Romans 1 verse 17. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith. Amen. Well, we are continuing our study of the Reformation and the passages that were so significant to the thinking of the reformers and to the really the revival of the church, the passages that the Lord used mightily in the life of the church. And I really look forward to this these next several weeks as we come to the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation's beginnings, with Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses at the door of Wittenberg. And to talk about these things and to think about these things, and I'm hoping and praying that the Lord would do this year a great work again in his church as we go back to some of these founding principles that we find in the scriptures. Now, we began our study of this verse last week, and you'll remember that we had two main points. The righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, and then secondly, the righteousness of God received in the gospel, the righteousness of God received in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let me just quickly review a little bit of what we covered last week as we come to the second part. You'll note here that verse 17 reads for in it that is in the gospel. Which is the good news of God sending Jesus Christ into the world to become a man, to live a righteous life, die on the cross, be bodily raised from the dead on the third day and ascended to the right hand of the Father. He says, for he says, for in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. That was where we got our first point. And we said that, you know, as great as general revelation is to tell us that there is a God, there's nothing like what is revealed in the sending of Jesus Christ, God coming himself into the very created world that he himself made in the space of six days and all very good. And Paul here, you'll remember, is telling us that this is where we come to know God best. We come to know God best. in the work of Jesus Christ. This is the greatest manifestation of God himself, particularly what Jesus did on the cross. And that was something that Luther really emphasized in his own preaching. And I think the church needs to emphasize in our preaching today. And that is that there that God is revealing himself most powerfully to us in the humiliation of Jesus. We tend to think of theology of glory a lot of times, but we need to realize that the glory comes forth even more clearly in the humiliation, in the suffering, in the weakness of Christ and him crucified, because that is where God really reveals to us the truth about ourselves and the truth about himself. That he reveals to us what in the cross, our weakness, our sin. He reveals what we deserve. He is revealing the condemnation that we should have. But God also reveals something about himself as well, in that he reveals his grace to us most. Chiefly in Christ and him crucified, and this is why the church has to be about the cross chiefly, no matter what the text is, no matter what the theme of the message is, we at some point should bring about the cross of Jesus Christ in the services. This is also why we regularly serve the Lord's Supper, that we would see the work of Jesus Christ again and again and again, Sunday after Sunday, after Sunday, after Sunday, that we would be reminded of the revelation of God's righteousness in the cross, that God in the cross is both just and the justifier. He is just in that he does not wink at any sin. But he condemns our sins, the sins of the church in his son, he is just, but he's also the justifier that is revealed, the righteousness of God is revealed in that he is also the one who justifies sinners like ourselves and that we who are inherently sinful and continue as sinners in this life, even as believers, nevertheless, we are righteous in the sight of God because of the righteousness that is imputed to us. The cross gives us the righteousness that is required. To stand before God. And we have seen that there are tremendous pastoral benefits of the of the cross and of the gospel. People who have fallen into sin and think there's no hope for me. Well, there is hope because we see the severity of God's judgment on Jesus Christ. And we see that that is for the chief of sinners, that the worst of sinners can come and find forgiveness and atonement in the work of Jesus Christ, we find it for the backslider. Maybe you began well as a Christian and you fell into sin or you backslid over time. And here again, we see the righteousness of God in the gospel that here is righteousness for you, that how you began the Christian life is how you continue it. You continue by faith in the cross for you who find yourselves doubting. Maybe you find your faith lacking assurance. You maybe are insecure about your standing with the Lord. Am I really loved of God? You struggle with that. You believe that you believe you. You say, I confess Jesus Christ. I, I trust that I am believing. I trust that I'm not this self-deceived hypocrite. I am sincerely wanting to be with God in heaven. I sincerely do hate my sin. I sincerely want to grow in grace, but yet I struggle with this sense of acceptance. Am I really accepted? And I would argue here, you have to take your eyes off yourself and you have to go to where the righteousness of God is revealed. It's revealed at the cross. And you need to spend more time meditating on the death of Jesus, the son of God becoming incarnate. on the substitutionary nature of Jesus. Jesus isn't there as a private individual hanging on that cross. Jesus is hanging on the cross as a public representative for you. He's there. He's hanging there as the second or a last Adam, just as Adam wasn't there representing himself in the garden. Christ isn't representing himself on the cross. And that's why in Romans 5, Paul makes that analogy between the two atoms. Christ is the second Adam. He's publicly representing all those who would believe in him. And so if you struggle with that sense of acceptance by God, Then what you have to do is not look at your levels of obedience and say, well, I feel better about myself today because today I had a good day and I was more obedient today than I was yesterday because I felt pretty crummy about myself because of my sin. But you have to keep taking. We must look at ourselves and examine ourselves. But for every examination of ourselves, we have to go to the cross. This is where the righteousness of God is revealed. This is where you will find acceptance with God. By looking to Jesus Christ, this is the work of God that you believe on the sun. And so I would encourage you if you find yourself in that camp to keep your eyes fixed upon the Savior. Also, if if you find yourself maybe in unable or unwilling to repent. And what hope is there for me, you say, I hear the gospel, I hear it preached regularly, but I feel no inclination, no movement in my will to go to God. I hear the free offer, but I find myself not wanting to budge. I think here you need to see how patient God is in Jesus Christ and in the cross here that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. Look at what God was willing to give. Look how much God was willing to pay for you to be saved. Look how much God has loved you. Look at the height, the width, the depth, the breadth of of the love of God in Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. Use that to warm your heart, use that to move your will and your affections. Look at the depth of the love of God for you. Maybe maybe you come kind of as a Pharisee, a secret Pharisee, maybe one who says, well, I'm I'm righteous in my in my works. I have my works. I'll trust in my works. I'll trust in my obedience. I'll trust that God grades on the curve. I've done more good than bad. And and I, I trust that because I've not done the worst things that you read about in the newspaper, that I'll be accepted by God on that basis. But here again, you need the cross. You need to look at the cross because that is the most accurate assessment of sin, and that is the clearest revelation of God's righteous standard. And you have to see that it is not on the basis of a curve. You need one hundred percent sinless obedience. The only place you can get that is found by way of that man hanging on that wood. He's the only innocent one. He's the only righteous one. He's the only one who never did anything wrong. Jesus is the only one who could be called the lamb of God, who without blemish, who takes away the sins of the world. Only Jesus. I was discussing this with the boys in Sunday school today. Only Jesus. has the impeccability that you need to be impeccable means it is without reproach, without spot or stain or wrinkle. If you if you have an impeccable record, you have a perfect record. And and we see that it was necessary for Christ to be impeccable in order to be a substitute for us who are sinners. So we will never attain to the righteousness of God by way of our works. We have to repent, as one Puritan put it, of our works. Even as we repent of all our other sin, because even our best works. Still have corruption in it. Nobody does anything good with perfect motivation. No one ever does. No one ever helps the elderly woman across the street. With perfect motivation under the glory of God. Even our best and our chief works still have the taint of corruption. Even if our righteousness is only an ounce lighter than what God's moral will requires of us, it is to be condemned. So the cross of Jesus Christ reveals the righteous requirement that the Pharisee needs to see. The Pharisee needs to see and hear again also for the humble believer, this should refresh you, for those of you who do believe in and do sincerely love the Lord Jesus Christ. God would remind you of his great love for you and his. His knowledge of you. He looks upon you as righteous today. You don't necessarily always see yourself that way, we all tend to view ourselves as the sinners that we are, but God also, though legally looks at you with a righteous record. A righteous record, not just in the future in heaven, but right now. He views you as a son, as a daughter who is righteous. When the prodigal son came home, what was it that he wanted to do? He wanted to come back home, but he wanted to come home on the terms of the Pharisee, didn't he? He said, make me as one of your hired servants. But notice that the father would have none of that. We know this because we get to read the son's mind. We get to hear him rehearse. You know how you do when you have an important meeting and you rehearse, you know, your main points that you want to say in that meeting. So we get to hear the prodigal rehearse his talking points that he wants to say when he sees his dad. And the talking point would be, take me as one of your slaves, take me as one of your servants. And the father When we get to the scene where he meets with the son, the father cuts him off, doesn't he? He doesn't let him say that last talking point. And he says to his son, no, he says essentially tells the servants, go get the robe. Get the ring and the fattened calf, what's he doing there? He's revealing the righteousness of God in the gospel that he's revealing That we come and that we have standing with the father, not based on our performance or on our works or on our merit, but the standing is found in the ring. The standing is found in the robe that he's clothed with, he is given the royal robe, he is given the garments. Of the family. He's given the insignia on the ring. The ring, you know, the ring is not just a nice piece of jewelry. The ring has got the family seal on it. That's you know, that's what you push into the clay when you leave your mark and you sign important documents. It has all the bearings of the family and of the family and the righteousness. And what you need to see as a believer in Jesus Christ this morning and to refresh yourself with is is the realization that though you are a sinner returning back to the father, the father deals with you not on the basis of your merits, but on the basis of grace, on the merits of the gospel that Christ has earned that robe for you. Christ has earned that ring for you. And any sacrifice himself, we see it in the typology of the sacrifice of the of the fattened calf. Christ became that substitute, that calf, that bull that was sacrificed, his blood. being the atonement for our sins. So that is the righteousness that is revealed in the gospel. And this is where we see the righteousness of God. Now, once Luther discovers this, he said it is it was as if the gates of heaven opened up unto him because formerly he only saw the righteousness of God as some kind of requirement that he could never attain to. Now, when he sees the gospel of Jesus Christ dying in place of sinners, now he loves the righteousness of God. Because the righteousness of God that is revealed to him now is a righteousness that kisses mercy. It's not just righteousness conjoined to justice, it is that. In the death of Jesus, but that death Where we see the righteousness of God poured out in wrath on Jesus is to us mercy. And so Luther's began to glory in the cross, he began to glory in the humiliation of Jesus, he began to glory in the weakness of a savior on the cross. You know, I think this is what Judas hated. I really do. I thought about this this week. I said, you know, humanly speaking, we are all thinking about what the motive of that shooter in Vegas. And it led me to think about the motivation of Judas to do something worse than even shooting people to betray the son of God. So that the righteous son of God should be arrested and crucified, and I thought, what motivated Judas to do that? And I think I think it was the cross. That Judas could not stand the idea that that the king of righteousness should go to the place of weakness, you remember, Peter didn't like it either. You know, Peter said, God forbid, Lord, that that you that you should die in Jerusalem. And that's when we see Jesus giving his sharpest rebuke, don't we, to the disciples? Get behind me, Satan. And I think that that was part of it is that that until you become a believer, you don't like the cross. The cross is kind of ugly. The cross shows human depravity. The cross is bloody. And yet, when you become a believer, then you begin to see that that this is the righteousness of God revealed. This is the most precious thing in the world. This is this is where justice meets mercy. This is this is where glory meets humiliation. This is where sinner meets son of God. This is where condemnation meets righteousness. This is where it all comes together. You know, the word crucial in the English language comes from that same Greek word that we use for crucify. It means central. Of the very essence and really the cross. Is the center of all history. What the Protestant Reformation was doing was they were bringing us back to the most significant work More significant, really, than creation itself, because creation, yes, displays the glory of God at one level. But but the cross does so in an entirely different level. The power of God in redemption is greater than the power of God in creation. You remember that? You remember how Jesus taught that very point in the house that was so crowded, nobody could get in. And so they tore up the roof and they lowered the guy down and he said, son, your sins are forgiven. And that was a scandal. Jesus is talking about the cross. He's saying, son, your sins are forgiven and the Pharisees are going, who can forgive sins but God? And Jesus asked him a question. What's easier to say? Son, your sins are forgiven or son, Take up your pallet and walk. And the point was, it's more difficult to say your sins are forgiven. Redemption is harder than creation. Jesus can fix the guy easier than he can forgive the sin. Because it is a greater revelation of God. In the cross, it is a greater revelation of God than going to Colorado. How many of our lost friends go to the Rockies to find themselves, right? college kid who's struggling what to do with his life. Where does he go? I'm going to Aspen. You know, I'm going to Boulder. Well, that's great. And you will get to see some really neat things that God has made out there. And I highly recommend you to take a trip out west sometime as a family. But you'll never see the revelation of God as clearly as you will by teaching your family the cross of Jesus Christ. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Now, I want to get to that second part now, the righteousness of God received. And this is where we emphasize the latter part here. The righteousness of God is revealed. That's what my first point was. But then notice the prepositional phrase that follows in the NAS. It reads like this from faith to faith. Now, in the Greek, literally, If you really wanted a very wooden translation, which I don't always recommend, but sometimes it's helpful for you to understand a very wooden translation, it would be translated like this. Out of faith into faith. The two little Greek words, prepositions that are used there. Out of faith into faith. Or that's why some render it from faith to faith. The NIV, which is a little bit more paraphrastic, and it uses dynamic equivalence more in its translations than, say, the NAS or the ESV, they render it by faith from first to last. That is, they seek to get the dynamic equivalent, the idea of the translation, rather than the wooden word-for-word translation. It's more thought-for-thought translation. But that's not a bad way if you had to translate it. in a kind of a dynamic equivalent way by faith from first to last, that gets the essence of it out of faith into faith. Now, the question is, what does that mean from faith first to last or out of faith into faith or from faith to faith? What exactly does that mean? Well, when I first studied for this, I came across an article that gave eight potential answers. They and I agree. I only think the latter two, the last two are really worth spending a lot of time on. And and so let me just give you those two. One may be that and this comes from a commentator named Cranfield. Cranfield believes that it might be a rhetorical formulation, an intensive statement that Paul is using here, one that brings emphasis to the idea of faith alone, out of faith, into faith. What is emphasized there? Out of faith into faith. Even you boys and girls who don't know what I just said in the last two sentences can answer that. What's being emphasized? Out of faith into faith. Faith, right? Out of faith into faith. It's an emphasis. It's a rhetorical device that's being used, Cranfield argues, that emphasizes the importance of faith. John Murray believes that verse 17 is to be paralleled with Romans chapter three and verse 22, Romans chapter three, verse 22. And in verse 22 reads like this, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe, for there is no distinction. That is the righteousness of God, DIA in the Greek, through faith in Jesus unto there's that Greek word A.S.E.I.S. And here again, the emphasis being the means, the instrument is faith here by which righteousness comes here. So though there are some different. Technical interpretations offered, here's what I want you to come away with. And that is I want you to see the emphasis that is being placed by Paul between or I should say the relationship between righteousness and faith, that I think is is really the point here. Divine righteousness is revealed under faith and is received by faith. Let me say that again. The righteousness of God revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ is revealed unto faith. And is received. By faith. God's righteousness is received, the righteousness of the gospel, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is received by faith. This is why the Protestant reformers emphasize, though it is not necessarily here in the Greek, by faith alone. But the emphasis is here. It is through the instrumentality of your faith that you receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that you receive atonement for your sins, that you receive acceptance with God, that you receive entrance into the family of God. You who once were strangers and aliens to the covenant promises now, by faith, you are made a son or a daughter of Abraham. You become a part of Abraham's family, even though you genealogically, biologically have no relation to Abraham. Even though you genetically you can go and you can do the genetic tests that are advertised and you have no Jewish ethnic background, but it is by faith that you become a part of that family. You become a part of Abraham's family. Now, some commentators suggest, and I think I would agree, that maybe a better way to translate here Romans 17 and the Habakkuk. Remember, this comes from Habakkuk. Paul is borrowing here this verse. That is, he who is righteous by faith shall live. Notice here by faith. Like they have it in the new American standard, they put that prepositional phrase at the end. And so you're tempted as you read the English to think that by faith is modifying shall live. But the righteous man shall live by faith, really, I think, as you look at it in the Greek. It probably is, but the righteous man or the righteous by faith shall live. That is, by faith is emphasizing the righteousness that you have. The righteousness comes by faith. And I think that's probably a better way to understand what is being communicated here. Look at the let me just to emphasize that, have you look at Galatians 311 with me here, because Paul, as any good teacher, He's going to repeat himself and look at Galatians 3, verse 11, because I think that that's what he's saying here in Galatians 3, 11 and 12 is the emphasis is on the righteousness by faith. If you look, because he quotes here again from Habakkuk in these two verses and he says in verse 11, now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident. Notice there no one is justified by the law. No one is justified by merit or works. And then he quotes again from Habakkuk, just like he did in Romans 1. The righteous man shall live by faith. But notice how he comments on that verse. He says in verse 12, however, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, He who practices them shall live by them. So notice he's making an antithesis here between works and faith, law and faith. There's an antithesis here. And that the that the man is justified by faith, that is the point of which Paul is saying here, the emphasis is connecting justification and faith. And that is what the Reformation sought to reclaim was this principle people wanted to know. In the 1500s, just like they do today, how can I be made right with God? And what the late medieval church was teaching was you're made right by God by first getting baptized. And when you're baptized, you stand in a state of justification until you commit your first mortal sin. Then you lose the grace of your baptism. If you want to get that grace back, then you need to do penance. And you need to follow the procedure that the church teaches you to follow. And as you do that, you will get that right standing back with God. This was a deviation from the apostolic doctrine of justification. And I'm going to and I want to show that to you, how things haven't changed, because what the gospel said, no, We are justified by faith alone. We are declared righteous, even though we're still sinners, as we believe in the gospel, as we believe in Jesus Christ. And I want to read to you, this is not gone away. People tend to think the Reformation isn't all that important anymore and that these these are just, you know, counting angels on a pin. The differences between Protestantism and Catholicism or, you know, you have some people who are saying, you know, the problems we have against secularism are so great. But what we need together to do is get the Catholics and the evangelicals to agree on these things. And I'm willing to do so if they'll come our way and believe in the gospel. But let me I don't want to misrepresent Rome. Now, what I have here is coming from the Roman Catholic catechism and of the Catholic Church itself. Interestingly, the edition I have here is edited by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope, who resigned, but is still living. Anyway, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, he edited this. Let me read to you from their own catechism. They say all all for those who since baptism have fallen into graven sin, grave sin, have thus lost their baptismal grace. And wounded ecclesiastical communion. It is to them that the sacrament of penance offers a new possibility to convert. Now, listen to this and to recover the grace of justification. Did you hear that justification is something you can lose and then get back if you go through their penitential system. All right. What what the Bible teaches is justification is not something you gain and lose and gain back and lose and gain back and lose again. It's not. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not. The doctrine of justification taught by the Apostle Paul, reclaimed by the reformers of the church, was that once you have believed in Jesus Christ sincerely from the heart and confess him with the mouth, you are saved. You shall be saved. You are justified in the sight of God. And if you go on to Romans chapter eight, the thing that Paul emphasizes there is once you are justified, you will also eventually be sanctified and you will be glorified. In fact, I'm not stating that accurately, because Paul always used the past tense. He makes it so certain, so strong that the justified he uses the past tense have been sanctified, have been even glorified, even says that. So justification is a one time act, just as you boys and girls, hopefully, you know, from your catechism, right? We don't say justification is a work of God's grace, do we? You will get your pastors wrong if you say justification is a work that is reserved for the next question that deals with sanctification. Sanctification is a work of God's grace. Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoned the sinner only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to him and received by faith alone. It is a one time act of God. When you believe. As a believer, as a person for the first time, when you came to Jesus Christ, whether it was as a child or as a teenager, as an adult, when you came to Jesus Christ for the first time and you began to believe in Jesus Christ, God declared you to be as righteous as Jesus at that moment. And that that righteousness was yours truly. That was that was your ticket before the father on the day of judgment, the righteousness of Christ. And it's not something you lose. It's not something that waxes and wanes. This is what's so wrong with the Roman understanding of the gospel is they conflate justification with sanctification. If you conflate those two. Then you're going to fall into this idea that justification like sanctification is something that can grow or not or shrink. Again, let me read to you from their own documents. Justification itself, he says, which is not remission of sins merely, but also notice here, they say the sanctification and the renewal of the inward man. Through the voluntary reception of grace and the gifts whereby may whereby man of unjust becomes just. Notice here, they include sanctification, if you want to be just, you must be sanctified. As well as justified. And just so you understand that I'm not just picking on them, let me read how they pick on you. Here's what they say about you, Protestants. If anyone say that by faith alone, the impious is justified, let him be an anathema. I think that's pretty clear, isn't it? You are outside grace, you're outside. If you believe that an unrighteous sinner is righteous in the sight of God by faith alone, Here again, that's that I just read you can and number nine, let me read you can and number 11. If anyone say it, that men are justified either by the sole imputation of justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins. And then they have some other things. Let him be an anathema. That's on the chapter of on justification, the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, which was part of the counter reformation. So these things are still important today. And We need to realize that Satan always is trying to undermine the true gospel of Jesus Christ. What Paul is saying here is what? The righteousness of God is revealed in the cross of Christ and it is received, that righteousness is received by faith and by faith alone. Now, You know, James will go on and write a different book and he'll write how that faith is not alone. True saving faith will always accompany sanctification, but sanctification is never the instrument by which we are declared righteous in the sight of God. They are neighbors. They are next door to each other, but they don't cross each other's property. Justification and sanctification must be distinct. And we, Paul is saying, we are declared righteous by God and accepted by God on the basis of faith alone before any works are done. We rest and we receive on Christ, because if it's ever a combination of my faith plus my works, then what that means is that what Jesus did in his works was not enough. To say that I am justified by a combination of faith plus works means Jesus is not sufficient. And that, my friends, is a tremendous error. God has done everything for us in Jesus Christ. And when you have Jesus, you have everything you need for this life and for the life to come. When you come to Jesus sincerely and truly and you put your trust in him and you love him, no matter how small or weak that faith may be, you are justified in the sight of God because it's not the size of my faith. It's the object of my faith. It's Jesus. It's all of Jesus. He's the beginning and He's the end. He's the Alpha and He's the Omega. And it's when people get that, that's why they had such a different reaction than the Pharisees did to Jesus. When sinners saw Jesus for who He was, they wept on His feet. They wiped His feet with their tears and with their hair. They said, Jesus, I'm not worthy to have you come in my house. They said, Jesus, just say the word and I'll believe. That's the response that people have when they see Jesus Christ and who he is and all that he's done and all that he gives us and offers us in his being in person, in his works. We say, Lord, I believe help my unbelief. It's the Pharisee who says, oh, that's not enough. That's not sufficient. I must produce some of my own merit. if I am to be justified before God. God forbid that be in any of our thinking here this morning. Amen. Let's pray.