Way of Acceptance with God

The Fundamental Question: Acceptance with God

0:04 Let's turn again this evening to the 18th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, as we continue our studies in this portion of the Word of God, bounded by verses 9 and 14. Luke 18, verses 9 through 14.

0:26 And he spake also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at naught. Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I get.

1:05 But the publican said, The publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me, the sinner. I say unto you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled. But he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.

1:42 When I first introduced the study of this parable several Lord's days ago, I made the statement that I shall make again tonight. There is no more important or fundamental religious question than this question, how can a sinful man find acceptance and favor with a holy God? It is to that question that the gospel addresses itself, in its most fundamental content. How can sinful men find acceptance and favor with a holy God?

2:23 Therefore, any portion of the word of God, which treats that subject formally, should be a portion well known by every Christian, and for anyone who values the worth of his own never-dying soul, these portions of the word ought to be most precious. Such is the passage that is before us, and has been for the past two Lord's days. For in this passage, our Lord is addressing himself to this very subject. I remind you briefly, by way of review, that the occasion of the parable was this detection by our Lord on the part of some of his followers of a spirit of self-trust, with reference to this great question, how do we find acceptance with God? And here were some, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, that is, that they could be commended to God. And in that situation, our Lord then speaks this parable of a Pharisee and a publican, who are in reality representative men. Every person concerned about the issue of acceptance with God will find himself mirrored either in the experience of the Pharisee, or the experience of the publican.

Review of the Pharisee's Prayer and Spirit

3:42 We thus far considered the prayer of the publican. We looked at the stance in which he prayed. He took his stand, would be a more literal rendering, probably in a great place of prominence, indicating that his mind and heart were preoccupied with the eyes of men, rather than with the eye of God. We noticed the terminal point of his prayer.

4:06 He prayed thus literally towards himself. This was an exercise of self-congratulation. Rather than an exercise of true petition and pleading with God. And then we looked at the essential content of his prayer.

4:22 It had two things. It was an expression on the one hand of confidence that his character would commend him to God, I am not as other men. And then an expression of confidence that his religious performances would make up whatever was lacking in his character. I fast and I tithe.

4:41 So then the spirit of the Pharisee is the spirit of the man who thinks that there is something inherent in his character or something that he will even attribute to the working of God's grace in him that becomes the ground of his acceptance before God. And the second kind is far more subtle than the first. And the Pharisee apparently falls into that category. He doesn't say, I thank myself.

5:07 He acknowledges God somehow in this elevated character of his. But whenever a man makes anything in himself the ground of his hope for acceptance, he's a Pharisee at heart. And then, of course, he speaks of his performances, which he hopes will make up for whatever lacks in his character. Now we've considered why it was that he prayed this way.

The Roots of the Pharisee's Ignorance: Native Blindness and False Teaching

5:32 Having looked at the stance of his prayer, the terminal point of his prayer, the substance of his prayer, we've been seeking to answer the question, why would any man pray this way? And we've seen from Scripture that the answer generally stated is this. He prayed this way because of his native spiritual ignorance, which was augmented by his false religious teaching. His native spiritual ignorance augmented by his false religious instruction.

6:04 And now this brings us almost right to where we want to begin tonight, our fresh area of inquiry and study. We've broken this down into some particulars. Of what was he ignorant that made him pray this way? How was that ignorance cemented and increased and deepened because of his false religious teaching?

6:26 In what areas? Well, we've seen that he was ignorant, first of all, of his involvement in the sin of Adam. No man has seen himself biblically and ever says, I thank thee I'm not as other men. He may say, Lord, I thank thee that though I am as other men, you have in grace done something for me.

6:48 But once we see that we are part of that race that fell in Adam, that stands under condemnation, there is an absolute leveling of every single structure of humanity. And all racial pride and all class pride and all religious pride and all the rest basically has this defective root of failure to see that we are made of one blood in creation, image bearers by creation, and that we fell in that great and tragic fall of our one father Adam and have become part of that polluted human race. And then the second reason for his prayer is that he did not understand the spiritual nature of the law of God. When he says, I thank thee that my character is free of the blots and blotches of the extortioner, the unjust, the adulterer, or the things characteristic of a publican, he indicates his ignorance of the spiritual extent of the law of God. He thinks that the law of God only touches his external conduct. And once a man begins to understand, as we saw Paul did in Romans 7, that the law touches the heart and the deep springs of desire and attitude, then we shall never claim exemption from any sin, for we will acknowledge that the sin has been there in thought and in principle,

8:15 though by God's grace, common or special, we have been restrained from the actual performance of it. Now we come tonight to the third area in which the ignorance of this man is most evident, and the reason why he dared to pray the prayer that he prayed. He was not only ignorant of his involvement in the fall of man, ignorant of the spiritual nature of the law, but he was ignorant of God's way of accepting sinners and accounting them righteous in his sight. He was ignorant of God's one way of accepting sinners.

8:58 And you will find that whenever a man is ignorant of his involvement in the fall of mankind, ignorant of the spiritual nature of the law, this will always be joy, joined to ignorance of God's way of accepting sinners. Now the opening words in the passage indicate that he thought that the way of acceptance was the way of self-trust. For the scripture says, Jesus spoke this parable to certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. He thought that the way of acceptance was the way of self-trust.

9:38 The parable closes with the concept, the way of self-exaltation for everyone that exalteth himself. He thought that the way a man found acceptance was that trusting in his own righteousness, he would then commend that righteousness to God in self-exaltation and thereby find acceptance. Now God's way has always been just the opposite of this. It has been the way in which men must look holy out of themselves for acceptance and they must lay hold of that acceptance in a way that demands the humbling of human pride.

Natural Revelation's Limits: The Need for Special Revelation

10:21 Nothing could be more diametrically opposed than the Pharisees' understanding of the way of acceptance and the revealed way of acceptance in the Holy Scriptures. Now to think our way through the subject before us tonight, I shall say a few things in general and then we will analyze God's way of acceptance contrasted with the Pharisees' way of acceptance along three specific lines. By nature, all men are ignorant of the way by which a holy God can accept sinful men as righteous in His sight. We said that in answer to the question, why did he pray this prayer, the general answer is it was his own native spiritual ignorance. An ignorance common not just to Pharisees but to all men by nature. The heavens declare God's glory. Psalm 19.

11:18 We read in the eighth Psalm that God speaks and reveals Himself in His creation. Romans 1.20 says that God's creation shows His power and His Godhead. By nature, we can know something of the glory of God as the God of absolute power.

11:41 By nature, we can know something of guilt. Conscience is God's monitor within the human breast. And you do not need special revelation to know that you're guilty of sinning against the God that's made you and made the world. Romans 2 verses 14 and 15 and Romans 1.32 are unanswerable assertions of this fact. Paul says there are Gentiles who have not the law of God, that is the written revelation. All they have is the light of creation. But in them, their consciences accuse them or excuse them.

12:21 Speaking of the Gentiles in chapter 1 in verse 32, he says who knowing the judgment of God that they who do such things are worthy of death, not only do them but take pleasure in those that do them. So then, the matter of knowing that God is a God of power, the God who has stamped evidences of His power and His wisdom in His creation, that I have sinned against this God, no special revelation is needed to know that. Now man takes that revelation and puts it down and suppresses it, but it is there. But as to how my guilty conscience may find peace with that God, natural or general revelation is not enough. Let a man go out tonight, if it is a clear night, get himself in a place where for miles around there is no artificial light, just that inky black darkness of the deepest part of the night, let him take his telescope, let him go to Mount Palomar and get the 200 inch telescope, and let him gaze into the intricacies of our own solar system and then galaxies beyond and beyond, and let him ask this question looking for an answer in his telescope, how can my guilty conscience find peace with God? How can I, a guilty sinner,

13:46 find acceptance with this God whose wisdom and power and might I see in this panoramic display in the telescope? He can look in that telescope until his eyeballs hang out in his cheeks and he'll never get an answer. Though the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork, the heavens never declare how guilty sinners can find acceptance with God. Let the botanist, let the man who lives with his microscope, go into the intricacies of the inner workings of the cell and see it in all of its witness of God's wisdom and His power and ask the question, where in my microscope can I find the key to answer this burning question, how can I find acceptance with God? Whether you look out in what's called the macroscopic or into the minute in the microscopic, there'll never be an answer. And it's the peculiar genius of the gospel that it comes as a revelation of this answer. So Paul says in Romans 1.16,

14:55 I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek wild. For therein, is revealed a righteousness of God. It's the genius of the gospel to reveal the righteousness of God, the way of acceptance, the way guilty sinners may find acceptance with a holy God. So then, the Pharisee, you see, was just reflecting the native ignorance of his heart when he thought acceptance could come on the basis of his own performance.

The Danger of Mismanaging Scripture: Israel's Example

15:38 But in the case of the Pharisee, this natural blindness was increased by false religious teaching. He had the Old Testament scriptures. They revealed this way of acceptance. Paul, in proving that this is the only way that God has accepted sinners, the way of the gospel proves it.

16:00 From the case of Abraham before the giving of the law, from the case of David, after the giving of the law, it was the gospel that was preached to Abraham, not some kind of a great political setup for the Jews that had no gospel implications. When God said to Abraham, in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, Paul says in Galatians, God preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. That's gospel preaching. And then he goes on to say, in thy seed is Christ, and all who are in Christ in the covenant of grace are blessed in him.

16:45 And so that gospel way of salvation was revealed from the very first promise in Genesis. And the Pharisees should have known it. Jesus said to the Jews of his day, he searched the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me. But now follow me closely.

17:04 They came to the scriptures with such prejudice and blindness that they missed the way of acceptance and in its place developed an intricate system of their own as to how a man could find acceptance with God, a system that maintained an outward identity with the word of God, but in reality negated it at every vital point. And nothing is more dangerous than that kind. That's the very principle of religion. When men apparently cling to the substance of the scriptures, remember what Jesus said in Matthew 23?

17:48 He said, whatever the Pharisees tell you to do from the scriptures when they're sitting in Moses' seat, do it. They're not giving you heresy when they're expounding Moses. But then he goes on to show how that in the context of holding to the apparent framework of truth, there was principle after principle which negated the very truth so that it was true of them supremely as was true of many of Paul's countrymen. And this to me is the best commentary on the thing I'm driving at now.

18:17 Romans chapter 10, verses 1 to 3. Brethren, my heart's desire and supplication to God for them, that is for his fellow Jews, is that they may be saved, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Why shouldn't it be according to knowledge? Didn't they have the scriptures?

18:40 Sure they had the scriptures. Look what he said in chapter 9. He said, I have a burden for my fellow Jews. Verse 4, the who's are the Israelites, whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the promises, whose are the fathers?

18:56 Earlier in this same letter to the Romans, he said, what advantage is there of being a Jew if everybody's a sinner Jew and Gentile? He says, to them were given the oracles of God, yet having the oracles, the covenants, and all of this great blessing from God. What does Paul say? They have zeal, but not according to knowledge.

19:16 For being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. See what they did? With the scriptures that should have shown them the only way of acceptance, they missed it and became sealed in their ignorance in the midst of all that privilege. Now that's why this Pharisee prayed the way he prayed.

19:50 Because his native ignorance was aided and increased by his false religious teaching. And let me say by way of application, if I'm speaking tonight to anyone who thinks he can trust his unaided human reason, to answer this profound question, how can I, a guilty sinner, find acceptance with God? My friend, God never gave you your mind to discover that question unaided by the light of His special revelation, the Word of God. And if you try to use your mind to that end, you're abusing the very purpose for which it was given.

20:32 You'd be just as foolish if you tried to feed yourself with your feet and stick food into your big toe, for a big toe was not made to receive your food. And your mind was not made to go out and surmise and conjecture about this great question, how shall a guilty sinner such as I find acceptance with God? God has been pleased to reveal that question, not even in the creation that speaks of His power and His glory, but in His written Word and in the Gospel of His dear Son. Then if I speak to someone who thinks that because he or she has a rather deep acquaintance with the substance of the Bible, all must be well, may I remind you? They had a zeal but not according to knowledge, and toting a Bible around and being able to quote verses is no proof that you've discovered God's way of righteousness. You may have missed it as completely as this Pharisee, even though you have in your possession the very thing that should lead you to it. Now, having looked at the answer in general, let's break it down into some of its particulars.

God's Way of Acceptance: Righteousness of God Alone

21:45 What is the one way of finding acceptance with God, the way this Pharisee should have known, should have discovered from the Old Testament? And I will couch that answer in three simple statements, and I make no apologies for saying that I've labored hard and long to reduce this to its simplest elements without perverting this very fundamental doctrine of the Word of God, and I hope I've accomplished what I've set out to do. Three simple statements. The way of righteousness, the way of acceptance with God that the Pharisee should have known but he missed, is first of all the way of the righteousness of God. Secondly, it is the way of the righteousness of grace. Thirdly, it is the way of the righteousness of faith. Fourthly, it is the way of the righteousness of God, the righteousness of grace, and the righteousness of faith.

22:49 And then I want to go back, and after each one of those, I want to add one word. This one crucial word, which understood in its biblical significance, spells the difference between life and death, heaven, hell, truth and error, and it is the word A-L-O-N-E. The way of acceptance for a guilty sinner in the presence of God is not just the way of the righteousness of God with a comma, with a dash, with something to follow, but it is the way of the righteousness of God alone, period, or full stop as our British friends say. Nothing to follow, finis, that's the end. It is the way of the righteousness of grace, alone, it is the way of the righteousness of faith, alone. Now, let's spend a few minutes under each of those heads, seeing the biblical teaching concerning them, and then making application to the parable before us.

23:59 The way of acceptance is the way of the righteousness of God alone. Let us look at the testimony of God in several passages of Scripture. In Romans 1, verses 16 and 17, and these will be two verses to which we will come again and again in the remainder of our study tonight. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

24:34 For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith to faith. And the emphasis I want to put at this time is upon the phrase, a righteousness of God. And in the original, the emphasis is here. The verb follows.

24:51 And if you were reading it and putting the order as it is in the original, you would read it this way. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, the Jew first, and also to the Greek. A righteousness of God is therein revealed. That is the dominant emphasis.

25:10 There is a God-righteousness that is the only hope of sinners. Mr. Pharisee man, you are looking in the wrong direction. You are trusting to yourself.

25:21 Your eyes are inward upon your apparent virtues of character and upon the apparent virtue and merit of your religious performance. No, no, you are in the terrible night of the ignorance of your unenlightened soul. Mr. Pharisee, the righteousness which brings acceptance with God is the righteousness of God alone.

25:45 Chapter 3, verses 21 and 22. But now, having shown that all men are under condemnation by the law, but now apart from the law, notice the same emphasis, a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe. For there is no distinction. Chapter 10 in verse 3, a passage we looked at earlier, and now I want to underscore the same concept.

26:25 For being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. You see the same phrase. You find it in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. For he who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

26:50 And then in Philippians 3, and verse 9. And these are only selective passages, by no means exhaustive. Philippians 3, 9, And be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God. Now, if Scripture teaches anything, it teaches then, and it teaches this, though explicitly and fully in the New Testament, it is there in the Old as we shall see.

27:26 Even David knew this clearly, and Abraham and the other saints. It is the way of acceptance in which our righteousness is found external to us. It is God-righteousness. Now, in what sense is it the righteousness of God?

27:44 Well, let me suggest at least three aspects of the answer to that question. It is a righteousness of which His perfection is the standard. It is a righteousness in which the perfection of His own character is the standard. Cunningham, the great Scottish theologian and church historian, one time in a personal conversation with Hugh Martin, another great Scots divine, in discussing this phrase, the righteousness of God, Cunningham said to Hugh Martin, he said, The righteousness of God is the righteousness which His righteousness requires Him to require.

28:30 And Hugh Martin commends that as a very helpful statement, enigmatic on the surface, but profound in its significance. What is the righteousness of God? That which becomes the basis of our acceptance before Him. It is a standard of righteousness which His righteousness requires Him to require.

28:50 It can be nothing less than absolute perfection. And so it is the righteousness of God, that of which His perfection is standard. Secondly, it is that of which He is the author. He is the author.

29:08 It is not only a righteousness which conforms to His perfection, but one which He Himself provides for believing sinners. And that emphasis is seen so clearly in passages like the Romans 10, 3 passage. Going about to establish their own, they are going to make their own, do their own thing in the way of acceptance. They did not submit themselves unto the righteousness of God, that which He provided.

29:37 They are going to go out and make their own provision. They are going to weave a fabric of righteousness on the loom of their own efforts, rather than take the one that God has woven and offers as a free gift. That is the emphasis in that passage. And in the third place, it is the righteousness of God in the sense that it is a righteousness in which His Son, Jesus Christ, in His obedience in death, is the ground.

30:02 The ground of that righteousness is Jesus Christ in His obedience in death. So you come to passages like 1 Corinthians 1, 30. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us righteousness as well as sanctification, wisdom and redemption. Romans 3 and verse 24.

30:26 You have the emphasis here upon the connection between the righteousness of God and the death of Christ being justified. That is, brought into a state of righteousness before God's law freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So you see Christ Jesus and His saving work is bound up in this righteousness of God, but not only His work in death upon the cross, but chapter 5 and verse 19 says, For as through one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. So that our righteousness, if we are to have one that is acceptable to God, must be a God-righteousness. One that is God's righteousness in that it meets the perfection of His own character. One that He authors. One that is based wholly upon the obedience and the death of Jesus Christ our Lord.

31:34 This is the significance then of the Apostle's words. He, God, hath made Him, Christ, to be sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Whatever this God-righteousness is, it is inseparably bound up with Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures and in particular Jesus Christ in obedience even unto death, the death of the cross.

32:06 Now do you see the subtle error of the Pharisee? Even though he seems to thank God for what he thinks is commendable in his character and in his relative perfection, he's looking in the wrong direction. And listen to me, dear ones. Even in the case of a true child of God who is not only accepted as righteous for the merits of Christ and justified, but who will always be regenerated and sanctified in some degree.

32:43 Take that child of God in his ripest period of sanctification when the graces of love and joy and peace are in fullest bloom. When there is the greatest conformity to Jesus Christ, there is not one shred of that inwrought grace that enters in to the basis of his acceptance before God. Not one shred. The basis of a sinner's acceptance is the righteousness of God.

33:14 It is something external to him. This poor blind Pharisee missed it. He did not read the book of Isaiah with understanding. For the prophet had declared 800 years before, but we are all as an unclean thing and all our right are as what?

33:36 Filthy rags before him. And here he stands saying, I thank Thee I am not deserved. Man, here are my righteous character that commends me. Here are my righteous deeds that commend me.

33:51 Isaiah was taught differently. He learned to look upon his righteousnesses as defiled and polluted rags. So must you and so must I. If we are to find the gospel way of acceptance.

34:09 He did not understand what Isaiah meant when this same evangelical prophet declared in this beautiful statement in the 61st chapter and verse 10. I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God. Why?

34:26 For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me. In the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself with a garland and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. He is looking wholly out at himself.

34:47 He says, God, you wove a fabric of perfect righteousness. You placed it upon me. Hence I will greatly rejoice in Jehovah. Not in what is wrought in me, even with God's help, but what has been wholly wrought by him in sovereign mercy.

35:10 The Psalmist knew this. Listen to his confession in the 71st Psalm verses 15 and 16. And I'm deliberately keeping in the Old Testament because remember, I've indicted this Pharisee and said he was a naughty man for talking this way with the Old Testament in his hands. Listen to the Psalmist in this Psalm that's called the prayer of an old man for deliverance, Psalm 71, 15 and 16.

35:37 My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness and of thy salvation all the day. For I know not the numbers thereof. I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord Jehovah. I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine own.

35:59 When David pleads his own Christian integrity for various reasons, and we may in the presence of God, but never with reference to the basis of our being accepted before God. No, no. To use the analogy, and I don't say it's a type, but I think it is a beautiful analogy. There in the garden when God came to guilty Adam and Eve, conscious of their nakedness, they sewed together their fig leaves.

36:27 And the scripture is very explicit that God made them a coat of skins. And this is what the scripture says. And clothed them. He didn't throw them to them and say, now you put them on.

36:40 He not only made them, but He either made them strip off their fig leaves, and I rather feel that's what He made them do. So that they had to stand in His presence and own to the full the shame of their nakedness. And they could plead nothing before Him. And God came with covering that He had provided.

37:05 And He placed it upon them and He covered them. So that all they could do was acknowledge that their covering was holy. And that's what God does with guilty sinners like you and me. He comes to us as He did to this publican to bring us to that place where we own our nakedness.

37:27 And instead of bragging about our attainments of character and religious performance, and even glossing over that subtle spirit of self-confidence by saying, Lord, you did this in me and for me. When it comes to the basis of our acceptance before Him, we stand with naked Adam and Eve, saying we have nothing to commend ourselves. Lord, Thou must clothe us or we die. We have the same analogy, and again I say it's only analogy with the prodigal.

37:59 Here he comes back from those years or months of wasted living. And the tatters and rags that bespeak His poverty, and the Father says, bring the robe, and place it. Place a pocket. God didn't come to Adam and Eve and say, now look, we'll take a few fig leaves and a few hunks of skin, and we'll make a covering that'll be a little bit your work and a little bit mine.

38:23 The Father didn't say to the Son, now let's take those rags and a few good pieces on the shoulder, and on the side, and the arms, and with that and some material. No, no. In both instances, the covering was provided by another wholly and completely. Now go back to Romans 10.3.

38:41 Read the parable in the light of it. They being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. This righteousness of God which meets the perfection of His own character, of which He is the author, His Son is the ground, that's a righteousness provided for all and any sinner who will avail himself of it. But you can't tamper with the garment.

39:21 You must submit to the righteousness of God. He set out the terms upon which that righteousness is to be embraced, and we do not alter them. And so of God He has made unto us righteousness, just as much as it was of God that Adam and Eve were clothed, so it is as much of God that we are clothed in the robes of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. So that the end result will be, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.30, if God makes Christ unto us righteousness, then the natural consequence, the next verse, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. That's what David was doing in Psalm 71. I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. That's what Count Zinzendorf was doing when he said, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress.

40:25 He was making mention of God's righteousness and God's only. I press it upon your conscience tonight, in that deep inner sanctuary of your soul where nobody goes but you and God. What do you plead before Him? Now I'm not talking, have you learned evangelical language?

40:48 You can say, oh yes, and say, by the blood of Christ and righteousness. I'm not asking you that. I'm not concerned with that. But I'm asking that in that deep inner sanctuary of the soul where nobody goes but you and God, what do you plead in His presence?

41:05 Is it, I thank thee I am not His other man? Lord, I thank you that you've made me this and that and the other. And you really feel that that somehow commends you to God as the ground of acceptance? Or have you been taught by the Word and the Spirit that your best performances are as filthy rats and that if you're to find acceptance with the Holy God it must be with a righteousness that meets the standard of His own perfection, one which He Himself has provided, one which is found in His own dear Son.

God's Way of Acceptance: Righteousness of Grace Alone

41:47 Oh dear ones, the more I study the Bible in my own heart, the more I'm convinced that this fundamental doctrine of the Word cannot be preached upon too much, that its basic lines of emphasis cannot be emphasized too much, for it's a matter of life and death, truth and error, heaven and hell. Well, let us hurry on then and touch. Just briefly, we're not going to be able to complete things. It is the way of righteousness that is characterized by grace alone.

42:24 Not only the way of righteousness that is of God alone, but the way of righteousness that is of grace alone. Once more, let's look at the testimony of Scripture at several points, then I'll seek to open it up and apply it to your conscience. Romans chapter 3 and verse 24.

42:48 Romans chapter 3 and verse 24. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Chapter 4 verse 1. What shall we say then that Abraham our forefather hath found according to the flesh?

43:11 For if Abraham was justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not toward God. But what saith the Scripture? That Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt.

43:28 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. Notice now this antithesis between grace and work. It is a righteousness. It is an acceptance before God that is characterized by grace and grace alone.

43:53 Verse 16. For this cause it is of faith, that it might be, according to grace, that to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed. Ephesians 2.8, that familiar text.

44:07 For by grace are ye saved through faith. Galatians 3.21. Paul says, do we make void the law, the grace of God?

44:17 If we mix anything other than grace into the concept of the basis of our acceptance, we nullify the grace of God. Now what does grace mean? Well if you want to be frustrated, try to stand here and tell people in a few sentences what grace means. The trite, the common definition, and it's trite because it's like trying to describe Mount Everest in a paragraph.

44:45 Can't be done. But it has bound up in its very essence the concept of unmerited favor to those who deserve just the opposite. So that Paul even adds a term, lest we misunderstand it, in Romans 3.24, being justified freely, that is, without a cause in us, by His grace.

45:07 Well grace of itself means that the cause is holy in God. But lest we mistake it, he adds this word. He becomes redundant and says being justified freely, without any cause in us, holy in God and holy of grace. So then the way of acceptance, is the way of grace and grace alone, in contrast to anything caused by us or anything done by us.

45:38 Look at Romans 11, verses 5 and 6, where you see this contrast set out so clearly. Even so, there is at this present time also a remnant according to the election of grace, but if it is by grace, it is no more of works, otherwise grace. Grace is no more grace. By grace you say through faith that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works.

46:06 So then grace perhaps can better be understood by looking at it in this light. It is the exact opposite of anything that finds its cause in me, in what I am, or in what I've done. Now do you see how the Pharisee missed it? Everything in his prayer is, Lord behold me in terms of what I am.

46:26 Behold me in terms of what I've done, and on that basis accept me. No, no, he was ignorant of God's way of acceptance, which has always been the way, not only of the righteousness of God alone, but the righteousness of grace alone. That's why David could say, as he's quoted in the fourth chapter of Romans, in the 32nd Psalm, Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputed, not iniquity. He was conscious that this was a forgiveness and an acceptance wholly of God's grace.

47:06 Now you see, I trust, why we assert that the Pharisee had no knowledge of this fact. He expected acceptance because of the condition of his character, and because of the performance of his religious exercises. And even though he apparently thanks God for these things, he is resting on a wrong faith. And he has no faith to the foundation.

47:31 Now I press the question to your conscience again, in your heart of hearts, in that inner chamber of the soul, what place does the word grace have? What place does the concept of grace have, in the deep inner recesses of the soul? Do you acknowledge that the basis of your acceptance before God is a righteousness of grace, grace alone, of Christ and of Christ alone, and it's the key word, alone.

48:09 There are very few people who have even a surface acquaintance with the Bible that would talk about being right with God, accepted with God, who wouldn't put something of Christ in there, something of grace. Even this Pharisee in all his blindness says, I thank thee. See, thankfulness is the language of a recipient of grace.

48:33 But he had no understanding of grace. He had a little bit of the surface language. What about you? Maybe you can talk in great swelling tones about sovereign grace, but what I want to ask you is, have you been brought to the place, as we shall see in subsequent studies where the publican was brought, where the only thing he pleads in the presence of God is the magnitude of his sin that drives him.

49:01 He drives him totally out of himself to plead for mercy and grace from the hand of God. That's the humbling element in true faith and in a true understanding of grace. Nothing is, at the same time, so ennobling, so uplifting, so exhilarating as the biblical concept of grace, and on the other hand, nothing is so humbling, so devastating, so utterly shattering to human pride. Amen.

49:31 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

49:31 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

49:31 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

49:32 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

49:33 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

49:33 Amen. When we behold that to which grace brings us, we're lifted up and we're brought to what Peter says, a stage of joy unspeakable and full of glory, and we think of what grace has stooped to in order to bring us to that, we're filled with shame in the sense of our own unworthiness, the righteousness of grace alone, and this poor Pharisee knew nothing of that. And then I'll condense our third head. It's the way of the righteousness of faith alone, again, the testimony of Scripture.

God's Way of Acceptance: Righteousness of Faith Alone

50:15 Look at those passages we've already referred to, Romans 1, 16 and 17. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. You see righteousness of God, grace, faith. These are two things.

50:35 The three strands of biblical emphasis that are inseparable with regard to this matter of our acceptance before God. Chapter 3, verses 21 and 22. We read them previously with the emphasis upon the words, the righteousness of God. Now look, as we read them again, but now apart from the law, righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

51:04 Now look, as we read them again, but now apart from the law, righteousness of God hath been manifested through faith. The people of all countries, meaning Christians and Gentiles, who are in a financial Alpha Thessalonians, believe, by faith, in Christ as their own God and of his own Segreterium, in the very way that God is. That is to meet Jesus, accordingly, through faith. Or that they believe in his word.

51:34 context, this emphasis is clear. The righteousness which we receive unto acceptance with God, unto justification, is the righteousness of faith alone. Now, I want to spend the majority of our time on this head under an aspect that I don't think I have sufficiently emphasized in my own ministry, and thence I believe I have a right to conclude. It perhaps may not be as clear in your own thinking as it ought to be. Have you ever asked yourself the question, why is it that faith and faith alone is that grace by which we come into the possession of the righteousness of acceptance? Is faith a more important virtue than love? Well, if you read 1 Corinthians 13, the answer is no. Now abideth faith, hope, and charity, but the greatest of these is what? Not faith, but love. Love. There's a time coming when

52:35 faith will be turned to sight. Why, then, should faith be singled out? We are never said to be justified by love. Why is not repentance mentioned? Is any sinner saved who doesn't repent? No. Except he repents, he'll perish. But we're never said to be justified or accepted, treated as righteous, because we've repented. Now, why? What is there about faith that makes it the distinct and the exclusive grace connected with the way of righteousness and acceptance?

53:10 Well, an answer to that I want to quote from one who is quickly becoming one of the inner circle of my own patron saints, Andrew Fuller. I'm so deeply indebted to one of the congregation who gave me this three-volume set, and I've been extracting much honey from many of the flowers in these three volumes in the past couple of weeks. But in his lecture, his sermon on justification, Fuller is wrestling with this very question that I've set before your mind. Why faith? Why faith? And his answer is this. There must, therefore, be something in the nature of faith which peculiarly responds or corresponds with the free grace of the gospel, something which looks out of self and receives the free gift of heaven as being what they are, pure, undeserved favor. We do not reduce it to a mere exercise of the intellectual faculty in which there's nothing holy. But whatever holiness there is, there's nothing evil, there's nothing evil. So, what is faith? It is not this, but the obedience of Christ that constitutes our justifying

54:18 righteousness. Whatever other properties the magnet may possess, it is as pointing invariably to the north that it guides the mariner. And whatever other properties faith may possess, true faith always has in it, law of obedience, etc., but it is faith as receiving Christ and bringing us into union with Him that the Scripture says we are justified by faith.

54:50 Were we said to be justified by repentance or love or any other grace, it would convey the idea of something good in us being the consideration on which the blessing was bestowed. Repentance is an active grace. In the words of the Shorter Catechism, you are turning from sin unto God. Repentance is an active grace. In the words of the Shorter Catechism, you are turning from sin unto God. And so, the idea of having a full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience, faith in that sense, you see, is an active grace. So, we are not said to be justified by repentance because the peculiar capacity of faith is its receptive element. Justification by faith conveys no such idea as would be found in justification by repentance. On the contrary, it leads the mind directly to Christ in the same manner of saying, and then he gives an that a beggar lives by begging. And when you say that, what you mean is this, that he lives on what is freely given to him as he begs. A beggar doesn't live by begging. He lives by food that is freely given to him.

55:59 And if I were to say, that poor beggar has come to live and be sustained by his begging, you understand exactly what I mean. That his begging brings him into contact with the benevolence of men who sustain him graciously and freely by that which he does not deserve. So when the Bible says we are justified by faith, it wants us to understand that it is not our faith which is now substituted for full obedience to the law, as though God said, now look, in the place of keeping the Ten Commandments, all I ask you to do is believe, and believe will be a lesser demand than the Ten Commandments. No, that would make faith a work.

56:44 And that's what Arminianism makes faith, a work. In the place of full obedience to the full standard of the law, God lowers His standard and says, now just believe and I'll accept that for this. No, no. Faith is said in contrast to all works and to all law because faith is the open hand that brings us into vital contact with God.

57:09 It is the virtue of Jesus Christ and it is the virtue of His obedience and His death and His perfect righteousness which then becomes ours. Believing in Jesus, we are united to Him and being so, are treated by the Judge as one with Him. His obedience and death is imputed to us or reckoned as ours and we for His sake are delivered from condemnation just as though we had been innocent. And we are entitled to eternal life as though we had perfectly obeyed the law.

57:45 Beloved, that's the biblical doctrine of the basis upon which God accepts sinners. And I say this poor Pharisee was woefully and pitifully ignorant of it. He didn't understand Romans 4 or 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth what kind of person?

58:04 The ungodly. We are justified in the state of ungodliness. Now, we'll never stay ungodly if we're justified because God never justifies us without also regenerating us and sanctifying us. But the ground of His justifying us has no consideration of what we are in ourselves.

58:26 He sees us as ungodly and yet He declares us accepted. Why? By virtue of all the perfection that is in His Son and we have been united to Him by faith and all that perfection. Perfection is reckoned as ours.

58:42 We are made the righteousness of God in Him. So then all boasting goes. And this poor Pharisee betrayed himself the moment he opened his mouth because Paul says in Romans 3, where is boasting then? It is excluded.

59:00 By what law? By the law of works? No, but by the law of faith. So if you have a view of faith that makes you boast that you were smarter than most people and that you believed, you don't understand faith biblically.

59:13 The way of faith excludes all boasting even of my faith and it causes me to boast in none save Jesus Christ and Him alone.

59:27 You see, the Pharisee didn't know anything of the self-emptying, flesh-withering character of true faith. And true faith is flesh-withering and self-emptying. People talk about simple faith. Yeah, it's simple.

59:40 When God stripped you down and shown you what you are, but in the process there may be some real agony for you to say, imagine this Pharisee, for him to say, instead of these boastful words, I frankly am not as other men, for him to say, oh God, in substance, in the essence of my being as a fallen creature, there is no Gentile God under heaven who is more defiled than I. He couldn't believe, apart from that confession, at least in principle. And you can't believe. You can't believe.

60:12 You can't believe. You can't believe. You can't believe. Until you stand with the public and say, God be merciful to me, the sinner, no qualifications, but not quite so bad as this, but not, no, the sinner, the sinner, period.

60:26 Full stop.

The Self-Emptying Nature of True Faith

60:31 Apostle Paul knew this. The longer he lived, the more he understood God in himself, the more he grew in this perspective. So as an old man about to have his head drop off into a basket, he says in Romans, in Philippians chapter 4, I'm ready to be offered. Time of my departure is drawing near.

60:51 And he says, I have one ambition, that I may be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness, which is of God by faith. That's the longing of his heart. And so I press upon the conscience of each one here in closing in answer to that great and profound question, how shall guilty sinners find acceptance with God? What's the answer of your heart?

61:19 Are you still offended? Are you a Pharisee, hoping to find acceptance in the way dictated by your natural darkness, aided perhaps by false religious teaching and by a mismanagement and wrong manipulation of the scriptures?

61:41 Or can you say with the psalmist, I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. Is it the confession of your inner soul tonight that my hope for acceptance before God is the righteousness of God alone?

62:00 The righteousness of grace alone? The righteousness of faith alone?

62:10 The Pharisee was blind to the biblical way of acceptance. Are you?

62:17 If you have been, oh, that God perhaps tonight has pulled back the veil and opened your eyes and he invites you freely, freely and sincerely to lay hold of his dear Son. You say, what must I do? Look to Christ. Cast yourself upon Christ.

62:38 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent of your dead works, hoping that you'll get better or you'll do something that will cause God to say, all right, you've been a good boy now and now I'll work in your heart and some of you are, as it were, lingering in the shades of your unbelief, thinking, well, something will happen to make me better and then God will stir me to seek Him. My friend, God didn't sincerely and honestly through His servants and His Word entreat you tonight to lay hold of that righteousness. Submit to the righteousness of God to use the language of Romans 10.3 and that submission is submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. And those of us who by God's grace have had our language that too long reflected that of the Pharisee changed into the language of the publican, let us be filled with praise and with a sense of unworthiness that God would be pleased to bless us with a right view of ourselves and with a right view of the way of acceptance which has eluded so many. We're going to sing in closing tonight.