Category — Justification

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven who does not, in some measure, behold it by faith in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory and faith for sight.

—John Owen
The Glory of Christ

Via: Of First Importance

We have not been justified by our holiness or through our holiness but unto it so that we might grow in conformity to the image of Christ,

—Dr. R.C. Sproul
Romans: The Righteous Shall Live by Faith

Via: Twitter

Speaking of the reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone, this is my reading list for 2010. As I stated in the previous post, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about justification. I suppose that many people would wonder why anyone would bother reading such weighty books about theology when there are more light, practical, and “purpose driven” books available for the busy 21^st century christian. I don’t want to demean those types of books, they certainly have their place, but I personally find more food for my soul in deeper study.

• Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification by Dr. R.C. Sproul
• The Doctrine of Justification by James Buchanan
• The Doctrine of Justification by Faith by John Owen
• Justification by Francis Turretin
• The Future of Justification by Dr. John Piper
• Justified in Christ: God’s Plan for Us in Justification edited by K. Scott Oliphint
• Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine by John Fesko
• The Everlasting Righteousness by Horatius Bonar (PDF)

I would appreciate your prayers as I engage this topic. I am eager to learn, but a fine line sometimes exists between rigorous study and a purely academic pursuit of theology. It is possible to have an intellectual acknowledgement of the doctrine of justification by faith alone without actually possessing the faith that alone can save. I’m pretty sure that Dr. Sproul said that and it’s a message that I take to heart. Sola Fide — and Soli Deo Gloria!

I have been thinking and reading quite a bit lately about the reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone — sola fide. Martin Luther, the great German reformer believed that justification by faith alone is the doctrine by which the protestant church stand or falls. This evening I read the following quote from Martin Luther on Dr. Ray Ortlund’s website:

Since we are justified by faith alone, it is clear that the inner person cannot be justified, freed or saved by any external work or act, and such works, whatever they may be, have nothing to do with the inner person.  Therefore, only ungodliness and unbelief of the heart make a person a condemned servant of sin — this cannot be caused by any external work or act of sin.  It follows that it ought to be the primary goal of every Christian to put aside confidence in works and grow stronger in the belief that we are saved by faith alone.  Through this faith the Christian should increase in knowledge not of works but of Christ Jesus and the benefits of his death and resurrection.

—Martin Luther
The Freedom of the Christian

Horatius Bonar opened the first chapter of his book The Everlasting Righteousness with the following question: “How may I, a sinner, draw near to Him in whom there is no sin, and look upon His face in peace?” That is a question I fear that very few people today would ever stop to ponder. As Dr. R.C. Sproul stated at Together for the Gospel in 2006, the primary view of most modern evangelicals with regard to the doctrine of justification is that of “justification by death – all you have to do to be justified is to die – because everybody that dies goes to heaven.” My hope and prayer for myself, and for you, is that we would look away from ourselves and put our complete trust and faith in Jesus Christ — his perfect life and atoning death.

Via: Ray Ortlund

Our justification is the direct result of our believing the gospel; our knowledge of our own justification comes from believing God’s promise of justification to every one who believes these glad tidings. For there is not only the divine testimony, but there is the promise annexed to it, assuring eternal life to every one who receives that testimony. There is first, then, a believed gospel, and then there is a believed promise. The latter is the “appropriation,” as it is called; which, after all, is nothing but the acceptance of the promise which is everywhere coupled with the gospel message. The believed gospel saves; but it is the believed promise that assures us of this salvation.

…

Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor the sacrifice; it is not the altar, nor the laver, nor the mercy-seat, nor the incense. It does not work, but accepts a work done ages ago; it does not wash, but leads us to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. It does not create; it merely links us to that new thing which was created when the “everlasting righteousness” was brought in (Daniel 9:24).

…

Though faith is not “the righteousness,” it is the tie between it and us. It realizes our present standing before God in the excellency of His own Son; and it tells us that our eternal standing, in the ages to come, is in the same excellency, and depends on the perpetuity of that righteousness which can never change. For never shall we put off that Christ whom we put on when we believed (Romans 12:14; Galatians 3:27). This divine raiment is “to everlasting.” It waxes not old, it cannot be rent, and its beauty fadeth not away.

—Horatius Bonar
The Everlasting Righteousness, Chapter 7

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. . . . This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ doesn’t cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His ‘blood and righteousness’ alone that we can rest.

—B.B. Warfield
Quoted by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Dennis Johnson in Counsel from the Cross

Via: Of First Importance

Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

—The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11, Point 1

Via: Paul Helm

We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and just, sent His Son to assume that nature in which the disobedience was committed, to make satisfaction in the same, and to bear the punishment of sin by His most bitter passion and death. God therefore manifested His justice against His Son when He laid our iniquities upon Him, and poured forth His mercy and goodness on us, who were guilty and worthy of damnation, out of mere and perfect love, giving His Son unto death for us, and raising Him for our justification, that through Him we might obtain immortality and life eternal.

—The Belgic Confession of Faith, Article XX

Via: Of First Importance

Among all the realities of the invisible world, mediated to us by the disclosures and promises of God, and to which our faith responds, there is none that more strongly calls into action this faculty for grasping the unseen than the divine pronouncement through the Gospel, that, though sinners, we are righteous in the judgment of God. That is not only the invisible, it seems the impossible; it is the paradox of all paradoxes; it requires a unique energy of believing; it is the supreme victory of faith over the apparent reality of things; it credits God with calling the things that are not as though they were; it penetrates more deeply into the deity of God than any other act of faith.

—Geerhardus Vos
Grace and Glory: Sermons Preached in the Chapel of Princeton Theological Seminary

Via: Tony Reinke

By grace, God offers the righteousness of Christ to all who put their trust in Him. For all who believe, all who have faith in Him, the merit of Christ is reckoned to their account.

Does this exclude good works in the life of the believer? By no means. Our justification is always unto good works. Though no merit ever proceeds from our works, either those done before our conversion or those done afterward, good works are a necessary fruit of true faith.

“Necessary fruit?” Yes, necessary. Good works are not necessary for us to earn our justification. They are never the ground of our justification. They are necessary in a more restricted sense. They are necessary corollaries to true faith. If a person claims to have faith yet brings forth no fruit of obedience whatsoever, it is proof positive that the claim to faith is a false claim. True faith inevitably and necessarily bears fruit. The absence of fruit indicates the absence of faith.

We are not justified by the fruit of our faith. We are justified by the fruit of Christ’s merit. We receive His merit only by faith, but it is only by true faith that we receive His merit. And all true faith yields true fruit.

Coram Deo: Prayerfully examine your faith and spiritual fruit.

Galatians 5:22-25: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

—R.C. Sproul

Via: Ligonier Ministries Blog