Treasury of Sermons -
Polemical
Justification by Faith Alone
By Rev Charles Seet
(Preached at Life BPC, 10.30am service, 27 Oct 2002)
Text: James 2:14-26
Today is Reformation Sunday, the day in
which we remember our Protestant heritage and commemorate the 16th
century Reformation which took place 485 years ago. This Reformation was
a great movement that restored the Truth of God’s Word back to the
church. We must thank the Lord for bringing about this movement because
we are the ones who are now enjoying all the benefits of it,
having the truth of God’s Word taught, preached and followed in our
church and in all churches that have emerged as a result of this
movement.
It all began on 31st October
1517, when a monk by the name of Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses on
the door of the Wittenberg castle. It is interesting to know how
this came about. It was through an exhaustive study of Paul’s epistle to
the Romans that Luther began in 1515. As he studied this book of the
Bible carefully he had discovered that salvation was not at all
accomplished by doing good works, as he had been taught all along
by the Roman Catholic Church. He realised the truth of Romans 1:17 which
says: “The just shall live by faith.” For the first time in his
life, Luther believed with all his heart in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
experienced the blessings of justification. His heart was inflamed with
a passion to share what he had discovered with others and he began to
preach it fervently in the church that he pastored. This doctrine of
justification by faith alone is actually the focal point of the
Gospel of Christ, and it also became the focal point of the Protestant
Reformation. It was the mainstay of the Reformers’ enlightenment that
eventually exposed the false claims, false doctrines and unscriptural
practices of the apostate Roman Church.
Now, at that time, the Roman Church was
trying its best to increase its wealth through the sale of forgiveness
certificates called indulgences. These certificates were claimed by the
Church to grant the purchaser the right to receive full and perfect
remission of all his sins, the right to participate in the merits of all
the saints, and the relieving of poor suffering loved ones in purgatory.
Moreover the indulgences were sold at great discounts and skilled
salesmen were deployed to promote sales all over Europe. One of the
salesmen who did this was a Dominican monk named Johann Tetzel,
who even had a catchy jingle, ‘As soon as the coin into the coffer
rings, the soul out of Purgatory springs.’
Tetzel’s sales talk even included such
blasphemous statements as ‘The Lord our God no longer reigns, He has
resigned all power to the pope.’ By God’s providence the place where
Tetzel set up his indulgence business was only a few miles way from
Wittenberg where Luther’s church was. And very soon, some members of
Luther’s church were going over to listen to Tetzel and even to buy
indulgences from him. All the efforts that Pastor Martin Luther had put
into teaching his congregation about justification by faith in Christ
alone was being undone! And so Luther could not help but to
protest against this, to rid the church of this most profane and
degrading doctrine and practice.
And this was the reason why he wrote the
95 theses and nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg castle. These
theses were intended to prove that justification is by faith alone, and
not by works, nor by buying indulgences from the Roman Church. Having
seen how this doctrine of Justification by Faith was the starting point
of the 16th century Protestant Reformation, let us now
proceed to understand this doctrine carefully.
I. The Definition of Justification
What is justification? The key idea to
justification is righteousness. Justification is basically the
one-time legal declaration made by God at the moment of
salvation, that a sinner is now righteous, even before his life
begins to show any characteristics of righteousness. Some have likened
justification to the act of a judge in a court of law, when he
pronounces the verdict – “Not Guilty!” Cf. Deuteronomy 25:1 –
“If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment,
that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous,
and condemn the wicked.” Psalm 32:2 – “Blessed is the man unto
whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no
guile.”
III. The Grounds For Justification
A. Christ’s Atoning Death (Passive
Obedience)
There are two distinct grounds by
which we are justified. Firstly, on the grounds that Jesus Christ
has fully taken the full punishment for our sins when He died. We
call this the passive obedience of Christ. By this we receive the
pardon or forgiveness of all our sins. It is as if we had
never sinned at all. Let us look at Romans 4:6-8 – “Even as David
also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”
B. Christ’s Righteous Life (Active
Obedience)
The second grounds for our justification
is that Jesus Christ was righteous throughout His whole life on earth.
He kept the entire Law of God perfectly. We call this the active
obedience of Christ. By this, God see us as being righteous
when He sees us in Christ. It is as if we have kept the whole Law
of God perfectly. Romans 5:19 is a verse that speak of the way that God
sees us now in Christ – “For as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made
righteous.” Notice that this verse says that it is Christ’s
obedience that makes us righteous.
Both of these grounds for justification
are equally important. If our legal status can be likened to a number
line, then our starting point as sinners would be on the negative
part of the line because of our sins and God would be on the positive
side of the number line because of His righteousness. Now when our sins
are pardoned, we are brought to zero level, but we still
fall short of God’s righteousness. God cannot accept us when we
are merely at zero level. In Matthew 5:20 Jesus said, “For I say unto
you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter
into the kingdom of heaven.” But how can our righteousness go beyond
the zero level? By having the perfect righteousness of Jesus
Christ credited into our account, so to speak. With this righteousness
we can now stand before God, holy and righteous.
Now, that we have seen the grounds for
justification, the next thing that we need to learn about justification
is:
IV. The Means of Justification
We cannot be justified by our own good
works or by keeping the Law, but by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ
alone. Acts 13:38 makes this clear – “And by Him all that
believe are justified from all things, from which ye could
not be justified by the law of Moses.” Ephesians 2:8,9 – “For
by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God”
But there are some who claim that the
Bible teaches justification by works. This includes the Roman
Catholic Church. And just three years ago the Lutheran World
Federation signed a joint declaration with the Roman Catholic Church on
the doctrine of Justification, stating that they have now reached an
agreement on this doctrine. This is clearly a compromise,
because the Catholic Church has not changed one whit in its stand
regarding Justification by faith plus works.
As recently as September 2000, the
Vatican published a declaration stating that it regards all
Protestant orders of ministry and the Lord’s Supper to be deficient.
That is because the Catholic church teaches that their rituals are a
means of salvation. A Catholic must be baptized, attend mass
regularly, and partake of the rest of the 7 sacraments, because without
them he cannot be saved. This is therefore a salvation by works.
What scriptural basis do they use for this teaching? They claim that it
is found in James 2:17-18 “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is
dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have
works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my
faith by my works.”
How should we understand this passage?
In His providence, the Lord has given us two types of passages on
salvation: the one by the apostle Paul, which emphasises faith
and the other by James, which emphasises works.
These two seemingly contradictory emphases have been
the subject of much controversy and strife. But diligent study will
reveal that there is really no contradiction at all between the
two sets of Bible passages – Together, they teach that salvation is by
faith alone, and that faith results in good works. Some passages of
God’s Word have to emphasise faith, in order to silence the
teachings of false teachers, who want to teach that salvation is by
works. All the credit for our salvation goes to God alone, and
any boasting on our part is entirely excluded.
The Bible teaches
that salvation is by faith alone, and at the moment a person believes
in Jesus as his personal Lord and Saviour he is already saved and he
has eternal life. (John 5:24 – “He that heareth My word, and
believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come
into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”) He does not
have to add anything to complete his salvation.
But on the other
hand, there are some people would abuse this doctrine of
salvation by grace through faith, by claiming that Christians then do
not need good works at all. This produces an Antinomian spirit, that
sees no need for holy Christian living and obedience to God’s commands
in Scripture. This is where passages in the Bible that emphasise
works like James 2:14-26 serve the important purpose of expounding
the effect of salvation on a person’s life.
A. A Dead Faith
Cannot Justify Us
Let us begin to study
this passage carefully. Whenever James mentions faith without works, he
is actually referring to false faith. That is what faith without
works is – false faith, static or dead faith! We see this in
vv.14,17,20 and 26. In verse 19 we learn that a mere mental acceptance
of certain truths is not true faith – even the devils know and believe
that there is only one God, and they are not saved. It is sad
fact that many people today are not saved although they claim to be
Christians. If you ask them whether they believe the truths of the
Bible, they will immediately say “Yes.” But their lives do not show any
change at all. Many of them assume that they are already going to
heaven and so they are careless about how they live.
C. A Living Faith
Will Produce Good Works
True faith is more
than just a mental acceptance of certain truths. True faith mentioned is
mentioned in v.18 – “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have
works: shew me thy faith without thy works (false faith), and I will
shew thee my faith by my works. (true faith)” It is a faith that is
shown by works. It is a living faith, an active or working faith,
and it is only this kind of faith that can save a sinner.
1. The Living
Faith of Abraham
I would like to use
Abraham as an example because he is mentioned by James. Turn to Romans
4:2,3 – “For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to
glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham
believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”
These verses tell us that Abraham was already justified from the very
moment that he believed God.
Paul quoted the words
from Genesis 15:6, which comes 7 chapters (30 years of time) before
Genesis 22, and which records how Abraham offered his son Isaac upon the
altar. This helps us now to understand what James meant when he used the
illustration of Abraham in James 2:21-24. Let us look at these verses
now.
We notice that in
v.23 James quotes the same verse that Paul had used in Romans 4, Genesis
15:6 – “Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for
righteousness” And what does he say took place when Abraham offered
Isaac? He said that this scripture was fulfilled. This means that
the faith that Abraham had in God found its fulfilment or outward
expression in his act of offering his son as a sacrifice. Abraham
was already saved by faith when he offered up Isaac, and the act
of offering him only confirmed that his faith was genuine. It did
not save him.
If we were to examine
the biblical definition of faith, we can see why there is often a
time lag between the moment of salvation and the time when one’s
faith is proven to be genuine. Faith is resting totally
upon God. Faith lays down its whole weight and expectation of mercy upon
Him, willing to be fully submitted to His purpose and His power.
When a person believes in Jesus Christ
with true faith, he is already saved from the moment the
commitment is made by praying the “sinner’s prayer.” But that
faith may not have the opportunity to be seen in public. For
example – the dying thief on the cross, who died shortly after he was
converted. This and many other death-bed conversions show that a person
is saved even before any good works are produced. Coming back to
Abraham, if a person were to ask whether Abraham would have been saved
if he had died after Genesis 15:6 but before Genesis 22, the answer
would be a clear “Yes.” Even if his faith did not have the opportunity
to be tested, it would still have saved him.
2. The Living Faith of Rahab
Now we come to the second example used
by James – Rahab (in v.25). The Bible tells us that she was the citizen
of Jericho that received the two Israelite spies, and hid them, in order
to help the Israelites conquer her own city. By doing so, she risked her
life (Joshua 2:8-13). The question we would ask is what would have
happened if the spies never came to her home? Would she have died with
the rest of her people? Let us read what Rahab said in Jos 2:9-11 –
“And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you
the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the
inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard
how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out
of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were
on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And
as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt,
neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you:
for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”
Based upon what Rahab said here, we can
safely infer that even before the spies came to her house, she
had already believed in the God of Israel. And in my opinion, even
if the spies had not come, she would have run out of the city of Jericho
with her family to join the Israelites when they came to the city, and
begged them to spare her. Like Abraham therefore, Rahab was not saved
at the point that she did good works, but at the point when she
believed in the Lord.
What we want to emphasise now from this
passage of James is this: A living faith will always produce good
works over time. That is how we can tell that the faith is living.
And this means that if there are no good works produced even
after a long time that a person became a Christian, then it is
doubtful that he had living faith.
In the medical world, when a person is
unconscious, the only way that we can tell if he is still alive is to
feel for a pulse and for breath from his mouth. These are what we call
the vital signs – they only way we can tell, without any special
instruments, whether there is life or not. Normally, when a person just
falls unconscious, he may still be alive even though his heart stops
beating and he stops breathing. This is because there is still enough
oxygen in the blood to sustain life for about 4 minutes. Hence CPR is
done in the hope that the person will not die. Every now and then, the
person doing CPR will take the pulse of the patient to see if his heart
has started to beat again. But if after about 10 – 15 minutes of time
there is still no pulse, then there is no point in continuing – the
person can safely be pronounced dead.
The same principle is applied to faith
in James 2:26 tells us that “as the body without the spirit is dead,
so faith without works is dead also.” If faith is alive, it
tends to produce works over a period of time. What we should be worried
about, is when over a long period of time, there are still no works
produced. Then we may have to pronounce faith to be dead. And a
dead faith cannot save.
We therefore conclude that it is faith
that saves, and not works; but given enough time, works are bound to be
produced by a faith that saves. Now that we have studied the means of
justification, we go on to look at the last part of our study:
V. The Results of Justification
As a result of justification we have the
following:
A. We Have Peace With God.
Romans 5:1 – “Therefore being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ” We can therefore enjoy access to God and commune with
Him.
B. We Are Spared from the Wrath to
Come
Romans 5:9 – “Much more then, being
now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through him.”
C. We Are Made Heirs
Titus 3:7 – “That being justified
by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope
of eternal life.”
We ought to be very thankful for these
wonderful results of justification that we have – A justification that
we have not by works, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We
also ought to remember that it was the 16th century
Protestant Reformation that restored this important foundational
doctrine to the church, bringing us out of darkness and into the light
of God’s Holy Word. This restoration was accomplished for us by God
Himself, through Reformers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich
Zwingli and many more, at a great price. And many had to pay for it with
their own lives!
Dearly beloved, we must remain committed to this precious Protestant
heritage we have, and never return to a system of salvation that adds
anything to faith for salvation. If there is anyone in our midst
this morning who has been seeking to be saved by doing good works, let
me urge you to stop all your futile attempts and just accept God’s way
of salvation. All your good works and self-made righteousness are
nothing but filthy rags in God’s sight. Only Jesus can save you and you
must trust Him completely. Turn to Christ alone and accept His completed
work of salvation from sin. It would be a real tragedy if we were
to compromise this important doctrine of justification by faith alone,
the way that some Protestant churches have already done! May the Lord
our God grant to us and our sons after us, the grace and courage we need
to remain faithful to His Word. |
