About this sermon
Martin Luther’s protest in 1517 recovered the doctrine of justification by faith alone. God’s moral law reflects his unchanging righteous character, and it demands perfect obedience. Adam failed the covenant of works, and all humanity fell with him, so no one can be justified by keeping the law, which only shows us our sin. The righteousness of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, and so boasting is excluded.
Sermon transcript
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. This evening, and for the following two Lord’s Days, or the following two evening services, we’re going to take a break from the book of Psalms to consider the biblical doctrine of justification. So I’m doing a three-part mini-series on the wonder of justification. And this evening, My sermon text is Romans chapter 3, and I’ll read verses 19 through 31, although our focus will be especially on verses 19 and 20. So let us hear God’s holy word. Romans 3, beginning at verse 19 and reading to the end of the chapter. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law?
Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one. Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be, on the contrary, we establish the law. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s seek the Lord’s blessing on the preaching of his word. Our gracious God and Father in heaven, we thank you again for your amazing grace to us. And we pray that by your grace and through the Holy Spirit, you would open our minds and our hearts to that which is revealed in this portion of your holy word.
We ask, Lord, that your word would find a lodging place in our souls and may it be spiritual food unto us and bear spiritual fruit in our lives. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is, The Wonder of Justification Part One, Why Faith That’s the question, and there’s only two key words to listen for tonight, children, and those are the words law and justification. That’s a mouthful, justification. Well, here’s a little bit of a trick question, although I think with this congregation it’s probably not too much of a trick question, but my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, do you know what holiday is soon coming up on the calendar? Someone said Halloween. Well, Thanksgiving is coming up too.
Reformation Day. That’s right. You see, on October 31st, in 1517, there was an Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther, who became a great reformer. And it is on that date that he is believed to have nailed his 95 feces on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. And that that event ignited a chain reaction of events which led up to what we now call the Protestant Reformation. Luther wasn’t setting out to start a Reformation or the Reformation, but in God’s providence that’s precisely what happened. Now since we find ourselves in this month of October, in which Reformation Day is soon to be upon us, I thought that it would be both helpful and edifying to review one of the major Bible doctrines that was rediscovered in the Protestant Reformation, and that is the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
This evening’s sermon begins, as I mentioned, a three-part mini-series on the doctrine of justification. Now, what is justification, if you know your shorter catechism? Justification is what? It’s an act of God’s free grace where he pardons all our sins and it counts us righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us and received by faith alone.” It’s interesting, our catechism rightly calls justification an act of God’s free grace, wherein when it talks about sanctification, sanctification is described as a work of God’s free grace. Justification is an act because it’s something that God does outside of us, whereas sanctification is a work what God does within us to conform us more and more into the image of Christ. In justification, it’s a legal term, in justification God declares us to be righteous in his sight because of the righteousness of Christ imputed or credited to us and we receive that righteousness by grace through faith in Christ alone.
Now, why bother to study this doctrine of justification? Well, I could spend a long time talking about the many reasons why we should study this doctrine. Obviously, one of the major reasons is that the Bible teaches it, and we should be concerned to know what the Bible teaches about justification. But there are some other reasons as well. One of the reasons is that because there is widespread ignorance of this doctrine, even among those who would profess themselves to be Protestant and Evangelical Christians. And just to illustrate this, some of you are familiar with Dr. Michael Horton, he’s a Reformed theologian, professor at, I believe, Westminster Seminary West, and he wrote a book a while ago, a number, actually several decades ago, entitled Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, and in that book he recounts an experience that he once had at a non-denominational Christian high school.
Let me just quote from his book. Dr. Horton says, the Bible teacher, An old college friend asked me to spend a day defending the Reformation position on grace. In six class periods with a total of 160 Christian high school students, only one person raised her hand when I asked, how many here have ever heard the term justification? Think about that. This is a Christian high school. It’s a high school with 160 Christian young people. He asked, Who’s ever heard of justification? Only one person raises her hand. Out of 160, he goes on to say, out of 160 Christian young people, only one person had even heard of, much less understood, the central tenet of the Protestant Reformation and indeed of the gospel itself. When I explained the doctrine, hands shot up all over the place in each period.
It was a radically new concept. they never had heard before in all their years of Christian churches, camps, conferences, and youth groups, or in their homes. Parents, I hope you’re teaching your children about justification. That’s kind of a sad commentary, though, isn’t it? Now, this book was written, like I said, several decades ago. How true this must be today, where it seems doctrinal ignorance has even grown since that time. So we need to understand this doctrine because there’s a great deal of ignorance, even in the church world, about this doctrine. Another reason we should study and understand this doctrine is because we must understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone if we desire to have a secure, stable, and maturing Christian faith. Sola Fide, which is Latin for faith alone, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, is one of the doctrines that is absolutely necessary for having a secure and stable Christian faith.
The more you understand what God has done for you in your justification, and the more that your soul embraces that truth, and the more it sinks into your heart, the more stable and joyful your faith will be. Now, I’m not saying it’s the only gospel doctrine that’s important. There are many other doctrines that are important. doctrine of the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, a very central foundational doctrine, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the deity of Christ, his substitutionary atonement, his physical resurrection from the dead, the new birth, the doctrine of regeneration. These are all vitally important gospel doctrines. But understanding this doctrine of justification is particularly important because it will help us to avoid being deceived by false gospels. And there are many false gospels out there. And it can also help to protect us and to protect our children from becoming prey to cult groups and false religions.
When we understand this doctrine and when it gets into our souls, it has the potential to radically change our outlook and transform our lives for the glory of God. So what is the value of having a good grasp of the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, or sola fide? Well, like I said, when we grasp and wholeheartedly embrace this precious gospel truth, it has the potential to transform our lives. Dear ones, this is not just a dry, abstract theological doctrine fit only for the ivory tower of the theological seminary. Rather, it is a life-transforming truth. I mean, think about it for a few moments. See, when you, dear listener, when you understand That you are no longer under the condemning wrath of God. That Jesus took that wrath upon himself in your place, in your stead.
And that he credits, that his righteousness is credited to you. When you understand that. When you understand that God the Father is no longer angry at you. He poured out his wrath upon his Son. And that you are no longer under a covenant of works. You no longer have to be on this religious treadmill, constantly worrying, am I pleasing my father in heaven? Is he upset with me? Is he going to squash me? When you understand that the father views you, believer, as clothed in the perfect, everlasting righteousness of his eternal son, the Lord Jesus Christ. when you understand that your justification makes you secure in the everlasting love of God. When you understand these things, when you understand this doctrine and its practical implications, and they are many, it has the potential to fill you with joy and transform your outlook on life.
Also, understanding this doctrine, and again making sure our children understand it, can help us and our families to walk with wisdom and discernment in the midst of a very muddle-headed and undiscerning culture. We live in a time where there is very little in the way of wisdom or discernment. So what is the central truth that we’re going to consider tonight in relationship to this doctrine of justification? Well, again, our focus is especially going to be on verses 19 and 20. And the central truth is that, brothers and sisters, we must understand that it is impossible for us sinners to be justified, declared righteous before God or saved on the basis of our own keeping of God’s moral law, or even on the basis of our partial keeping of God’s moral law. Again, to read verses 19 and 20, now we know that whatever the law, and he’s speaking there of God’s moral law, he’s speaking of the law as a covenant of works and so forth.
We know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. The law holds us accountable to God’s holy standard and it shows us, it shuts our mouths, it shuts our excuses, it shuts off our excuses, it holds us accountable. Why? Verse 20, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Now let’s recall the context of this passage. Paul’s letter to the Romans is a portion of Scripture that is very logical and very connected, and everything fits together. Paul’s argument, the flow of his argument, he builds one thing upon another thing upon another thing. And up until this point in his letter to the Roman Church, Paul’s main concern has been to establish the fact that all human beings, not just Gentiles but even Jews, are under the power and dominion and guilt of sin.
God’s revelation to mankind in nature and the human conscience makes people inexcusable before God. It makes us inexcusable, as Paul asserts in chapters 1 and 2. But the moral law of God especially, that law that was revealed from Sinai, especially reveals mankind’s guilt and corruption before God. And that brings us to my first point of application from for this evening. Understand, beloved, that the law of God reveals God’s unchanging standard of ethics. We are told that we cannot, that no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. What is the law? The law of God is that which reveals God’s unchanging standard of ethics. God is not a moral relativist. God’s law is grounded in his righteous and holy character. The moral law, as summarized in the Ten Commandments, is the transcript of God’s righteous character.
The moral law is as unchanging as God himself is unchanging, because the moral law is a revelation of God’s unchanging righteous character. Again, this is contrary to very popular thinking today, the popular thinking of moral, ethical relativism, the idea that morality is ever evolving, ever changing. And oftentimes people today will say, come on, we live in the 21st century, get with the times. You know, I think the times need to get with God’s will revealed in his holy law. God’s law does not change whatever century we might happen to find ourselves in. Now again, what is this moral law of God, as I mentioned? It is, we believe, summarized in the Ten Commandments. As our Shorter Catechism puts it in answer to question 41, the moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments. That’s just an old-fashioned way of saying God’s moral law is summarized in the Ten Commandments.
And every commandment can be put under the umbrella of one or several of the various laws that are revealed in the Ten Commandments. And the Apostle Paul himself, there’s many passages of Scripture that we could look at to bolster this statement, this assertion, but I just want us to consider one. If you stay in the book of Romans, but go to Romans 13 and look at verses 9 and 10, Romans 13 verses 9 and 10, where he talks about the law of love, Let me start it actually at verse 8, Romans 13, 8 through 10. Paul writes, and this is in the context where he’s just talked about our responsibility to be subject to the governing authorities. Excuse me. He says in verse 8, Oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law for this.
You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet. Those sound familiar? Those commandments sound familiar? And if there is any other commandment is summed up in this saying, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. And so again, the moral law Paul quotes from the Ten Commandments when he talks about the fulfillment of the law of God’s requirement to love our neighbor. And, of course, love for God and love for our neighbor are inextricably intertwined one with another. Another reason why we believe that the moral law of God is summarized in the Ten Commandments is because God himself spoke those commandments, thundering them forth audibly to his people from Mount Sinai. He spoke his word, he spoke his Ten Commandments, and that’s what makes the Ten Commandments distinct from the other Old Covenant commandments, such as the ceremonial commandments and the sacrificial laws, and the laws having to do with the civil theocracy of Israel.
All of those other laws were revealed privately to Moses, and he wrote them down on the ancient equivalent of paper. But the moral law of God, as summarized in the Ten Commandments, was spoken audibly by the very voice of God himself. These laws that God thundered forth from Mount Sinai were also written by the finger of God, again distinguishing them from the ceremonial laws, which were written by Moses’s fingers at the direction of God, of course. The Ten Commandments were written on tablets of stone. which indicates permanence of obligation, and they were placed in the Ark of the Covenant, again setting them apart from the ceremonial and civil and sacrificial laws, and thus indicating their special status and permanence. The other laws or commands in the Bible are either ceremonial, or their applications of the moral law to specific cases, or their civil laws that were pertinent to or relevant to the state of the people of Israel under the Old Covenant theocracy, and so forth.
So friends, the point here is that this moral law of God summarized in the Ten Commandments has timeless relevance because it is the unchanging ethical standard that applies to all people at all times and in every culture, whether they realize it or not. And so when we consider justification, what is the standard by which God declares us to be righteous in his sight? Well, it has to be a standard of righteousness as he defines righteousness. Thank God that God provides for us the perfect righteousness of Christ. Christ earned that righteousness for us. But nevertheless, that righteousness was earned by his keeping the precepts and suffering the penalties of the law of God. Let me ask you, dear listener, what is your standard of ethics? Do you seek to be autonomous, that is to say, a law unto yourself?
Or do you recognize that you are ethically bound to the unchanging requirements of God’s unchanging moral law. If you have a relativistic view of ethics, then you will not understand or appreciate your need to be justified in the sight of an all-holy God, because God’s law requires perfect personal and entire obedience with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength. And if you’ve got a morally relativistic view of right and wrong, good and evil, well then You might think, well, God sort of grades on a curve, right? He kind of lowers His standard and His expectations to meet my behavior. But that’s not the way it works. God does not grade on a curve. He requires perfect obedience. His holiness, His justice, His righteousness requires perfect obedience. And therefore, that brings me to my second point, and we’ll get a little more into the details here in verse 19.
The law of God condemns those who remain in Adam and therefore under the demands of the covenant of works. This is implied in verse 19. The law of God condemns those who remain in Adam and therefore are under the demands of the covenant of works. It says in verse 19, now we know that whatever the law says, let me pause there. Paul has just quoted from a series of Old Testament passages that underscore the fact that, well, as it says back in verse 10, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside and so forth. There is none who does good. There is not even one. In God’s eyes, no one does good by the standard of his holy law. We have all transgressed the law of God.
So it says, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. God shuts off and shuts up our excuses, God’s law, God’s holy standard. It shuts us up and it makes us accountable before our holy creator. Now, what does Paul mean when he speaks of those who are under the law and the scholars debate who Paul in particular has in mind. It is possible that, well, I would suggest that Paul probably has in mind the Jews in particular here, but his point seems to be that if even the Jews who were entrusted with the law of God, entrusted with the oracles of God, and taken as God’s covenant people, his point seems to be that if even the Jews who had been privileged to receive the scriptures were condemned by those very scriptures, by the law, then certainly the whole world, both Jew and Gentile, stand guilty before the infinitely holy Creator God.
So it’s important for us to understand, beloved, that according to Scripture, all men are represented by Adam. Adam was our original covenant head and representative. We are covenant creatures. We were created in covenant with God through our solidarity with Adam, our original covenant head and representative. And God’s covenant with Adam before the fall was a covenant of works. If Adam and Eve had perfectly obeyed God, which they were capable of doing before they fell into sin, and if they had obeyed, if they had passed the probationary test, remember God says you can eat from any tree except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If Adam had done his duty and guarded that holy sanctuary of Eden and judged the serpents which is the true judgment between good and evil, then he would have been confirmed.
He and all whom he represented would have been confirmed in righteousness and thus justified, declared to be righteous forever in the sight of God. Our Confession of Faith in Chapter 7, Section 2 says, The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. You may say, well, Pastor, I don’t see that in the Old Testament, but it is clearly implied in passages like Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17. I’m just going to read those really quickly. Genesis 2, verses 16 and 17. It says, The Lord God commanded the man, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.
Now the word covenant is not used there, but the elements of a covenant are there. God makes an arrangement with Adam. He says you can eat from any other tree, but then he threatens a curse for disobedience. And the implication is that there is life. There’s the tree of life as well, the sacramental tree for obedience, but there is curse and death for disobedience. And we know what happened with Adam and Eve. They ate the forbidden fruit. They disobeyed God. They became covenant breakers. And because Adam represented us, we are by nature in Adam covenant breakers. But again, in the covenant of works arrangement, God promised Adam eternal life, glorified life in a glorified heaven and earth. If he continued to render perfect personal and entire obedience to God’s moral law, and also if he passed the probationary test in the garden.
Adam, our original representative, of course, failed the probationary test and he broke the covenant of works by eating the forbidden fruit. And therefore, when he fell, we fell in solidarity with him. This is called the representative principle. You know, it amazes me. Some, some Christians, they, they object to the idea that Adam represented us. Well, I didn’t, I didn’t choose Adam. I, you know, that’s unfair. Why would God judge me based on what Adam did? Well, if that’s unfair, then Jesus representing you is also unfair. It’s not unfair. It’s God’s covenantal arrangement. And God chose a perfect covenant head when he chose Adam. Adam perfectly represented us, and he did what we would have done the same thing, also, if we’d had the opportunity. And so, all who are born in Adam are born covenant breakers.
This is confirmed, for example, in Romans chapter 5. If you look at Romans 5 verse 12, I’m not going to read this whole section, but the Apostle Paul shows the parallel between the first Adam and Jesus, the last Adam. In verse 12, it says, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, all sinned in Adam. And then if you skip down to verses 15 through 19, it says, But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, that would be Adam, the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound to many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.
For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation. But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, speaking of Adam’s transgression, even so through one act of righteousness, that’s Christ’s righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous. Well, dear listener, do you understand how serious our sin problem is? We are sinners by our fallen nature in Adam, and we act out of that nature unless the sovereign grace of God intervenes.
And sin is not just the bad stuff you do on the outside, although that that is included in sin. But sin isn’t just external. It’s in your heart. It’s in your disposition. It is your bent, your fundamental bent apart from Christ. It’s the corrupt nature you inherited from Adam. That is why outward reformation of life is not enough. It may be very beneficial to change your ways, you know, to stop, you know, if you’re addicted to alcohol, to get help and intervention. If you’re if you’re overweight or whatever, to seek to remedy that and so forth. Outward Reformation can be helpful and beneficial to you and to others in your life, but it cannot save your soul. You need regeneration, you need to be born again, if you would see and enter into the kingdom of God, and if you would exercise that faith which receives and rests upon Christ alone for salvation.
We need a perfect sacrifice in order to provide atonement for our sins, And we need a perfect righteousness credited to our account in order to have the title to enter a perfect heaven and to stand uncondemned before the God of infinite righteousness. Praise God by his merit and sacrifice. Our Lord Jesus Christ secured forgiveness of sins and a right standing before God for all who put their faith and trust in him alone for salvation from sin. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you trust in him? for your salvation. Oh, believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and God will justify you by grace alone. But the final point I want to make as we close things up this evening, based on verse 20, we see here that the law of God is valuable.
It’s not valuable as a way of justification. You cannot be justified by works of the law. As we’ve been learning from verse 19, God’s law requires perfect personal and entire obedience. And heaven requires a perfect obedience in order to gain entrance. Your title to heaven is a perfect righteousness, and you and I don’t have that righteousness in ourselves. That’s why it has to be the righteousness of another. An alien righteousness, as the Reformers put it. A righteousness that is outside of us. Not little green men from Mars or whatever, but an outside righteousness. And that righteousness is Christ’s righteousness. If you have Christ as your righteousness, you have full and free access to glory because his righteousness earned that glory. But the law of God, while it is not of value as a way of salvation, a way of earning justification, the law of God is valuable in that it reveals the knowledge of sin.
This is my final point. The law of God reveals the knowledge of sin and thus reveals our need for a savior. As it says in verse 20, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. See, when the law of God has its intended effect, it shows us that we are wretched sinners who couldn’t possibly save ourselves or contribute anything to salvation. I need to correct myself. You do contribute something to your salvation. You want to know what it is? It’s your sin. You can’t save yourself. You can add nothing to what Jesus has done. And so the law of God shows you this, and it is intended to make you long for a perfect, sinless, spotless Savior. This was the law’s effect in Paul’s own life, as he attests in Romans chapter 7.
He talks about how the law worked in his own heart to show him his sin. If you consider Romans 7, verses 7 through 12, it says this, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. Paul is not saying that the law is bad. The law is good. He says, on the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law. And then he gives an example of how the law convicted him and showed him that he was not righteous as he had thought he was, but desperately needed a savior. It says, on the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting If the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind.
For apart from the law, sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. And this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me.” And so forth. He says, for sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then, the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. The problem is not with the law. The problem is with us. We who are sinners, lawbreakers. So, dear ones, why must we sinners be justified by faith in Christ alone? Because there’s no other way. It’s impossible for sinful people. to be justified by keeping the moral law of God, for the moral law requires perfect obedience. God is perfect. He’s infinitely righteous and perfect.
Heaven is a perfect place. You need a perfect righteousness to get there, and you don’t have it in yourself. But the good news is that what we lack, Christ provides for all who through sovereign grace believe in him. Praise be to God that our Heavenly Father, out of His infinite grace, His amazing love, as we sang earlier in the service, and praise God that He has made it possible for us sinners to be justified in His sight by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and to rise again from the dead for our justification so that all who believe in Him, all who trust in Him alone for salvation, might not perish but have everlasting life. Thanks be to God for his amazing grace. Amen.
Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you, O God, for the wonder of our justification and that we are justified by your grace alone through God given faith alone in Christ and Christ alone apart from works of the law. We do thank you, O God, for the law, for it shows us our sin. It shows us our need. It diagnoses our problem. We thank you, Lord, also, most especially for the gospel, for the gospel shows us good news that in Christ we have a merciful, forgiving God. So, Lord, help us to take these truths to heart. And during this season, when we remember your mighty move of grace in the Protestant Reformation, we ask, Lord, that you would help us to come to appreciate in a deeper and more experiential way the wonder of the gospel of justification by faith alone.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
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