A Review (Part 1)

Introduction: Returning to the Doctrine of Justification

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, June 17, 2007, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:13 May I urge you to follow with me in your Bibles as I read the first five verses of the fifth chapter of Paul's letter to the church at Rome, the book of Romans, chapter 5. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we also rejoice in our tribulations. No. Knowing that tribulation works steadfastness, and steadfastness, approvedness, and approvedness, hope.

1:16 And hope puts not to shame, because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given unto us. Let us again seek the face of God in prayer for the help of His Spirit as we come to the...

1:36 study of His Word.

1:41 Our Father, we have sung together as our corporate confession the conviction that without the Spirit's present and powerful ministry, we will receive no light and no heat from Your Word. We will simply thread words through our eyeballs. They will touch upon the tables of our brains, but there will be no penetration. No.

2:09 No. There will be no light of saving knowledge, no heat of holy affections. Lord, do not leave us at the mercy of our own pathetic nothingness, but come to us in grace and in power for the good of our souls and for the glory of Your name we pray. Amen.

2:36 Amen.

2:41 Of all the questions, you and I, might raise relative to the truly profound issues of life, and there are many such questions, none, I say none, is more important than the question, how can sinful man be made right with God, and therefore be prepared to stand in the day of judgment before God, and therefore be prepared to stand in the day of judgment before God, and therefore be prepared to stand in the day of judgment before God, than condemned? The only trustworthy answer to this question is given to us in our Bibles. It is given to us clearly. It is given to us repeatedly. But in spite of this, man's ability to ignore, to distort, or even to deny the validity of the Bible's answer to this most profound of all questions, means nobody. of all the questions. knows no limits since knowing and embracing from the heart the bible's answer to this most important question is a matter of life and death eternal life eternal death none of us

4:03 sitting here this morning can afford the luxury of being ignorant of the bible's answer to that question or embrace a wrong answer to that question and the biblical answer to that question how can sinful man be right with god and face the day of judgment without any legitimate fear comes to us in the biblical doctrine of justification by faith based upon the imputation of the righteousness of jesus jesus christ our lord and therefore any faithful preacher of the word must give due place to preaching and teaching this marvelous doctrine this truth that answers the question how can i a sinful man woman boy or girl be right with god and therefore seeking to fulfill the role of a faithful preacher last spring i began you a series of messages on the subject of justification or early last summer

5:19 and in seeking to open up that doctrine i preached 14 sermons then i was constrained to break off that series of sermons and preach an extended series on our lord's words in matthew 7 13 and 14 concerning the narrow door of truth biblical radical conversion and the narrow or the compressed and difficult way of radical discipleship which alone according to jesus will issue in eternal life and i sought to open up what is that narrow gate what is that compressed way and then to warn as our lord did that there is always an easy alternative called by jesus the why gate the broad way but a gate in a way which alas lead not to life but to everlasting destruction then at the suggestion of my fellow office bearers the suggestion i believe was wise and and judicious i preached 15 messages on the subject of grace produced gospel shaped god glorifying giving and in that i gave a verse

6:42 by verse exposition of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, and then brought several messages on the subject when tithing can be a help to grace-produced, gospel-shaped, God-glorifying giving, and when tithing can be a hindrance to that kind of giving. Today marks our return to our consideration of this grand and crucially important doctrine of justification. And since we're returning to our study, about two-thirds of the way through the projected completion of this series, and since ten months has passed since our last message preached on August 13 of 2006, as I wrestled and sought the counsel of my fellow elder as to what to do, I have decided that I'm going to use today's ministry, both this morning and this evening, to accomplish what some would say is impossible, and that is to squeeze into two reasonably structured and reasonable in length condensations of 14 messages into two of these overview review messages. Now this attempt,

The Necessity of a Didactic Review for Spiritual Stability

8:06 has not been easy for me in preparing, and it won't be easy in my preaching of it. It will not be an easy mental discipline for me or for you. It will not be easy for me because I will not be able to pause and open up the rich portions of the Word of God that we have studied in the previous 14 messages as I went over all of the notes once or twice yesterday, seeking to call out the main pivots in the divine. And I'm going to do that today. I'm going to do that today. I'm going to do the development of this series of studies again, as I looked at the dozens of texts, everything in me wanted to re-preach the whole series. I can't do that, so it's not going to be easy for me to stuff down the preacher and the expositor in me that will want to leap out after point, after point, after point. And it's not going to be easy for you. This will be an intense mental engagement if ever you committed yourself to keep the first commandment to love god with all your mind as well as your soul and your strength it will be as i work through this overview with you this morning and again this evening and the

9:20 fundamental reason for my doing this is very simple ephesians 4 says that pastors and teachers are given to christ church in order to perfect the saints unto works of service and then in verse 13 to enable the saints to be stable in their understanding of truth that they no longer be children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and even with regard to this doctrine though i am not going to spend time apprising you of some of the current winds that are seeking to pervert it and twist it and overturn it as it has been understood by the saints of god for centuries you nonetheless you need to be established in this truth and there are times when as a preacher i have got to give myself to something that is more heavily didactic that is more mentally demanding not because i delight in doing it but because i'm constrained by my god-given description of my responsibilities as a pastor so then i've apprised you as to what we are doing here

The Crucial Importance of Justification: God's Glory and Man's Good

10:36 to praise youquick for believing as myола all those who message is two through five the biblical context of the biblical doctrine of justification and then messages six through to Ü I began to open up the substance of the biblical doctrine of justification. What I will attempt to do in the time remaining this morning is to give you a distillation of the first six messages. First of all, then, the crucial importance of the biblical doctrine of justification. And I asserted in that opening sermon that this doctrine was important in terms of two very simple categories of concern. It is important with respect to the glory of God and important with respect to the good of men.

11:47 With respect to the glory of God, it is a vitally important truth in God's Word. And when approaching any aspect of biblical concern, we should always start with God. I believe there is no more pivotal text in all of Scripture than Romans 11.36.

12:08 For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. And we must see that in the biblical doctrine of justification, we have a responsibility to fix our concern upon this fundamental issue of the glory of God. And for this simple reason, that God's method of rescuing a host of hell-deserving sinners, in which justification has a central place, God's work of rescuing sinners becomes the prism through which God displays in the fullest and the most beautiful way all of His glorious attributes. Never was God's...

13:01 Justice, God's holiness, God's love, God's wisdom more fully displayed than in contriving a way whereby guilty, hell-deserving sinners might have their sins fully punished, God remaining fully just, completely unstained in His holiness. Never were all of His attributes more fully displayed in the divine scheme, of how guilty sinners can be right with God. And therefore, if we have any passion for appreciating and promoting the glory of God, we will have a passion to understand the biblical doctrine of justification. But it is also important with respect to the good of men. Men who are not yet called into fellowship with Christ, and those who are presently, in fellowship with Christ. Why is it important with respect to lost sinners?

14:07 Well, for the simple reason that justification is the central blessing of the gospel of the grace of God. Paul could say in Romans 1, 16 and 17, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation. And why is it that? He tells us in verse 17, For...

14:31 Therein, that is, in the gospel, is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith. The gospel is what it is, the power of God unto salvation, because of the provision that it announces. And it announces a way of right standing that is conceived and revealed by God, is conferred by God, to every believing sinner. And so, for the good of men, we must maintain the purity of the gospel.

15:09 The gospel that we proclaim must not be some watered down, some distorted, lopsided version of the gospel, but the vigorous apostolic gospel that answers precisely the question, how can sinful man be made right with God, while God maintains, all the integrity of His holiness and His justice. For the good of sinners, if we love them, and we want them rescued by the gospel, we must be concerned to understand, to defend, and to propagate the biblical doctrine of justification. But then, for God's people, in a very real sense, an understanding of this doctrine is the foundation of all spiritual stability. If you have not settled in your heart before God a solid confidence that the whole issue of the punishment due to my sins has been dealt with, once and for all, finally, irrevocably, you will have no stability in your Christian life. Though justification is not the only or even the highest blessing of God's love, it is God's grace to sinners. It is the foundational blessing.

16:37 And unless we are established in it, we will not have stability in our Christian experience. Listen to what one of God's saints from another generation has said on this point. It has long been my firm conviction that the only effective refutation of error is the establishment of the truth. And then he goes on to say, that the truth is one.

17:05 Error is multiform. And if we grasp the truth of a biblical doctrine, that's the greatest preventive against errors concerning that doctrine. And therefore, if we're to be protected from all kinds of errors with respect to the Christian life, the starting point is a firm grasp upon and an internalizing of the reality of justification by faith. So that was the first message.

The Biblical Context of Justification: The 'Nose' in the 'Face'

17:36 The crucial importance of the biblical doctrine of justification. Then we move to the second major division, the biblical context of the doctrine of justification. Now why is it important to start there? Well, let me use an illustration.

17:53 Here's a man who's given to study human anatomy. And he wants to understand the human knowledge. And so he gets charts on the human nose, cross-sections. He may study cadavers and look intently at the various parts of the human nose, the external structure, the nostrils, the septum, the turbinates, etc.

18:16 But all he's done is look at this proboscis here. He's isolated the nose. He doesn't understand its relationship to the eyes, to the forehead, to the chin, to the ears. He does not know the human nose as God created it.

18:31 Until he sees the nose in its physiological context. Midway between the forehead and the chin, not out here. Between the ears, not stuck on one of the ears, and between the eyes. A man does not understand the nose apart from its context.

18:52 Well, it's the same with justification. Justification has a biblical face. And if it's the nose, it's not enough to simplify simply zoom in on the explicit biblical texts that tell us what does it mean to justify. How does God justify?

19:12 In what way do we receive the blessing of justification? We must study the biblical context of the biblical doctrine of justification. And having sought to establish the necessity for this, we then considered three things that constitute the biblical context for the doctrine of justification. First, the nature of God himself.

Three Elements of Justification's Biblical Context

19:40 Secondly, the mutual relationship between God and his moral creatures. That's us. That's you. That's me.

19:48 And thirdly, the ultimate purpose and unfailing accomplishment of God in salvation. Unless we have some grasp upon those three categories of biblical truth, we will be looking at the no's in isolation from the whole head and the whole face. So then I sought to open up, first of all, what is it that we must understand about the nature of God himself without which we'll have little, if any, true appreciation of the doctrine of justification. We will understand from the scriptures that the God who is is the God who is eternally and unchangeably just. He is eternally and unchangeably holy. And he is eternally and unchangeably true. The doctrine of justification is what it is because God is who he is.

20:52 And it's only when we begin to take seriously who the God of the Bible is that we will appreciate the marvelous provision of God. And that's why we must have a vision of justification as it is set before us. It is because God is eternally and unchangeably holy that he hates with all of his being all that is unlike himself. God is not an indifferent observer of anything that is a contradiction to his holiness.

21:27 God's wrath, in a sense, is his revulsion to all that is holy. All that is unlike him. He is eternally and inflexibly just. The scriptures tell us he will by no means clear the guilty.

21:43 He is eternally inflexibly just and he is eternally and unchangeably true. What he says will come to pass. The soul that sins it shall die. The wages of sin is death.

22:01 Death. Those are words from God and God is true. And when we begin to appreciate the outworking and the implications of those realities, then the doctrine of justification begins to make sense. The doctrine of justification then begins to be good news to those who stand before this unchangeably holy, inflexibly just, and eternally true being called the one true and living God.

22:35 And we know that there is no way we can anticipate standing before him in the day of judgment with anything other than bread unless we have found the answer to that question how can sinful man be right with this God? And it is found in the biblical doctrine of justification. But then secondly, the context of justification is the mutual relationship between God and his moral creatures. He is our creator to whom we owe our existence and therefore unrivaled allegiance.

23:16 He is our lawgiver to whom we are accountable and to whom we owe strict obedience. And he is our judge to whom we will give an account in the last day. Now we looked at many, many scriptures. I know I'm preaching biblical truth.

23:35 Everything in me now wants to quote from memory two or three texts under each of those heads. I can't do it in the interest of time. This is a review. But I'm not just giving you my notions.

23:45 When I say to you, you and I must grasp and lay hold and never relinquish the reality of the mutual relationship established between God and his moral creatures. This is the reality. This is the teaching of the Bible. God is your creator to whom you owe not only your existence but your unrivaled allegiance.

24:10 It is right for him to say you shall have no other gods before me. Why? He's my creator. He made me for his own ends and his own purposes.

24:21 And when I, the creature, dare to rear back and say I will exist to my ends and my purposes with no sense of allegiance to my creator, you think God takes that lightly? You think God is indifferent to that kind of spiritual chicanery and cheat and rebellion? We've got to take seriously the fact that he is our creator to whom we owe our existence and unrivaled allegiance. Secondly, he is our lawgiver to whom we are accountable and to whom we owe strict and continuous obedience.

25:01 He has a right to say thou shalt and thou shalt not. He has a right to say do this and live, do this and fail to do that and you shall die. You say, well, I didn't vote on it. No, you didn't.

25:15 God established himself as your lawgiver. In virtue of being your creator, it is his right to assume the role as your lawgiver. And then he is our judge to whom we'll give an account at the last day. You can't shake the thought of this.

25:34 You can do your best to bin it out of your mind with your earbuds constantly in your ears, with your iPod and your MP3 players and your radio blaring and your CD always on in the car. You can try to bin it out, but it's there as you sit here this morning. You know you're marked for judgment.

26:00 You know it in your gut and you try to put it down as Paul says in Romans chapter 1. You try to suppress it, but God has marked you for judgment and he's scarred your soul from your very conception with the awareness that you are accountable to him as your judge. But then thirdly, the context of this glorious doctrine is not only who God is in himself, the mutual relationship between God and his people, his moral creatures, but thirdly, the ultimate purpose and the unfailing accomplishment of God in the salvation of sinners. We've got to grasp something of this ultimate purpose and accomplishment to which God is committed. Sin has made us not only guilty criminals, but it has made us marred images of God. We not only have a problem, we have a problem in the court of heaven. We have a problem in the stuff of our own souls.

27:09 The Bible speaks of defilement, of pollution, of that which the theologians have called depravity. And sin is going to be dealt with in the ultimate purpose of God, not only in terms of its guilt. God is committed not only to pardon and to declare righteous the guilty sinner, but God's committed to scour the sin out of his soul and to renew in man his own perfect image after the likeness of Christ. And furthermore, because sin has affected man's body, God is committed to do something with his body to rid it of all the effects of sin. And furthermore, sin has affected the whole creation. Romans chapter 8 says, The creation was subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by God's will. When man sinned, God cursed the earth.

28:09 And in God's redemptive purpose, he's not going to forget this earth. The scripture tells us when God's done his redemptive purpose fully accomplished, there'll be a new heavens and a new earth. And it's going to be inhabited by a great multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and nation. Every one of them will have perfected, sinless souls, inhabiting perfected, deathless bodies.

28:39 When God's done with you, child of God, think of it. A sinless soul inhabiting a deathless body in an environment totally, totally purged of all of the effects of the curse in company with everyone who bears the likeness of the Lord Jesus. Now that's God's ultimate purpose. And what I'm saying is this.

29:07 Justification is one part of a salvation that has that grand scope. It is a foundational part. It is an essential part. But it's not the only part.

29:21 And when people have grasped the doctrine of justification as though it were the sum total of their salvation, they end up with a distorted view and with a truncated experience of the Christian life. God is as passionately committed to make you like His Son in your moral constitution and ultimately in your physical constitution as He is to settle His controversy with you in the courtroom of heaven. Justification has to be seen in the context of the holistic view of God's salvation. Now, for us, under a sense of conviction of sin, it's as though there's only one issue of importance. How can I come out from under the ominous cloud of the impending judgment of God for my sin? And it's right that we should feel that. And in a sense, that should fill the vision of our spiritual exercises.

30:27 But we must get beyond that. In other words, we've got to move from the glorious, truest truths of Romans 3, 21 through the end of chapter 5 and have a holy obsession with the truths of Romans chapter 6 and 7 and 8 and the glorious, broad scope of God's redemptive purposes. So then, these are the three categories that I have submitted to you in the previous sermons that constitute the divinely given, the context of the biblical doctrine of justification. The nature of God Himself, holy, just, and true. The mutual relationship between God and ourselves, creature, a creator, accountable creature, lawgiver to subject, judge to accountable moral agent, and the ultimate purpose of God in the salvation of sinners. These biblical truths must be prominent in our thinking, in our prayers, in our hymnody, and in our preaching. The day we cease to sing with passion, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,

The Impact of a Diminished View of God on Justification

31:57 early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee. Oh, only Thou art holy, merciful, and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. The moment we cease to be comfortable contemplating what Isaiah contemplated, seeing the Lord high and lifted up, and these shining ones, these burning ones, these seraphim, holy, unstained creatures, veiling face and feet, and crying, saying one to another, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God the Almighty. Whenever we no longer sing holy, holy, holy, and have our hymnody throbbing with this view of the exalted holiness of God, we've cut the nerve of any appreciation for the doctrine of justification. And it's not without reason that this doctrine is not preached vigorously in our day, because the God, embodied in the dittyism of so much of so-called modern praise music, not all of it, not all of it, but much of it.

33:16 God's the buddy. God's the fuzzy teddy bear. We snuggle up to Him. Jesus is the one who hugs us, kisses us, and strokes us in our times of need.

33:28 He's not the Jesus of Revelation 1, whom when John, who leaned on his bosom in the days of his flesh, sees him in his present exalted, glorified state. What did he do? He said, I fell at his feet as one dead.

33:44 He saw the majestic, glorified Christ, and it shattered him. Like Isaiah saw the pre-incarnate Christ. John 12 says, Isaiah wrote those words when he saw the glory of Christ. And he falls, and he says, woe is me, for I am undone.

34:03 When we no longer sing guilty, vile, and helpless we, we'll no longer sing hallelujah. What a Savior. It's only when these categories of biblical truth concerning who God is in Himself, what we are in relationship to Him and He to us, and when we back off and see the broad scope of the full panorama of the saving purpose of God, that we will be as passionate for meticulous personal holiness as we are in rejoicing over free, irreversible justification, which enables us to say in the language of Romans 8, 1, there is therefore now, in the present time, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. With respect to the punishment due to our sin, the justified believer can say the day of judgment has come and is past. It came on Golgotha. The validation of the cry, it is finished, is the open tomb and hidden in Christ.

35:24 There is therefore now, presently, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Defining 'To Justify': A Crucial Forensic Term

35:36 Well, that was, the first two categories, the importance of the doctrine, with respect to the glory of God, to the good of men. The context of the biblical doctrine, these three categories of truth. Then, before moving into the next major category of concern, namely, the substance of the doctrine of justification, I stated that it was crucial to focus our attention upon the biblical definition and the usage, of the word to justify, the verb to justify. What does the Bible mean when it uses that verb?

36:17 And that was message number six. And so I want to spend just a few minutes, because this is absolutely crucial if we're to understand the biblical doctrine of justification. The day you get weary of having a precise understanding of God's meaning of biblical words, you are giving yourself over, to spiritual danger. Words are the means by which God is conveying His mind and His heart.

36:45 First Corinthians chapter two. Paul says, there are things in a man that no man knows, save the spirit of a man. And so no one knows the things of God, save the spirit of God. But then he goes on to say, which things we speak, we apostles, in words, which the Holy Spirit teaches.

37:05 Not just vague concepts, but the specific words. And therefore, the responsibility is upon preachers to give a proper definition and description of biblical words. And upon you as a child of God to be concerned about words. And this word to justify.

37:27 For example, when the scripture tells us in Luke chapter 18, the familiar parable of the publican and the Pharisee. You remember the Pharisee preens his face? His feathers in the presence of God. And then the publican beats upon his breast, will not so much as lift up his eyes, but cries out, God be merciful, be propitious to me, the sinner.

37:48 Jesus said this, this man, the publican, went down to his house justified rather than the other. Well, what happened to him when it says he went down justified? What did God do to him when he justified? Justified him.

38:10 Well, it's crucial to understand at the most elementary level that the word to justify is a legal or a courtroom or a forensic term. A legal, courtroom, forensic term. It has to do with what God declares about someone in the court of heaven. It has nothing to do with what God may do in a man or woman on earth.

38:39 It has something to do, everything to do, with what God declares is true of that man and the declaration is made in the court of heaven. Dr. J. I. Packer, in a very helpful article on justification in the Baker's Theological Dictionary, has this little paragraph that gives you the essence of what this word means. The biblical meaning of justify, the Hebrew word, sadaq, and the Greek in the New Testament, dikaya'o, is to pronounce, to accept, or to treat as just. As on the one hand, not liable to penalty, and on the other hand, entitled to all the privileges due to those who have kept the law. It is thus a forensic term denoting a judicial act of administering the law.

Biblical Evidence for the Forensic Meaning of 'Justify'

39:36 In this case, by declaring a verdict of acquittal and so excluding all possibility of condemnation. Justification thus settles the legal status of the person justified. Now, how do we know that's what that word means? Well, let me give you several lines of evidence as we conclude this morning's study.

40:01 Number one, there are many places where any other meaning is impossible. And here I want you to turn with me to some text. I've been preaching Bible truth. I've quoted a number of texts, but now this is so pivotal.

40:16 I want you to get it through the eye gate as well as the ear gate. Deuteronomy chapter 25, and verse one. How do we know what Dr. Packer has said is true?

40:29 And those who have sought to teach this doctrine, the doctrine as it is embodied in our creeds and confessions, How do we know that the term to justify is a purely legal term? Well, there are passages, I say, where any other meaning is impossible. Deuteronomy 25.1 If there be a controversy between men, and they come to judgment, and the judges judge them, then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.

41:04 Here's a controversy between two Hebrew men. They come before the elders or the people appointed to be judges. They listen to the evidence. They weigh it.

41:13 And at the end of that process, they say, This man has not done what he's charged with. He is a righteous man. And what should the judges do? They shall justify him.

41:27 Well, in justifying him, do they make him righteous? No. He's already a righteous man. He's not guilty of the thing he's charged with.

41:35 The evidence doesn't stand. So when they justify this righteous man, they don't make him righteous. They declare him to be right before the law. They declare him not to be guilty and worthy of punishment.

41:52 They declare him as one who has kept the law and worthy of all the privileges of a law keeper. When they justify the righteous, they make a legal declaration. Do you see that clearly in the passage? And secondly, there are passages where to justify is the opposite of condemn.

42:13 Now, what do we do when we condemn someone? We don't make them sinners. We don't make them guilty. We declare them to be guilty and worthy of punishment.

42:23 So there are passages where justification is the opposite of condemnation, both of which are pronouncements. Proverbs 17 and verse 15. Proverbs 17. And verse 15.

42:40 He that justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. If there's a wicked man, he has done wickedness, the evidence is clear, but now the judge declares him to be righteous. He that justifies the wicked declares a wicked man righteous. Here's another man who's righteous, but he's condemned.

43:08 They're an abomination. Now think for a minute. Would it be an abomination for someone to make a wicked man righteous? No, that would be a virtue.

43:20 So you see, justification doesn't have to do with making the wicked righteous. It has, I'm sorry, making the righteous, he that justifies the wicked, it has to do with making a pronouncement that is contrary to fact. Here's a wicked man, he ought to be condemned, he's justified, he's declared righteous. Here's a righteous man, he ought to be justified, he's condemned.

43:45 Justification, condemnation are opposites. Therefore, when we say, when the scripture says this man went down to his house justified, it's not speaking of what God may have done in him in regenerating him, what God has begun to do in him, to remake the image of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's speaking about what God has declared about him in the court of heaven. He went down to his house justified, declared a righteous man, a declaration made from the courtroom.

44:27 And we know that where places where any other meaning is impossible, passages where to justify is the opposite of condemn, thirdly, passages of equivalent terms. There are equivalent terms for justification that make it clear that it has to do with a legal pronouncement. Romans chapter 4, verses 4 to 6. Now to him that works, the reward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

45:00 But to him who works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness, even as David pronounced blessing upon the man unto whom God reckons righteousness apart from works. Here is the language of reckoning righteousness apart from works. Well, if it's talking about declaring righteousness comprised of righteous deeds, we're talking about something else. And so God, in all of these ways throughout the scriptures, makes it plain that the meaning of the word to justify takes us not into the operating room where God does something in us, but into the courtroom where God declares something to be true about us. Now, he never declares something to be true about us in the courtroom without also taking us into the operating room and doing something real. Real and dramatic and radical in us. But don't mix what God does in the operating theater from what he does in the court of heaven.

46:18 Because the work that he does in us is not perfect in this life. And if we gauge our standing in the courtroom by our awareness of how thorough is the operation upon us in the operating room, we'll be, we'll be unstable all of our days. Our consciences will never be free. We'll never be able to sing with Wesley, no condemnation now I dread.

46:51 Jesus and all is mine in him, alive in him my living head, and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold, bold I approach. The eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own. You'll not have that confidence if you do not come to grips with the simple, basic, fundamental, biblical truth that the meaning of the word by which God conveys to us this blessing locks this blessing into the category of the legal, of the forensic, of the courtroom of heaven.

Conclusion: Anticipating the Substance of Justification

47:36 And then we began after establishing that meaning of the word in messages 7 through 14 to begin to open up the substance of the doctrine using the definition of the larger catechism as our organizing principle. And that's where we'll go tonight and God willing I will attempt to give a distillation of those messages as we work through the first five elements of justification as given to us in the larger catechism definition. A beautiful, comprehensive definition born out of the wrestling of God's servants over many, many years. I'll just mention this to tease those of you who don't ordinarily attend the evening service. I urge you please to come back so that when I plunge into the sixth element, God willing next Lord's Day you'll be on board with me. But the group of men that hammered out the Westminster Confession of Faith and the larger and shorter catechisms, those men met off and on over a period of five and a half years. A hundred and fifty of them, usually there were eighty or ninety at the most at any one and given time, but a hundred and fifty of the keenest pastor theologians alive in the United Kingdom.

49:02 And they met over a period of five and a half years in more than one year. One thousand sessions. And often in one little prepositional phrase is a bastion of defense against a damning heresy that attacks the very vitals of a biblical doctrine. In doing this review yesterday, my soul was thrilled again at the precision, the accuracy with which in their massive knowledge of church history and of the councils and, and the ringing out of the creeds of the church in the midst of controversy, all of that wealth of pastoral passion that God's people might know the truth accurately and with precision is poured into that judicious statement of what justification is as an act of God's free grace unto sinners whereby,

50:03 and you come tonight and you'll get the rest. All right? Now, as I close, again, I rarely do what I've done this morning. It would have been much easier for me to take a sermon that I had preached last week that I hammered out while on vacation.

50:22 I didn't have any sermon notes with me other than one sermon I preached in Canton. It would have been a lot easier to just take those notes and preach to you and spend the hours at my desk. But dear people, I'm not out to make myself feel good. I want you, to be good solid well-grounded Christians and I know of no other way than to do what I've done this morning and I trust that with God's help it has whet your appetite to wrestle again with this wonderful glorious provision of God's redemptive grace that he takes sinners condemned in Adam doubly condemned by our individual sins and makes a way of reconciliation to himself where he can declare us righteous and not become anything other than the God of truth he's done something that in truth God can say to this hell-deserving sinner you're as righteous as my own dear son that's what God says in the court of heaven today about this sinner you're as righteous as my own dear son how in the world does he do that and still be the God of truth that's the doctrine of justification may God grant if you do not have that assurance you will be restless until you have it by laying

51:44 hold of Christ who offers himself in the fullness of his grace in the word and promise of the gospel believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved let's pray our father we thank you for your word and we thank you for these grand and glorious truths of your word and we pray that you will help us as a people as we as it were plumb again into the depths of this wonderful provision you have made for needy hell-deserving helpless sinners that we might have all of our sins pardoned that we might be declared righteous and our persons accepted before you and we thank you for you grant that our hearts may be warmed in our minds enlarged our convictions deepened and our love for you expanded here are prayers as we offer them in Jesus name amen