This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “By Way of Reminder” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, August 11, 1996.
About this sermon
This review series opens with its purpose stated plainly: reminding the church of Luther’s and Calvin’s rediscovery of justification by faith alone, against the backdrop of the Roman Catholic mass. At its heart is the finality of Christ’s finished work, which alone secures our freedom.
Sermon transcript
Tonight we are reading Galatians 2. Let us give our attention to the reading of God’s word, Galatians 2. Then, after an interval of fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. This was because of a revelation that I had received, and I presented the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles to those who were of reputation, in private, for fear that I might be running, or had run, in vain.
But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. This was because of false brethren who had secretly infiltrated our group to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, with the intent to bring us into slavery. But we did not yield to them in subjection, not even for an hour, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. As for those who were of high reputation, their identity makes no difference to me, for God shows no partiality. Those who were considered to be pillars contributed nothing to me.
On the contrary, recognizing that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised, for the one who worked effectively through Peter in his apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively through me for the Gentiles. And after recognizing the grace given to me, James, Cephas, and John, who were regarded as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They also asked us to remember the poor, which was indeed my own eager intention.
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he began to withdraw and separate himself, fearing the group of those who insisted on circumcision. And the rest of the Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their behavior. But when I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, though a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?
May it never be. For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.”
Lord, may our ears be opened to You as servants made alive by You. Even animated by Your call, may the certainty of that call be confirmed in us, that we continue to hear what You say. Bless us, Your children, as we would be children to a Father, You a Father to us. As we are to listen to our earthly fathers, may we listen even more seriously and solemnly to our Heavenly Father. We pray this, O God, even as You, by Your Spirit and for the sake of Your Son, set this word before us for our benefit and for our good. We pray this truly, in Jesus’ name, amen.
I have felt that it is good from time to time to offer to You, this congregation, reminders of the orientation of this topic. The reasons for this, I trust, are fairly obvious. For one thing, we have new people regularly coming into this Church, and it is important in the preaching ministry of this Church that the message from this pulpit be heard in direct terms. Also, the history of God’s people recorded for us in Scripture, and what we know from Church history and about ourselves personally, are certainly enough to convince us of the need for constant reminders.
This is true not only because of the limits we know as human beings, because we are finite, but also because we are sinners. Therefore, in the interests of our sanctification, we must not allow ourselves to become weary of reminders. Not that every message from this pulpit is not a reminder. Not that every Scripture read in our hearing is not a reminder.
However, a reminder, especially one that is self-consciously crafted to be just that, a reminder, is of great value to us in our Christian walk. Like the words, like the rocks taken from the Jordan and set up as a memorial, like even the sacraments, one of which we celebrated this morning. Messages like these, specially crafted reminders, may then well serve as monuments, as markers, as guideposts for us, a congregation of the Lord. But there is also the matter of our refreshment.
Like having been traveling for a while, moving surely in the right direction, but then coming to an elevated point—a hill or a mountain—from the top of which we see better, more clearly, our destination, and also the lay of the land around us. My own soul has been graciously refreshed when I have caught again a glimpse of where I, in this Christian pilgrimage, am headed, and have understood once again the relationship of my present circumstance to that destiny, to that goal. This evening, you may well be in need of your own refreshment. This evening, you may well be in need of standing on a hill, as it were, once again, a mountaintop, just to get your bearings, to find your orientation once more, and to see clearly where you are headed. It could be that a concentrated, specifically crafted reminder would be of great help to you.
Then there is also the matter of our spiritual development, that a focused reminder may catch you in the providence of God at a point in your life when you are ready, prepared by His Holy Spirit, to hear and to receive as never before what you must hear and receive now. This point is especially important to you, children in the congregation.
The messages you hear regularly from this pulpit may seem to be beyond you, even confusing to you. You may not understand some, or even much, of the content of the preaching that comes forth from this pulpit. You may not understand the reasons why I seem to become so excited here, or why I raise my voice when I preach. You may not even understand why my face becomes so red, or why the veins in my neck become visible. I have been told by some that I will suffer a coronary here. One small child, so I was told, asked his mother during one of my sermons, “Is Pastor Denison mad at us?” Well, sometimes I am.
But hopefully my smile, or perhaps it is a grimace— I have been told that as well—is enough to convince you of my interest in you and my love for you. Then there are those unforgettable days, such as the time when, on another occasion, I was delivering a reminder message, and Julie Loud came to me after the service, her face beaming, and said, “I understood everything you said.” May all of you children come to the point in your life where you fully understand the message being preached to you. To recall our orientation in summary form from time to time can therefore be greatly beneficial, and it clearly stands in keeping with the forceful directives of Scripture itself. Such directives as Isaiah 46:9 and 10, a passage which many of you children have memorized.
Remember the former things of old, writes Isaiah. For I am God, and there is none else. I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. What about the simple reminder from Paul in 2 Timothy 2, verse 8?
Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead, according to my gospel. Such reminders are of interest to us as we in the Church are benefited by them, and also as they become the occasion for a clear and concise presentation of the gospel itself, by which sinners are converted and translated from darkness into light. So let us continue with this reminder. This reminder concerns the orientation of this pulpit, in the hope before God that such a reminder may be found to be most useful to you. My reminder to you tonight is about the Protestant roots of this ministry, and begins with an assessment of the Apostle Paul’s relationship to the gospel. In understanding the orientation of this pulpit, I want you to ask yourself: How is Paul’s message to be approached most adequately? How is Paul’s message to be approached most adequately?
It is the judgment of this pulpit that in order to answer this question, we must be in tune with the Reformers—sixteenth-century servants of God, particularly Martin Luther and John Calvin. Both of these men turned to Paul, the apostle of the Lord, in their responses to Catholicism and saw that the doctrine of an objective justification by faith was at the heart of the biblical gospel. Strive to understand the doctrine of justification by faith.
In other words, according to these servants of God, a definitive historical work of God—an act of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—fifteen hundred years before their time, was the basis of their salvation and their right standing before God. And that a relationship to this definitive work of God was possible not through works or through personal emotional responses, but only through faith in God’s gift. This meant for them, as they appropriated the message that the Apostle Paul, the servant of God, was proclaiming, that a right standing before God does not come to the Church through legalistic pursuits of religious duties, nor through mystical flights into experiential spirituality.
Both approaches had been perfected by the Medieval Church, yet both lacked the essential element of Paul’s message: the focus on the concrete, historical, once-for-all-time act by God for the salvation of sinners in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see, these Reformers understood that if salvation comes through the legalistic pursuit of religious duties or through experiential spirituality, then the concrete historical, once-for-all-time act by God in Christ becomes tangential, trivial, and finally superfluous to the Church’s message. And that accepting the Roman Catholic position, at best, the concrete historical acts of God and Christ must be reinterpreted as anything but a once-for-all-time event, and made into an ongoing event, the benefit of which is attained only by those who are morally and mystically engaged with it. Christ’s death becomes a repeatable event that must be appropriated anew regularly in the believer’s life. Here is the very heart of the Roman Catholic system of the Mass, wherein Rome officially teaches that Jesus Christ is re-sacrificed, and that for the sins most recently committed by those in the Church.
Both Luther and Calvin, together with the Reformation Churches that arose from them, repudiated such a system. In the conviction that the Holy Spirit is speaking through the Scriptures, they declared Paul’s message: that Jesus Christ gave himself for us, conclusively. By his sacrifice, the righteousness of God has appeared—righteousness that is apart from the law and is instead by grace through faith. For no one will be justified by the works of the law, let alone by our own spiritual experiences. Some of you know that in this summary of the Reformation’s understanding of Paul’s message, I have drawn together elements from Galatians 2, Romans 3, Philippians 3, Ephesians 2, and the central argument of 2 Corinthians 11–12. This is a solid survey of the Apostle Paul and his intention.
The glory of the Reformation, then, is this: the realization, by God’s grace, that in Christ’s death and resurrection, something final has taken place. And it is through simple faith—only through simple faith—that the proper, God-honored connection to this final act of God is found.
Otherwise, you fall into greater error. If you compromise the finality of God’s action in Christ’s death and resurrection, you fall into greater error. And if you rely on works, you reject grace. And if you reject grace, you boast in yourself. That is the truth. Now, need I say, this is why you are Protestant. The power of this genuine biblical faith is beyond measure.
Shall we speak of freedom? I do not think we understand what freedom truly is anymore. On secular campuses, and even on some Christian campuses, the Christian freedom that arose from the Protestant Reformation has been entirely secularized and reduced to a political concept. It is said to be the only freedom that matters.
Political freedom. Let me ask you about the Apostle Paul. Is this man politically free? As I recall, he was a man in chains, and he even described himself as a bond slave to Jesus Christ. So much for political freedom. This man knows a greater freedom.
And it is a shame that so much of the Church of Jesus Christ in our day is a stranger to it. The force of this genuine biblical religion is inestimable. What freedom! The Apostle Paul being described as the apostle of freedom, the apostle of liberty. Freedom from human religious tyranny.
We understand this in relationship to the tyrannous regime of Phariseeism, of which Paul was a part at one time in his life. We know it also from the tyrannous regime of the medieval Church, from which the Reformers were liberated. And what freedom from personal and inner religious torment.
Does not Luther have something to teach us here? A man, it seems, filled with inner turmoil. Then by the grace of the gospel, as that was communicated to him powerfully through the epistle to the Romans and the epistle to the Galatians, he became finally a free man, with a conscience that was cleansed. As Paul says in one of the most glorious texts in all of his writings, one so easily passed over, Galatians 5 verse 1: “For freedom Christ has set us free. For freedom Christ has set us free.” And let me tell you, no government can take that freedom from you. None. And that is what makes some governments so upset. It is as if Paul, with those words from Galatians 5, were echoing his Lord.
Jesus’ own words from John 8:36: “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” If you do not understand what this means, do not give yourselves rest until you do. Now I must remind you of more things than what I have said this evening. Do not worry; I am bringing this message to a close. This will be a short series entitled, “By Way of Reminder.” What I have said tonight, let it suffice for now. Let it suffice as a reminder to you about the Reformation recovery of Paul’s gospel of salvation by grace through faith. In God’s final sacrifice for sinners in Jesus Christ, that you might live in and enjoy the freedom belonging to the sons of God.
Our God, we would not despise You. You are stirring us up to reminders that we might be pointed again in the right direction, even corrected. Grant us patience. Refresh ourselves in the orientation of our faith. Be blessed where we are in that position of our spiritual growth, even as we are beckoned through reminders to greater heights yet. We who are children, called even by these reminders, so that these reminders are set as memorials in our minds for an appropriate time. And Father, we ask that we would remember how Your Spirit has worked in Your Church, so remarkably that at times there is a consensus revolving around a reminder, such as in the time of the Reformation.
And we would not despise our heritage, but hold to it, because we love You and we delight in the freedom that You have given us as Your gift. Here, Father, let slavery and bondage, whether religious or secular, not stop us. May we prove ourselves to be those who are free indeed, the very sons of God.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.