This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 26, 1992.
We will turn this morning for our scripture reading to Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 5. This is Luke 5, beginning at verse 18. Here is the word of God. And behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy, and they sought means to bring him in and to lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop and let him down through the tiling, with his couch into the before Jesus.
When he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone? But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason be in your hearts? Whether it is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Rise up and walk. But that ye may know, that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sin.
He saith unto the man sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy couch, and go into thine house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, we have seen amazing things today. I’m turning over to Philippians chapter 3, beginning with verse 7. But what things were gained to me those I counted lost for Christ, yea, doubtless, and I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dumb that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”
Let a foundation, Lord, you have given to your church, Jesus Christ himself, your word, upon which the church then is built. And so, Lord, even the interior of that building is fashioned and formed according to the pattern that is found in your word. So, Father, frame and form and mold and shape us that there would be that correspondence for us with regard to things pertaining to this church and those things that are found there within the scriptures. Build up this church, O God, as you would build it granting to it the ministry of the Word and also the offices that are meant for rule and for service. May we who gather, Lord, benefit greatly as we are instructed in our faith, as we are encouraged, as we are corrected, as we are shown the right and proper road. We ask this for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Paul is giving a seminar. Now, it’s not one that interests all. It’s not one that interests everyone, because this seminar has to do with doctrine. But at least we can say this about Paul’s seminar. It’s brief. The seminar is over the course of three verses, verses 9 through 11 in that third chapter in Philippians. And in those three short verses, in this seminar, this doctrinal seminar which Paul is giving, he will speak very pointedly about three most important doctrines.
In verse nine, he will speak about the doctrine of justification. In verse ten, he will speak about the doctrine of sanctification. And in verse eleven, he will speak about the doctrine of glorification. This morning, we are taking up his first point from his seminar, verse nine. and the matter of justification.
What is justification? Should we recite the answer? Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein he pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.” That’s the Catechism’s answer to that question. It is a wonderful answer, a wonderful definition of justification. in itself being the product of the church’s reflection on what the Bible has to say in a comprehensive manner. Now, what the Bible has to say about this subject justification.
You see, then, what the catechism is. The catechism is a concentrate. We’re all familiar with concentrates, aren’t we? juices and other things? Well, the catechism is a concentrate, like those concentrated juices you buy at the store. After all, how many oranges go into that one can of concentrate? How many scripture passages are taught into this catechism answer to the question, what Well, one Scripture text for sure that is packed into that catechism answer is this one, Philippians chapter three, verse nine. in order that I may be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. If the catechism answer is wonderful, if it is in itself delightful, what then of the real stuff, which we might call the freshly squeezed juice, pulp and all. If the concentrate is good, the real stuff is magnifique.
Paul, we say, has just finished His spiritual 1040, his Schedule C, in verses 7 and 8 of this chapter. Those things, he tells us, which others, even Paul at one time, thought to be of greatest value, those things are now reckoned as worthless. In fact, Paul willingly—stress that, willingly—Paul willingly counts all things, he tells us in verse 8, as loss, even going so far as to call them contemptible, noxious. He’s rather direct. He’s rather indelicate about the whole thing. He is so, in order that we might not miss the point, he calls all of these things dumb, pure waste.
Over against these things, then, that appear to him valueless, over against these things valued most by his countrymen, the Jews, over against these things valued most by the world, even the Gentiles, Paul now has set the person of Jesus Christ. This one who is the greatest gain, this one who offers in himself That excellence surpassing the value of all things is one who enters into intimate communion with all of those who put their trust in Him. This situation now, as the Apostle describes it here, must be appreciated for its extremity. you hear the extreme language which the Apostle Paul is using in these verses. We are not dealing in these lines with an exaggeration as if Paul were actually saying, I must use these most extreme terms, but you know, do you not, that I hardly mean to sacrifice everything In actual fact, the Apostle Paul is saying, he cannot have it both ways. He is speaking in the most absolute fashion.
He cannot have those things that might be gained to him. He cannot have those things gained to him from the law, nor those things that the world would offer, if he is to have Christ. is either one or the other. He cannot have both. Any attempt to hold on to whatever is gained to him in this world, such things of which he might boast, be they even the benefits of the law, any compromise whatsoever for the sake of these things, forfeits for him Christ.
In the way in which the Apostle Paul poses the problem, we hear the echo of Jesus himself. No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and man. On another occasion Jesus says, he who is not for me is against me.
And still on another occasion he says, you must in fact lose your life for my sake if you are to find it. Paul says, therefore, he gives everything up. Paul gives everything up, so that, in order that, he may have Christ. If he does not give everything up, he cannot have Christ. for it cannot be both ways. He gives everything up then so that he may win Christ, gain Christ. Verse 8. And moving into the ninth verse, he gives everything up so that he may be found in him. This, then, is what the apostle is saying. Unless he surrenders all, he cannot gain Christ, he cannot be found in Him.
But what is it, then, about Jesus Christ that makes this one so important, so indispensable? to the Apostle? What is it about Jesus Christ that now has so captivated the Apostle that draws him to Christ? Does Paul merely see in Christ, in this Jesus and overwhelmingly attractive personality, someone so generous, so magnanimous, so loving, someone even heroic in devotion with respect to the things he believes in?
It may well be that the Apostle Paul sees these things in Jesus Christ, but he sees much more. And most particularly, he sees in this person, Jesus Christ, the answer to the great question about righteousness. Here is where you may gauge your own spiritual interest. You may have a concern about Jesus, a formal interest in the things that pertain to the faith, but the question about righteousness is not one that much concerns you. This question consumed the apostle. This question is the proper, the correct religious interest. Martin Luther got it right. John Calvin understood this point.
The supreme religious question becomes the one that pertains to righteousness. And the apostle Paul is saying in this person, Jesus Christ, the great question about righteousness is answered. But what is it about righteousness that makes it the great question? Precisely this, the question about righteousness sets before us the issue of eternity.
The Jew, Paul, understood righteousness rightly as that indispensable entrance ticket into the eternal presence of God. And in seminars, it’s good to repeat. The Jew Paul understood righteousness rightly as that indispensable entrance ticket into the eternal presence of God.
With it, that is, with righteousness, you enter. Without it, you don’t. It’s that simple. And what if you don’t enter? What then? then the opposite becomes true. You see how this bears down upon this man’s consciousness, how it bears down upon his heart. If he does not enter, then he spends eternity separated from God. To put it directly and bluntly, he goes to hell. Nothing then seems to compare with this question in its seriousness, in its weightiness. In fact, it is difficult to think of a question that is more pressing, more monumental. Now, Paul’s understanding of things as a Jew has been this. One must strive. Get this now.
One must strive for himself, within himself, to fulfill the works of the law in order to build up for himself his own righteousness for the purpose of presenting that righteousness to God in the day of judgment. That is how Paul, the Jew, thought. He must strive to fulfill the works of the law in order to build up for himself his own righteousness for the purpose of presenting that righteousness to God in the day of judgment. His hope is the adequacy of his own performance. His hope is that his performance will in fact satisfy the divine requirement. But what does Paul now see as a Christian?
Here is the gospel. That righteousness for which he had hoped on the day of judgment That righteousness by which he had hoped to present himself to God, that righteousness which would be his indispensable entrance ticket into God’s eternal presence, that righteousness God himself has supplied.
As Philippians 3.9 states it, This is the righteousness of God. That is, this is the righteousness from God that stands over against the righteousness which is from the law. Those two set in contrast. This righteousness, then, of which Paul speaks, which he now claims because of the gospel, this righteousness comes forth from God. It comes forth from that future day of judgment and ushers Paul himself into the presence of God now, so that he already has begun to enjoy God’s eternal fellowship.
That righteousness which now the Apostle Paul claims, the very righteousness of God, the righteousness from God, has been revealed in the faithfulness of Christ. Now, there has been an argument as to that particular phrase in this ninth verse of Philippians You have a New American Standard version in front of you. You can see how it reads there, and that’s the line that most translations, most modern translations now take.
It may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ. There the faith in Christ becomes objective. If you read the King James, I’m sorry, there the faith becomes subjective. If you read the King James, it’s objective. It’s the faith of Christ. What the Apostle Paul is actually saying, and the King James gets it right, is that now, presently, that righteousness which he enjoys has been revealed in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. The faith, or faithfulness, of Jesus Christ.
That faithfulness then being the ground of Paul’s justification. It cannot be my works. It can’t be any combination of my faith and my works. The ground of my justification is the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Such righteousness, this righteousness which comes out of glory, this righteousness that comes out of the future from the day of judgment itself, comes as a heavenly gift granting eternal life and felicity. And say it again, and emphasize it as the Apostle Paul would emphasize it to you. It is not, it cannot be appropriated by works. In fact, such works actually disqualify.
Since even if they are the works of a blameless Jew, Paul, so describing himself in the sixth verse of this chapter, even if they are the works of a blameless Jew, they will constitute invariably a boast in the flesh, a boast in oneself before God’s presence, and that boast, a sin sufficient in itself to disqualify you in its pride and to cast you out of the presence of God eternally. What then of boasting? Paul asks in Romans 3 verse 28. What then of boasting? It is excluded by what law? By the law of works? No. In the law of works, it’s included by the law of faith.
Such righteousness coming from glory, coming from God as the heavenly gift granting eternal life and felicity, is appropriated now only by faith. Trust. There is no other way. Here is the only means of appropriation. Faith. You must believe in the work of God. And trust Him with your whole being. It is, as Paul says at the conclusion of that ninth verse, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Such faith gains Christ, wins Christ. By such faith and such faith alone we are found to be in Him, not one whose faithfulness avails for us. there now being for us no condemnation, since we, by faith, are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8.1. For by grace are ye sinning through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
Ephesians 2.8-9. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Romans 5, warning. It was this matter of justification, you see, that was in the balance that day when those friends, those dear friends of that impaired man lowered him through the roof. Upon seeing their faith, Jesus said to that man, your sins are forgiven you.
The Pharisees’ reaction was not that Jesus was claiming a prerogative of God in forgiving sins, and was thus blaspheming. No, not just that, but more. Jesus was claiming the prerogative preserved for God on the day of judgment. And if Jesus were right, the entire system in which the Pharisees had placed their stock would fall to the ground, would utterly collapse. Forgiveness and justification must be a future, a holy future matter. So said the Pharisees. So Judaism was saying.
Jesus says, no. He says to the man, your sins are forgiven you now, today. You go free. Truly the people that were there that day were right when they said, today we have seen amazing things. And that is then what gives power to Jesus’ response to the Pharisees. In order that you may know that the Son of Man has power, has authority on earth, that he is right now here to forgive sinners. I say to this man, rise up and walk. Why don’t you say?
Today I am forgiven. Today I am just before God. Today, I am justified in the presence of God. Today, I am assured of remarkable things. Today, entrance by way of righteousness, which God himself supplies, is given to me that I might enter into his eternal presence.
That is such a confession. be the confession of all who are gathered here today, and if you are unable to make that confession, may you give yourself no rest until you can. Our Father, we rejoice in your mercy to us, you who would justify the ungodly, and in such a way so as to exclude boasting at every turn. May our boast be of Christ, may we glory in him, for he has meant the resolution of the great question about righteousness.
That which is indispensable if we are to stand before you. How great your gift freely. How marvelous that gift. In light of our undeserving situation and condition. How blessed you are in saving us. wretched sinners that we are. And Lord, we would plead for others here and elsewhere who may not understand. We are asking that your spirit would in fact instruct them that they may be found in Christ having that righteousness that is from you by faith.
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