Well, if we could, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we're grateful to be able to come to You, to know that You have received us in Jesus Christ. And we pray that as we open Your Word this morning, that You would speak to us, that You would give us ears to hear and hearts to understand, that we would rest in Christ for our righteousness. And Father, I pray that if there's anyone here this morning who has not come to repentance and saving faith in Christ, that You would, as the Word is preached, Lord, cause them to be born again and give them the gift of faith. Lord, I pray that You would fill me with Your Spirit, that the words that I speak would be in agreement with what Your Word has said, and that You would be glorified in it. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. As we all probably know and recognize, this past Tuesday marked the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, tracing its beginning to Martin Luther as he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church on All Saints Day Eve. Luther chose that day strategically because he knew the next day the city of Wittenberg would be teeming with people who had come to celebrate the holiday, who had made pilgrimage to view the many relics that would be on display, and who would be there to buy indulgences. As Luther penned his 95 Theses, he did so in Latin rather than in German, an act by which he proved he was not wishing to start a popular uproar, as much as a discussion and a debate upon whether indulgences were biblical. In fact, the official title of the 95 Theses was, Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. He posted it on the door of the church. Because that was a natural place to post such a tract. That was the place where public announcements were made. The church was the center of life in the city, and so that was where such a public announcement would have been made. Luther wasn't trying to start the Protestant Reformation as such, but rather trying to put an end to the abuse of God's people through the sale of indulgences. Roland Bainton One of Luther's biographers pictures Luther like this. Luther was like a man climbing in the darkness, a winding staircase in the steeple of an ancient cathedral. In the blackness he reached out to steady himself and his hand laid hold of a rope. He was startled to hear the clanging of a bell. Luther was perhaps as surprised as anybody about the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. But by raising the issue of indulgences, Luther really struck a deeper nerve. Namely, how a person might have his sins forgiven by a holy God. Indulgences are perhaps not familiar to many today. It's certainly not something that's reported on the news or discussed much in our culture. And to understand indulgences, you have to understand how the Roman Catholic system of forgiveness works. To have your sins forgiven under Roman Catholicism requires three things. First, you have to feel genuine sorrow over your sins. And then as an expression of that, you have to go and confess those sins. And then finally, you had to do works of penance to forgive the temporal consequences of your sins. And that third point is where the indulgences came into play. For the average person, his sins were too many and too great for any amount of works of penance to deal with all of his sins in this short life. And so because of that, most people were going to spend some significant time in purgatory, where they would suffer and pay for their sins. And this suffering could last thousands of years, depending upon the nature of your crimes against God. Now these people, assuming they didn't die in unrepentance, were considered to be Christians. And eventually, they would get to heaven, but not until they had worked off their sins and the consequences of those sins adequately. And so, indulgences became a way to lessen your time in purgatory paying for your sins. Or if you had loved ones who had died and who were in purgatory, you could purchase indulgences for them to speed their release into paradise. Luther attacked this in Thesis 27. of his 95 Theses, which reads this, "...they preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory." Luther had not fully developed his system of justification in 1517. But eventually, this disputation on the 95 Theses expanded in his mind to cover the very Gospel itself. He realized over time that this was not just about indulgences. This was about the Gospel. This was about the very nature of how a sinner could be reconciled with God and receive eternal life. We see this clearly as Luther's works progressed through his life. In 1536, he wrote another disputation. This one entitled, A Disputation on Justification. And the key question that came to the fore in the Reformation is really a very basic question. How can a sinner be made right with a holy God? How can a sinner have his sins forgiven and be accepted by God? Or to put it another way, what is the Gospel? What is the Gospel? Was the basic question of the Reformation. And the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformers came to very different conclusions as they asked this question. Rome said that a person is made right with God by grace through faith, but not by grace alone through faith alone, but rather by faith and works working together. especially the works of love and the works of hope and the keeping of the sacraments. The Reformers said that a person is declared righteous before God, made right with God, sola fide. by faith alone, apart from any works, including works of love, or works of hope, or the keeping of the sacraments." And obviously they take diametrically opposed views. Both of them cannot be right. And so this is the real question. What is the gospel? There's no greater question than this. Eternity hangs in the balance. This is the question that confronts every human being. We will all stand before the judgment seat of God. We will all give an account. And the question that we must answer is will God accept us at that judgment? Or will He condemn us to an eternity of destruction away from His gracious presence? In fact, this question ought to keep every sinner awake at night until he or she knows the answer. The stakes couldn't be higher, and we see that not only from our own perception of how momentous eternity is and the wrath of God is, but from what the Word of God says about this question. If we look at Galatians 1, the Apostle Paul himself has to deal with the significance of the Gospel. And he does so in verses 6-9 of his epistle to the Galatians saying, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different Gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ. And then here's the key verses. Verses 8 and 9, "...but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a Gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a Gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed." You can see the seriousness with which Paul engages in the question of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. versus distortions of that Gospel. Twice he repeats the condemnation, let him be accursed, or he is to be accursed. Anyone who preaches any other Gospel but the Gospel preached by Paul, and as he will argue, and the rest of the letter, by the other apostles as well. Anyone who does that is condemned, regarded as an unbeliever, a false teacher, or as he calls him in 2 Corinthians 11, a minister of Satan. You don't get any stronger terms than that in the New Testament. When we get to the Gospel message, there is zero room for compromise. There is zero room for being understanding. There is zero room for tolerating any distortions or corruptions or perversions of the Gospel. And that's not because we're mean-spirited. It's not because we are self-righteous. It's not because we view ourselves as intellectually superior. But it is because of what the Word of God says. If you get the Gospel wrong, you are condemned. And if you teach that wrong Gospel to others, you bring them down to hell with you. Luther understood the gravity of this question as he wrestled with this disputation. As he wrestled with standing up to the dominant church of his day. One of his many biographers wrote this about Luther. The taunts flung at him by his enemies found an echo in his own tormented self-questioning. Are all the others in error? Have so many centuries walked in ignorance? What if it should be you who err and drag so many with you into error to be eternally damned? Luther understood this. If he was wrong, He was eternally damned. And not just Him, but all those who through the centuries would believe what He taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was not an academic question of little consequence, but a monumental question of eternal consequence. And we have a lot of trouble recognizing that, I think, in the church today. especially in relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. After 500 years, maybe we think it's time for the division to stop. Maybe it's time to be united and stop quibbling over a single Latin word like sola. Maybe it's time to put aside these differences. This is 500 years. This is never going to be resolved. Can't we just work together to finish the mission of Jesus? In fact, there's a large movement that began here in Phoenix to do this very thing, the John 17 movement. We're right sort of in the center of this desire to put all these differences aside here in our city. Michael Horton, a Theology professor at Westminster Seminary and host of The White Horse Inn has written on this subject. And he provides some insight into why our churches often think this way. He says, in our day, it is common moral or political agendas, common experience or common zeal and piety that define Christian unity. And he is exactly right. For most evangelicals today, what unites us to others is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ as much as a shared morality. or a shared Christian experience that resonates with ours, or common political pursuits that we can work together to achieve that seem so much more relevant and meaningful than theology. Horton goes on to say, evangelical now seems to refer to a common spirituality, a concern for making converts, an emphasis on the experiential side of faith, and a personal relationship with Christ. Since Mormons and other cults are increasingly adopting this quote-unquote evangelical spirituality, those who fail to define unity in clear doctrinal terms may be at a loss when explaining to these zealous and deeply committed individuals why they cannot join the roundtable. Horton touches on something that is deeply flawed in the way we think about what it means to be a Christian today. We often think of it in terms of a subjective, personal relationship with Jesus. Or in terms of having some experience of faith that is connected to Christ in some way. And so then when we encounter a Roman Catholic, or even perhaps a Mormon, or a Jehovah's Witness, or some other member of a cult who says they believe salvation is by grace through faith in Christ, and they have an experience of Jesus, and they read the Bible, and we are at a loss to know what to say about that. And we readily accept them as co-belligerents in the Kingdom of God rather than seeing them as doctrinally heterodox and ultimately unbelieving if they are faithful to what their confessions say. We might even go as far as to say that telling someone in the Roman Catholic Church that you're not saved if you believe what your church teaches is mean or judgmental. But here's the question. that we have to answer. Does the Bible say people who believe another Gospel other than the apostolic Gospel revealed in the New Testament and in the Old are anathema, accursed, or does it not? If those who hold to a false Gospel are under the curse of God, then how in the world is it loving to affirm them as brothers and sisters in Christ when we know full well they are outside the kingdom of God and they are headed to destruction. Rome agrees with this take on everything, by the way, because in the Council of Trent they said anyone who believes in justification by faith alone is under the curse of God and outside of salvation. Canon 12 of the Council of Trent asserts this, "...if anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified, let him be anathema." Rome understands the seriousness of the question. They get it. They understand what's at stake. And they have said unequivocally in their counsels and in their confessions and in their catechisms that our Gospel does not save and therefore we are accursed. And that doesn't bother me at all. That doesn't bother me in the slightest. What it does is it drives me back to the Bible to say if that's what they're saying, is it true? Because I would like to know if I'm under the curse of God, wouldn't you? If somebody tells me I'm under the curse of God, I'm not just going to blow them off. I'm going to go to the Bible and say, am I under the curse of God? What does the Bible say about being reconciled to God? Is Rome correct or were the Reformers? Well, let's take a look this morning at what the Bible says about justification by faith to see if we should continue to assert that this word sola is absolutely necessary. We'll do that with three questions. Question number one, what is justification? What is justification? We've got to start here because the debate over the gospel encompasses this question. Justification is one of those long theological words that many people, perhaps people even here today, don't fully understand. Sometimes I'm tempted to give a pop quiz and have you write down your answers and turn them in, but I won't do that to you this morning and ask you to define justification. Let me show you the importance of the term Romans chapter 5 verse 1. This is not just some word for seminarians or PhDs. Romans 5.1 assumes that the illiterate Christians in Rome who listened to this letter read to them needed to understand this word. And Paul says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice that our peace with God is founded on being justified. Isn't that the Gospel? Having peace with God? Isn't that what the Gospel promises us? What the Gospel declares to us? We can have peace with God. Instead of being at war with God and Him being against us, He will be for us in the Gospel. We will be reconciled to God through the Gospel and have peace. So justification is, is the Gospel This is how we have peace with God. We cannot undervalue the significance of justification. We must not overlook it. When we speak of justification, this is the heart of the Gospel message. If we want to understand it, we have to eliminate some improper views of the term. First of all, to be justified does not mean to be made righteous. It does not mean to be made righteous in the sense that our character changes from evil to good, or from wicked to righteous. And we can see this throughout the Bible. Go back to Deuteronomy 25. Deuteronomy 25 verse 1. The word that is used in the New Testament for justified is used in the Septuagint here in Deuteronomy 25. And this is not talking about justification before God in Deuteronomy 25. This is the law, speaking of how judges are to adjudicate cases, legal cases in a courtroom. And we read this, if there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. And we could go on if we were interested in becoming justices in Israel and read the rest of the case law here. But we'll stop there for our purposes. Notice the term justify in this verse. They justify the righteous. This is a courtroom setting, is it not? Judges are there. People have come. They have presented their case before the judge and the judge renders a verdict. He justifies the righteous and he condemns the wicked. Now does that mean that the judge transforms the character of the person that he justifies? No. Two people come to court. One of them is righteous. One of them is lawless, wicked. The judge is not changing anything about either of those people when they come to court. He is simply declaring one of them is in the right before the law, and one of them is in the wrong before the law. No transformation happens. Nothing happens to either person in that courtroom internally as far as their character is concerned. Look over at Proverbs 17, verse 15. These Old Testament passages are so critical because the New Testament writers understand these terms from their reading of the Old Testament. So they're building on this foundation. Proverbs 17, 15. He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. Again, another courtroom context. We have a judge. And he has people who come in. And the view here is a judge who perverts justice, right? Maybe he takes a bribe. And he says to the wicked person, you're in the right. And he says to the righteous person, you are in the wrong. The justifying here, again, has nothing to do with changing anyone's character, but declaring their status before the law. In fact, to justify means to transform, to make righteous. Why would God say it's an abomination to do that to the wicked? Wouldn't God see that as a proper thing to do? To make a wicked person righteous? To take an ungodly person and teach him to be godly? Surely that is pleasing in the eyes of the Lord, because at the end of the book of James, the Holy Spirit says that he who turns a sinner from the error of his ways will save his soul from death and cover him all to the sins. He doesn't say, he who turns a sinner from the error of his ways commits an abomination before God. God is pleased when we disciple people who are ungodly, and through faith, they become godly people. They are sanctified. But justification has nothing to do with that. Justification has nothing to do with changing anyone's character, but declaring who they are before the law of God. Now God does change our character. He does take ungodly people and make them godly. That's called sanctification. And it has to be held distinct from justification. Justification also, in addition to meaning not being made righteous, it is also not a process of becoming righteous. There's nothing in justification that speaks to a process. The Roman Catholic teaching is that justification is a process throughout your life, that you begin with baptism, you receive the initial grace of justification through baptism, and then you either grow in that or not throughout your life, depending on your obedience and whether you keep the sacraments, and you can actually increase your justification through your good works. But there is nothing about a process in any of this. This is a once-for-all declaration before God's judgment seat. Romans 5.1, which we've already seen, agrees with this. "...having been justified by faith." Paul doesn't say being justified by faith as if we're in process of being justified, but it is something that has already happened to us in the past. It is finished. We have been justified. We are not being justified. We are being sanctified. A very different thing. So justification is not to be made righteous, it is not the process by which we become righteous, but positively Justification is to declare righteous in a legal sense. To declare righteous before the law. When we speak of God, it's for God to declare us righteous before His law. Reformers understood this. Martin Luther, in his disputation on justification, wrote, in short, the term to be justified means that a man is considered righteous. John Calvin and his institutes put it this way, therefore, we explain justification simply as the acceptance with which God receives us into His favor as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ's righteousness. A later reformer, a 20th century reformer named Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote this on justification. In justification, we are not made righteous. We are declared righteous. Justification is something legal or forensic. It is God, as the judge who is responsible for administering His own law, saying to us that as regards the law, He is satisfied with us because of the righteousness of Christ. Justification is a declaratory act. It does not do anything to us. It says something about us. 19th century commentator John Brown says, justification is an act by which God determines to treat the sinner hereafter as a righteous man. Romans 4-5 makes this so wonderfully clear. It's not just the Reformers, 16th century, 20th century, 19th century that say this, but the Apostle Paul in Romans 4-5 makes this point. He says, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness." There's a contrast here. God justifies the ungodly. The righteousness of God and the ungodliness of the one who receives that righteousness are set in contrast. Justification does not make the ungodly godly and thereby justify them. So God justifies the godly, but it justifies people in their sin who are ungodly. In fact, it is expressly said at the beginning of the verse that this righteousness, this justification, this declaration comes to the one who does not work. Justification is not the transformation then of the ungodly into the godly, but the declaration that a sinner, though ungodly, is regarded by God as righteous. Well, how does this happen? Question number two. How are sinners justified? Not only do we continue to disagree with Rome on the meaning of justification, But we also continue to disagree with Rome on how sinners are justified. And this question is just as vital as the first because to know what justification is and then end up not being justified is just as horrible as to get justification wrong and not be justified because either way you're not justified. And here, when we think about how sinners are justified, many people lose their footing. Many people, even with a heritage of Reformation theology, lose their footing. It seems that we so often want to apply reason to the question rather than submit ourselves to the Word of God and thereby lose our footing. Sinners are justified in only one way. And it is through faith alone in Jesus Christ. And we can see this in a large number of passages. I'm going to read through some of them just to overwhelm you a little bit here. Romans, and you can try to follow along if you want, Romans 3, 21 and 22. 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." In verse 26, "...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." Verse 28, For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law." Verse 30, "...since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one." Romans 4 down to verse 5, "...but to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness." Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness, note it, apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Romans 5.1 After going through all of this discussion on justification by faith apart from works, Paul says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. You flip over to Galatians 2. Verse 16. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified." Galatians 3.8 and 3.9, the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, Preach the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. So then, those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer." Philippians 3.8 More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ." The righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. Getting the point? We're justified by faith apart from works, apart from works of the law. It's not a righteousness of our own that we achieve through obedience, but it is a righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. That's a sampling of passages. That's not even an exhaustive list. Now, when Paul says that we are justified by faith apart from works of the law, we need to understand what he means by works of the law. This has become a flashpoint of controversy over the last several years. Some have said, well, Paul says works of the law are unacceptable for justification, but he doesn't rule out all works. Works of love or works of faith are part of our justification. Faith is a great start, but we're going to have to do some gospel works, some evangelical obedience if we're going to be justified. To divide works of faith or works of love from works of the law is an entirely manufactured distinction. The law never called anyone to obey apart from faith. The Old Testament didn't have two options. Obey and not believe. or believe and not obey, faith was always required of the people of God. And obedience was to flow out of their trust in God's promises. No God-fearing Jewish person would have seen the works of the law furthermore as anything other than works of love or works of faith. to obey the law demanded first and foremost love for God and love for neighbor. Jesus emphasizes throughout his ministry every time he's asked what is the greatest commandment. It always comes back to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. For Jesus to hear it's not works of the law, it's works of love would have been a nonsense distinction. What do you mean? Love is the law. That is the fulfillment of the law. The works of the law, we might say, were actually the best works one could perform because they were the works that conformed to God's holy standard. Some might say, well, Paul only has in mind the ceremonial law, like circumcision or keeping the Sabbath. There's no support for that in the text. Works of the law are the works God commanded to be done under the Old Covenant. They are the ones Jesus enforced on the rich young ruler in Luke 18, or on the lawyer in Luke 10, if they wanted salvation by the law. They had to obey the commandments without fail. The point that Paul is making, and the point that our Lord made on many occasions as well, is that justification by faith is justification by faith alone, apart from works, even the best works, the works of the law, which, by the way, Paul says in Romans 7, is holy and righteous and good. Paul doesn't denigrate the works of the law as being bad. The problem is we can't do them well enough to earn salvation. So when Paul says we're justified by faith apart from works of the law, he means to say apart from all works, even the best works you could perform. How then does faith alone justify a sinner? Well, some have said that faith is our righteousness. God substitutes obedience to his law for faith and says, okay, you didn't obey the law, but you believe, so that's good enough. That is your righteousness. And some would appeal to Romans 4-5 that faith is credited as righteousness, as though Paul is saying that faith is accepted by God as our righteousness, but is that what Paul means? Seems dubious. and problematic. Let me give you a few reasons why. First, our faith is rather imperfect. My trust in Christ, I would like to say it's perfect, but it's not. It goes up, it goes down. Some days I feel bold as a lion, and some days I'm cowering in fear like Elijah in a cave somewhere, right? God, just take me now. Take me to glory. I'm done. My faith is not always robust. It is not always strong. It is a dynamic, changing thing. And so if my faith is my righteousness, that is a very low level of assurance for me. Especially when I'm having a bad day with my faith. Faith, secondly, is never described as our work in Scripture, or our righteousness. Luther in his Disputation on Justifications says, faith is not properly referred to as our work according to the Scriptures, but now and then as a kind of work of God. It is not a work, since it looks only toward the promise. In fact, in John 6.29, Jesus explicitly called believing in Him the work of God, not of man. And He went on to show that no one could believe in Him apart from the work of the Father drawing that sinner to Christ. then we also see is not the way that we merit a righteousness of our own. Philippians 3.9, which we saw a few minutes ago, is helpful in this regard. Paul did not want a righteousness of his own. He wanted a righteousness that came to Him from outside Himself. A righteousness that came from God. He says, "...that I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ." Now does that mean a righteousness He achieves through faith in Christ? No. It's a righteousness that comes from God. That God gives Him as a gift on the basis of His faith. This righteousness is not God regarding what Paul has done as righteous, but God giving him the righteousness that God requires as a gift. Faith then does not justify the sinner by acting as our righteousness or as a substitute for our righteousness, but faith justifies a sinner because it is by faith that we lay hold of Christ. Faith is, in the final analysis, simply an act of receiving Christ and all of His benefits, especially the forgiveness of our sins and the righteousness that God demands. Look back at John 1. We spend a lot of time in Paul, but all of this is not unique to Paul. This is throughout the Bible. John 1.12. This link is made clear. John writes, but as many as received Him, speaking of Christ, the Word, As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name." How do we receive Christ? John makes it clear. We receive Him through believing in His name. When we receive Christ through faith, we receive all that belongs to Christ, including His shed blood that covers our sins, and His perfect righteousness that now covers our nakedness so that we might stand before God unashamed. Not clothed in fig leaves that we have sown, not even clothed in an animal skin that God has made through the sacrifice of an animal, but clothed in the very righteousness of His Son whom He has sacrificed on our behalf. In this sense, then, we really ought to say that we have been justified not by faith, but by Christ. What does faith do? Faith receives Christ who justifies us. In fact, in Romans 8, Paul makes this exact point. We have been justified by God. So who will condemn us? Faith brings us to Christ. It unites us to Christ. Herman Bavink and his masterful work, Reformed Dogmatics, He explains it this way, "...hence the prepositions from and by only indicate that Christ, along with all His benefits, comes into our personal possession solely by faith." That's how we receive Christ and all of His benefits. Sinners are justified by Christ. We receive Christ by faith so that we can say we are justified through faith alone apart from works because we are justified by Christ alone. His mercy in forgiving our sins and His righteousness credited to us. I won't say any more about that because somebody else is going to be talking about that later. Third question. Close with this. What is the place of good works? What is the place of good works? If we had more time, we could get into this. The Reformers all had very similar answers to this question, and they wrestled with this at length in their writings. Good works, to put it simply, are the proof of saving faith. They're the proof. Martin Luther, in his Disputation on Justification, wrote Outward Salvation, by which he meant good works, Outward salvation shows faith to be present, just as fruit shows a tree to be good. John Calvin, speaking of James 2, and the discussion of James on faith and works, wrote, "...those who are justified by true faith prove their justification by obedience and good works, not by a bare and imaginary semblance of faith." Thomas Schreiner in his book, Faith Alone, The Doctrine of Justification, wrote, faith is a many-splendored thing. It is a living, breathing, and pulsating reality. Yes, salvation is by faith alone, but faith is dynamic, energetic, and life-changing. Faith is not a static thing. It is a dynamic thing. It is transformative. Faith is energetic. And Paul, the Apostle, would have agreed with this. He wrote in Galatians 5.6, in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything but faith working through love. The kind of faith that justifies is a working faith. A faith that is alive. A faith that reveals itself in love towards one's neighbor. We always must maintain that faith works. But we also at the same time must maintain that the work of faith is sanctification. And our justification is grounded not on our sanctification, but on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. There's nothing more glorious than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because it comes to us in our ungodliness, in our sin, and it proclaims to us that we can be right with God, not by cleaning up our act and doing better, but by receiving Jesus Christ and His benefits through faith alone. Those who would add works need to hear the words of John Calvin and his institutes as he takes the reader before the judgment seat of God and writes this, let us envisage for ourselves that judge, not as our minds naturally imagine Him, but as He is depicted for us in Scripture, by whose brightness the stars are darkened. By whose strength the mountains are melted. By whose wrath the earth is shaken. Whose wisdom catches the wise in their craftiness. Beside whose purity all things are defiled. Whose righteousness not even the angels can bear. Who makes not the guilty man innocent. Whose vengeance when once kindled penetrates to the depths of hell. Let us behold Him, I say, sitting in judgment to examine the deeds of men. Who will stand confident before His throne? Who can dwell with the devouring fire? Who can dwell with the everlasting burnings? He who walks righteously and speaks the truth. But let such a One, whoever He is, come forward. Nay, that response causes no one to come forward. For on the contrary, a terrible voice resounds, if Thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities. Lord, who shall stand?" Would you this morning envision God for who He is? As the righteous and holy Judge who will by no means acquit the guilty and who will render to every sin and transgression a just penalty? And would you come before this God dressed in your own righteousness, bringing your life of sin and rebellion before Him as the reason why He ought to accept you? I pray not. For even your best works are as filthy rags before such a holy and awesome Judge. Our only hope is the forgiveness of our sins and the gift of Christ's righteousness received by faith alone. The Reformation is not over. At the beginning I said the Reformation began 500 years ago this past Tuesday. It's not over, and the reason it's not over is because false Gospels still persist to abuse and deceive and destroy sinners. In fact, in many cases it seems like we're ready for a new Reformation as Protestantism and Evangelicalism capitulates to Rome over and over again, admiring the Pope, admiring the Roman Church. In such a time as ours with boldness, let us stand with Calvin, with Luther, with Knox, with Zwingli, with Hus, with the church fathers, with Christians throughout church history, and with the apostles themselves and say, here we stand. We can do no other. God help us. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this beautiful Gospel. Lord, we thank You for the reminder that You are a holy God, a righteous judge. And we tremble at the thought of coming before You and being judged based on our life's work. If You should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand before You? And we know that there is only one Jesus Christ. the sinless Son of Man who suffered and died and rose for our justification. May we ever and always rest in Him alone for our righteousness before You. And may You cause our faith to be lively and energetic, showing itself to be of You through love for our brothers and sisters and our neighbors and ultimately and most significantly for you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.