we are justified freely by his grace. Free grace. And the source of justice and justification is the grace of God towards ill-deserving sinners. And that aspect of teaching is found in many portions of the word of God. In Titus 3.7 we have this language that being justified by his grace. Or Romans 5 in verse 21.

38:41 As sin reigned in death, so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life. And then the well-knowned chapter, Ephesians 2, where again and again the apostle says, by grace you have been saved. By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. In other words, when we ask the question, God is the author of justification.

39:08 What was it in God that ever moved him first of all to conceive a way whereby he might justify sinners and still be a holy and a just God? Furthermore, what was it that moved him to execute that plan? Furthermore, having executed it, what is it that moves him to make it effectual in the lives of specific sinners in time and space? Well, the scripture says, it is grace.

39:39 It is God himself moved by nothing in us, but wholly in the pure energy of his own sovereign grace and love. That was the source of this great blessing of justification. Now, if that's true and it is, do you see at the outset how any theory of justification that has as its practical effect to leave the sinner glorying in anything other than free, uncaused, sovereign love and mercy cannot be the biblical view. And here's where some of you, you don't know it, but you're still Romanist at heart.

The Danger of Works-Righteousness and the Freedom of Grace

40:22 And I speak now not as a theorist who sits up in his study doing nothing but reading books. These days I wish I could have a day to do nothing but read books. But I speak as one who spends many hours a week wrestling, travailing with the deepest agonies of the soul that are opened up to me three feet away across the other side of my desk. And all that some of you would hear me this morning, here's your problem right here. Feel that the justifying act or the justifying declaration of God is altered by your performance.

41:06 And though you would never say, I hope to be justified by my works, the very fact that you cannot glory unless your works are all they should be show that you've got a hard fibrous core of works righteousness fouling you up. And you've not yet thrown yourself into that boundless sea of sovereign grace and mercy.

41:38 You haven't done it. And it's not because it hasn't been preached.

41:45 It's because, you see, there is this subtle twist of our corruption, aided by the voice of the enemy of our souls himself. That somehow, if we dare simply to throw ourselves out in that sea, we'll be drowned in antinomianism, or that is, a license to sin. If I say that the peace of my acceptance is grounded in factors totally external to my performance at any point,

42:25 somehow that will turn the grace of God into license. No, it won't, my friend. For he who has thrown himself on that boundless sea of the infinite grace and mercy finds himself so filled with the wonder of that grace that he has the most consistent and strongest desires to please the God who has justified him. You see, the ultimate contention with Rome is right here.

42:58 Roman theology says the only way to keep a whip on the back of the people of God to drive them in the path of obedience is to say, your performance materially influenced is your justification.

43:15 Whereas the truth of the Bible and the great truth loosed in the Reformation is this. The child of God needs no whip of his performance to put him in the way of obedience. But he is drawn into it irresistibly and powerfully by the sight of free and sovereign grace that fully confers without reservation just defying mercy to the believing sinner.

43:48 And God's got to make it real to you. Some of you have sat for hours and opened up passages and I've prayed and you still don't see it and if anything so humbling it's this. God must do it. Cry to him to do it as I cry to God on your behalf.

44:04 Cry for yourself and then make every effort to come to that posture where you dare to say I shall sink myself in the mercy of God. I shall by the grace of God trust only in the work and performance of another or die in the effort.

Element 3: Sinners as the Objects of Justification

44:31 The source of our justification is free grace. Any theory of justification that has as its practical effect our glorying or trusting in anything other than that grace cannot be of God. But then in the third place and I touch upon this briefly the definition in our catechism says just justification is an act of God's free grace to sinners. God's the author free grace the source the objects sinners.

45:01 Justification is an act of God's free grace to sinners. Two key texts of scripture Romans chapter 4 and verse 5 Romans 4 and verse 5 But to him that worketh not but believeth on him but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. His faith is reckoned for righteousness. Now there's the phrase to which I direct your attention.

45:41 Justifieth the ungodly.

45:48 Justification is an act of God's free grace and thank God the framers of the Westminster standards put no adjective in front of sinners. They would have destroyed the biblical doctrine had they done it. They didn't say an act of free grace to seeking sinners. An act of free grace to partially reformed sinners.

46:09 They didn't say an act of free grace to sincere earnest sinners. They said an act of free grace to sinners. And in so doing they simply reflect the Pauline language. God justifieth the ungodly.

46:26 And the justifying act takes place when in the reckoning of the sinner he is nothing other than an ungodly man.

46:37 Not an ungodly man on the way to becoming godly. Not an ungodly man half reformed but an ungodly man standing before the court of heaven with nothing but the sentence of guilty upon his head. In that sense justifying faith is the most heroic act of faith in the whole universe. The more I meditate upon it the more I'm convinced of it.

47:01 To stand before the court of heaven with the ungodly man the accusation of conscience and the law ringing in your ears and to believe that a sentence comes from the court of heaven justified before you've had no time to shape up before you'd have no time to fix yourself up standing there in all the impoverishment and guilt of your sin.

47:32 The second passage that shows I'm not overstating the case is Luke chapter 18.

47:38 How wonderful of the Lord to put this whole doctrine into practice. In the flesh and blood of a real life situation just bristling with these dimensions of spiritual reality.

47:53 Two men have gone to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee one a publican. Many of you are familiar with the incident Luke 18 and now verse 13. But the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven but smote his breast.

48:15 What a sight! What was his present mental, spiritual, psychological consciousness. It was one of sinnerhood. Pure, unadulterated sinnerhood.

48:26 If I may ever call sinnerhood pure.

48:31 He would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven smote upon his breast saying God be thou merciful to me and in the original the article is there the sinner.

48:46 You see something of the psychology of his consciousness he was not conscious of having a sincerely seeking heart. He was not conscious of having a sincere resolve to forsake his sin. He was not conscious of having a sincere anything. The only thing he is conscious of is sinnerhood.

49:04 The sinner!

49:08 And he looks out of himself as a sinner. And he doesn't pad his approach to God with anything. He doesn't lift his head a little bit because he sees one step of earnestness. Or two steps of seekingness.

49:25 He will not so much as lift his eyes to heaven engulfed with the painful consciousness of sinnerhood and he beats upon his breast and wrung out of that condition is a plea that God would be propitious to him. Well what's his end? Well the Lord tells us. I say unto you this man went down to his house and after he lived a good Christian life for a week and after he quit ten of his worst sins and five of his lesser sins and after he had prayed for ten hours and read his Bible for twenty hours then he was justified.

50:06 That's exactly the way some of you would write it if you could. But that isn't what it says. Look. He went down to his house justified.

50:17 The moment the cry was run from this heart conscious of nothing but sinnerhood God be propitious to me a sinner the sinner he went down to his house justified. Now did he go down to his house regenerate too with a principle of life within desiring to put his feet in the way of holiness to be a praying man? Sure all those things are true but they enter not into the issue of his justification rested not on anything in him but solely in that which lay in God himself.

51:01 You see the recipient of this justifying act was a sinner. Now you see this teaching of the word of God underscores the fact that when God justifies he does so as dealing with those who in themselves have nothing to bring to God nothing to commend themselves to God. They do not bring any suitable preparation or anything of this nature.

51:27 There are those of you who sit here this morning and my heart yearns for you. You've been taught all your life that until you can lift your head at least a little bit and call God to look upon your sincere seeking your sincere endeavors your sincere something you will not and some of you I fear may perish in this state you will not stand before God conscious of nothing but sinnerhood and go out of yourself and look to God for nothing from his hand but to be a sinner. A pure gracious justifying declaration. You're still waiting for something sinnerhood plus. My friend you'll look and wait in vain. Can the scriptures be more plain than these scriptures? He justifies the ungodly.

52:26 Are you ungodly? Well you're the kind of person he justifies. Oh but you say Pastor Martin all I feel is my sin are heard hallelujah wonderful stand like the public plead like the public and you have the promise that believing you too will go down to your house justified.

52:57 You as a sinner must not look to anything in yourself but wholly out of yourself and to Christ and Christ alone.

The Pharisee's Error: No Felt Need for Grace

53:10 But at the same time here's the other side of it. Justifying grace does not come to one who has no felt need of it. That's the Pharisee in the first part of our Lord's parable in Luke 18. What was wrong with the Pharisee?

53:25 Well it's not that Pharisees are beyond the pale of God's saving mercy. Grace can save Pharisees but not as long as Pharisees have no felt need. He struts into the temple on not his other man. What's he saying?

53:38 He's saying I don't need I don't need a righteousness base solely on the work of another. I've got my own based in my character and in my performance. My friend listen to me. If you want to go to the court of heaven pleading your own case based on your own performances go ahead and be a fool and do it.

54:01 You know what Almighty God will do to your case? He'll make mincemeat of that case in 30 seconds.

54:07 Almighty God will bring in evidence that'll shut your mouth in 30 seconds. Oh but I've been moral and upright. You know what God will do? He'll peel back your heart and He'll show you in the presence of angels and the redeemed and all the multitudes in that day the foul motives that lay behind your so-called noble deeds.

54:29 How they literally were shot through with the worms and the vermin of pride and creature confidence. God will lay bare the thoughts of your heart the intents of the heart. You come before God with what you think is a very convincing case. All the evidence as to why the court of heaven should declare you just and let you in.

54:53 My friend God will make mincemeat of it in 30 seconds.

54:59 Then where will you be? You'll be with that poor deluded Pharisee. You'll hear the words depart from me ye cursed I never know you. Oh how much better to go before the court and when the evidence comes in say it's all true.

55:13 Guilty. And the more evidence comes in say guilty. And let the whole mountain of evidence be laid before that court and then look to the judge himself and say but oh God I plead that you will hear publicly declare this sinner righteous. Manifest to the universe that which has already been declared the moment I believe.

55:43 And wonder of wonders to everyone who rests in Christ everyone who is in Christ by faith the judge himself will say not just acquitted not just pardoned not just not liable to punishment but treat that sinner as though he had perfectly kept my law through every moment of his existence from his conception to his death.

56:19 My friend that's the only case I want to plead in that court and I can plead it because there's one who did that for me.

Conclusion: The Certainty and Comfort of Justification in Christ

56:28 Now do you understand a bit better that hymn Jesus thy blood and righteousness are my beauty my glorious dress midst flaming worlds in these arrayed with joy shall I lift up my head bold shall I stand in thy great day for who ought to my charge shall I fully absolve from these I through these I am from sin and fear and death and shame bold shall I stand in thy great day. My friend just trying to forget the day of judgment doesn't negate the certainty of its coming and you see in our climate the climate the mental moral climate of our day the whole concept of everything in history leading to the last day the great day of judgment it's well by gone and that's why this heart of the gospel no longer is heard and loved in our generation. But once sinners begin to feel the sting of what it is to be sinner what it is to be under condemnation to know that everything is heading to that day. Ah my friend there's nothing that gives you rest in the face of that day but the knowledge that I am even now acquitted by the judge in the court of heaven and the last day will only be the open declaration of that acquittal.

57:58 What is justification? Justification is an act of God. He's the author. My friend you've got to have dealings with God.

58:08 You're going to have them in the last day. You better have them now.

58:12 It's an act of God's free grace. If you still think in your religion the beginning middle and end of it is do good be nice pat yourself on the back do a little more good be a little nicer pat yourself a little more and somehow you'll pat yourself into heaven my friend. I hope you had that shattered this morning.

58:31 It better be shattered.

58:34 It's a gracious act of God. It's rooted in nothing of the sinner's performance nothing of the sinner's merit. It's God's favor to the ill deserving and the objects of this justifying act sinners sinners as sinners sinners with nothing but their sinnerhood to plead oh what will it take for some of you to come as sinners come as sinners you say I don't dare come that's right it is I say it's the most heroic act of faith to dare to put nothing between you and the fiery judgment of God but the doings and the dying of another but my friend that's the only thing that is a certain resting place may God grant that if you've not come there you'll come this morning and you who've come what will it take to get you to stay where you've come? because all your trouble starts when you move from that posture and when you've been a good girl and a good boy for a week then you have joy in your justification but when you steal a few cookies you think God's going to reverse the sentence no he didn't he may whap you on the hands for whom he loves he chastens and he may whap you a few other places too but that's the chastening of a loving father that's not the condemnation of an angry judge and some of you have yet

Prayer for Understanding and Deliverance from Works-Righteousness

60:04 to make that distinction and there are times I sit at my desk and say oh God what's wrong is it me am I not making it plain Lord help me what will it take for some of you to get rid of that cursed leaven of works righteousness and Romanism would to God we could dig a pit outside this auditorium and have a burial service this afternoon and everyone take all the remnants of works righteousness and Romanism and bury it and kick the dirt on it and kiss it goodbye forever but it's not that easy oh may God help you may God help me that we shall find ourselves saying with the great apostle God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ let us pray our gracious Father what thanks can we render to you that in the context of the ugly reality of our sin a reality so vividly displayed at the cross

61:31 when the heavens were shrouded and when the piercing cry went forth from the heart and lips of your dear son my God my God why hast thou forsaken me oh our God in the light of those realities we thank you we thank you that justifying grace is no mirage we thank you that it is no humanly conceived religious notion but that from heaven you've revealed how you can be just and the justifier of the one who believes in Christ oh God by the spirit teach us this great truth of scripture write it upon our hearts weave it into the fabric of our whole religious consciousness purge from us the leaven of our works righteousness our trusting to our performance have mercy upon those who will not venture upon your son as sinners in pure unmixed sinnerhood oh God deal with them this morning will you not draw them to that place where Christ and Christ alone is their

63:00 resting place blast we pray the sand castles of those who think their own performance is good enough Lord track them down give them to feel in the depths of their hearts something of the terror of the last day when all their vaunted performances and all of their works righteousness will be consumed in a moment oh God drive them from every refuge until they flee for refuge to Christ alone help us who do believe on your son particularly those who are having struggles with assurance struggles with guilt struggles with doubt oh God will you not come to them and mercifully deliver them from all of that muddle and all of that bondage that comes when they have but one eye to Christ and the other upon their own performance Lord God deal with us all in mercy seal your word to our hearts and dismiss us with your blessing we pray in Jesus name Amen