Amen. Please open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 5. We'll continue our studies of this book with verses 7 to 10. You'll find this in your pew Bible on page 1064. Listen now to God's holy, inerrant, and life-giving word, Hebrews 5, 7 to 10. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal life to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order. of Melchizedek. The grass withers, the flowers fall, and the word of our God abides forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we marvel by the sheer power of a few sentences in your holy word, and here we strike at the very heart of matters so important to us. Help us to see Jesus as the source of our salvation, that we would hold fast to him alone, for he is our Savior. We pray in his name. Amen. In the 11th canon of the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, written in January 1547, the Roman Catholic Church officially condemned the Protestant doctrine of justification through faith alone. If anyone says, it reads, that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, that is, to the exclusion of the grace of God at work within them, the Catholic Church says, let them be anathema. Now that language, which grounds our justification on a righteousness in us, that's the Roman Catholic language, not what they're condemning, but what they're demanding, they would argue that justification must be grounded on an inward righteousness. And that teaching caused the Protestant reformers to come to the conclusion that Rome had abandoned the gospel. Even worse, they had officially anathematized the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what the Council of Trent cursed was precisely what the Reformers taught as central to the whole Christian religion. It's a teaching, as John Calvin put it, that it is entirely by the intervention of Christ's righteousness that we obtain justification before God. This is equivalent to saying that man is not just in himself, of course that's the Catholic demand, but that the righteousness of Christ is communicated to him by imputation while he himself remains strictly deserving of punishment. Now Martin Luther would get at that same doctrine with his famous Latin expression, simul justus et peccator, simultaneously just and a sinner. While I am myself a sinner, I am just because of the righteousness, Luther called it the alien righteousness of Christ, a righteousness outside of myself, that which belongs to Christ. The credit for it is given to me by imputation. Now, what troubled the Roman Catholics, as well as other opponents of the Reformation, was the idea of what Luther just expressed, that people who are themselves actually sinners, and anybody who knows them can tell that that is true, how could they then be declared just, righteous, by a God who himself remains righteous? What kind of God is he? How can he himself be just if he calls sinners righteous? if he declares those just who are not themselves righteous. To say that we are justified by faith in Christ alone while remaining actually sinful, the Catholics then and now complained that that is a legal fiction. God is making a legal claim that is false and therefore it's unworthy of God, they argued. It's unreasonable for us to expect that God can or would declare us just until we actually are perfectly innocent and pure. This is the reasoning by which justification through faith alone as taught by the Protestant Reformation was accursed by Rome. By the way, that anathema is very much today still in force. Now all of this begs a question that's very vital to our grasp of the gospel. Here's a question, on what basis then does God accept someone, does God declare someone as righteous, as acceptable in his own sight, as suitable for fellowship with himself? What is the ground of my standing with God? In the language of our text tonight, what is the source of my salvation? Now that's a vital issue. Because for anyone who realizes that he is a sinner, that his or her guilt has placed him under the wrath of a holy God, this is the question of all questions. Until this question is answered, nothing else really matters. Well, the Bible answers this matter very thoroughly and clearly. And our present text looks the matter squarely in the eye and gives us a straight answer. Verse 9, speaking of Jesus Christ, it says, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. Now to understand that verse and the passage it's in, we need to answer three questions. The first question is, what? What does salvation require? The second question is, how? How then does Christ become the source of what salvation requires? And then finally, whom? What, how, and whom, for whom is Jesus the source of eternal salvation? We're going to look at those three questions tonight. Well first, what? What does salvation require? Another way of asking the question is to say, what is necessary for someone to be accepted by God and to be received for eternal fellowship and blessing? The Bible's answer is that to have fellowship with God, one must possess perfect righteousness. That's the Bible's answer. You must attain to the perfect standards of God's law. Now we might consider this in both a positive and a negative sense. Positively, one must manifest the actual righteousness set forth and express in God's law. Negatively, one must not be blemished by transgressions of it. There must be no guilt. There must be no corruption through transgression of God's law. Now this is a matter that our Lord Jesus found himself addressing, as you would think, frequently during his ministry. One occasion was when a rich young ruler came to Jesus and he asked a question. By the way, I heard a sermon once that said this is the single greatest question ever asked to Jesus Christ in all the gospels. That's probably right. Teacher, what good must I do to inherit, to have eternal life? Teacher, what good deeds must I do to have eternal life? And Jesus answered very plainly, if you would enter eternal life, keep the commandments. There it is. You have to obey God's law. That's what you must do to have eternal life. Now, on another occasion, there was an expert in the law, and he asked Jesus more or less the same question. Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus answered, what is written in the law? And the man answered quite ably, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live, Luke 10, 25 or 28. And so the basis of salvation is righteousness. What is required for salvation, what is required for fellowship and acceptance with God is righteousness. And to be righteous before God is perfectly to keep His law, perfectly to uphold His standards, both in thought and deed, with your hands and also with your heart. Both the rich young ruler and the teacher of the law got that right. Now, where they were wrong was in thinking that they had actually achieved that. And that's why Jesus sternly rebuffed both of them. Nonetheless, a clear standard is that given in the law, repeated throughout the New Testament. 1 Peter 1.16 states it this way, be holy because I am holy. There is the standard. That is what is necessary for salvation. Now Jesus' parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22 makes the same point clearly, this time in a positive sense. A man had tried to infiltrate into the king's feast and he was discovered and removed. Here's what Jesus said, when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? He had to have a positive righteousness. He had to manifest. He had to be clothed, as it were, with righteousness. It's the metaphor of the wedding garment. And the man was speechless, so the king said to his attendants, bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. I actually heard a sermon some time ago where someone was arguing that that's an outer region of heaven. Folks, weeping and gnashing of teeth is not an outer region of heaven. It's an inner region of hell. And he does not have righteousness and therefore he is cast out. And so God requires us to be clothed in perfect righteousness. Now, this is a great problem for us. The what of salvation is very bad news for people who happen to be like you and me. It's a worse problem, I think, than most of us tend to realize. Our problem is not merely that we have some character defects, that we are flawed in some minor ways. No, we are morally corrupt through and through. The problem is not that our garments are not quite as white as they might be. No, rather they are horribly soiled. Now people find that hard to stomach today, but the scriptures plainly teach this. Paul states it very clearly in Romans 3.10, there is no one righteous, no, not one. Now there's no wiggle room for you there. You must have perfect righteousness before God and the Bible says there is no one righteous, no, not one. Now, one of the reasons why we find this hard to accept is because our normal referent is one another. We compare ourselves to other people, and we always compare ourselves to somebody we think we're better than, and we usually confine them. And so by standards we're used to, we don't take sin that seriously. Maybe major crimes, but sin is not that big a deal, and so we think we're all right. But the way you can really see man's awareness of himself is look what happens in the scriptures when people we would think are exemplary. and they find themselves in the presence of God and universally they respond with a sense of woe and horror for their awareness of their wickedness. Now the first example was our first parents, Adam and Eve. They commit one little sin, you know, they fell into sin. They went from the status of righteous into the fallen state of sin and they clothed themselves seeking to flee from the presence of God. Job was a man who spoke boldly until God revealed himself. Here's what Job had to say once he saw God. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear. Now my eye sees you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent and dust and ashes. Job 22, 5 and 6. No, I'm a pretty good person for Job, at least not once he compares himself to God. What about the prophet Isaiah? This is one of the great heroes. of all time what a godly man by our standards he's off the charts and yet in Isaiah 6 he sees the vision of the Lord Jesus Christ exalted and what is his response woe unto me I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips and I come from a people of unclean lips I belong to the class of sinners and I myself am an exemplar of depravity that's what he said We've been studying the book of Revelation back in chapter 1. There's the Apostle John. Here's the beloved disciple of the Lord, the one who laid his head on the breast of our Lord. But he sees Jesus in his divine glory. He falls to the ground as though dead. Why? He is aware in the presence of God of his sin. Now, the truth is that man is unrighteous, and yet righteousness is the requirement of salvation. What bad news that is. And we can see, therefore, What the complaint against the doctrine of justification through faith alone is all about. It is right to say that we cannot stand upon any legal fiction. We must, if we're going to be saved, it's going to be through a righteousness that is real and substantial. It's got to pass the muster of heaven. It has to be the genuine article. Certainly, it cannot be a mere legal fiction. The Catholics are right in that respect. Not just words, but reality. Otherwise, we must surely be condemned. What is required for salvation is righteousness. Well, that raises the second question. And the question here is how do I get it? Where does it come from? If righteousness is the requirement for salvation and fellowship with God, how will I receive it? What righteousness will commend us as we stand before God's white throne of perfect justice? The Roman Catholic answer, and that of others who deny justification through faith alone, is that this righteousness that you need to be saved must be a righteousness that is in you. It must be one that actually characterizes your being. If asked, why should I be allowed to enter into God's holy heaven, the Roman Catholic answer is, because you have become righteous. I'd point out the Roman Catholic teaching here not for the joy of intramural sparring, but rather to throw light on this vitally important issue by means of a clear contrast. It sometimes is wrongly claimed that Catholics teach self-righteousness. Actually, the Canons of Dort also anathematize self-righteousness. Roman Catholics, at least those who know their catechism, are quick to admit that no one can become righteous without God's help through Jesus Christ. And yet, that very way of putting it shows the difference between their teaching and the biblical doctrine of justification through faith alone. Under their view, God helps you to become righteous. Without Christ, you never could be righteous. And yet, nonetheless, they insist that the ground of your entrance into heaven is your own righteousness, and it must be that. Through a combination of the sacraments, baptism, penance, the Mass, your sins are removed and God's grace is infused into you, is preserved and strengthened until finally the day comes when you become actually righteous by grace, not grace alone, but by grace. A number of years ago, quite a number of years ago now, I was involved in the controversy over the Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement and I was working, I was the aide-de-camp on the side of the Protestants who were opposing the ECT movement, Evangelicals and Catholics Together. And I got to be at many of the meetings. It was fascinating. And I'll never remember, these were evangelicals on the other side. It was not us versus Catholics. It was us versus evangelicals who said that there really was no problem with Catholicism. And I never forget a meeting where one famous theologian says, We've had such a breakthrough. Rome has changed why they've admitted that salvation is by grace alone. I'll never forget one of the men on our side, it happened to be R.C. Sproul, stood up and said, you idiots, Rome has always taught salvation by grace. What they deny is salvation by grace alone. It's by grace, but the effect of the grace, mainly it's sacramental grace they teach. And the justification comes as that grace becomes a part of you and is infused inside you and you become better and better and better until finally you are righteous. Now you go, when is that going to be? Well, for the vast majority of you, it's not going to be when you die. You know that, don't you? I mean, you have to be perfectly righteous. And let's be honest, when you die, you are not perfectly righteous. And people who know you well can attest to that. And so unless you have the kind of bonus points that very few saints will have, when you die you will not go to heaven, you will go to purgatory. Now here's a doctrine that has no support whatsoever in scripture. The Catholic catechism says purgatory is needed to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. That's a quote from the current Catholic catechism. Now, the teaching here is that since you must be perfectly righteous and pure, and since you're not at the end of your life, then it will be the fires of purgatory that you will trust to burn away the remaining iniquity, perhaps over several hundred, maybe several thousand years. But in the end, you will, through purgatory, achieve the righteousness you need. Now, this is the good news according to the Roman Catholic Church. And there's some good news in it. Jesus is a source of salvation only in that his death makes it possible. It couldn't be possible if Jesus hadn't died. Were it not for him, there would be no hope for a sinner like you. But now, by his grace, after a lifetime in the church and the sacraments and many lifetimes in the many hell of purgatory, you can hope to stand before God, not on the basis of some Protestant legal fiction, but on the basis of your personal righteousness. Now this doctrine is called infused righteousness. The grace works in you, it's infused into you so that you yourself become righteous. Sinners get into heaven after they have achieved perfect holiness in purgatory on the basis of the righteousness infused into them by Christ through the church and its all-important priesthood and their sacraments with the help of Mary and the saints. And so according to Rome, the righteousness that you need is found in you after the process of justification has finally tossed your smoking soul onto the shores of heaven. As one friend of mine commented, that is good news, but not very good news. Furthermore, it's a far cry from what the Bible teaches, from what Hebrews meant when the writer of Hebrews said of Jesus Christ that by his obedience He became the source of eternal salvation. Hebrews 5, 9. Let's look at that now. Hebrews says that Christ became the source of our salvation. Now notice that verb, He became. There was a time when He was not the source of our salvation. However glorious He was, something had to happen. And until that something did happen and was attained, He was not the source of our salvation, the basis for our entry into heaven. So here's the question, what did Jesus do? What was it that enabled him to become the source of eternal salvation? We'll look at verses seven to nine. The writer tells us, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him. These verses set forth Christ's actual attainment of righteousness, His full achievement of the holiness expressed in the law of God during the days of His flesh on earth. Now I want to break this out in three ways. We need to understand first the context in which Christ fulfilled the law, the obedience by which he fulfilled the law, and then the result of his fulfilling the law in perfect righteousness. These are the three things taught in our text that explain how he became the source of salvation for us. Well first, what was the context? in which Jesus fulfilled God's law? The answer is in verse 7, he attained righteousness in the days of his flesh. One commentator observes, these moving words express how intensely Jesus entered the human condition, which wrung from him his prayers and entreaties, cries and tears. Jesus entered fully into the human condition. The term flesh is a comprehensive term. Now it can be used, the Apostle Paul will use flesh in a way that involves sinfulness, but that's not what's going on here. It's merely talking about the entire experience, the entire context of humanity, including human weakness. Subjection to danger, the experience of want and temptation, and as well as the obligation to the law of God. Jesus came into our world under the law with all the weakness, except he was not sinful, all the temptations, all the difficulties we have, it was in the flesh that he obeyed God's law. Think of the great statement of John 1 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's not merely a positional statement. That's a statement about His context and His condition in a fully-orbed sense. And so the context in which Christ fulfilled all righteousness was no different than the context in which you and I are compelled to live. The difference is that Jesus was sinless. That means He suffered more than we did. His pilgrimage through this world was, if anything, far, far more arduous than ours, and yet the context in which He fulfilled God's law is the condition in which we live. Now this is the very point that is made in the opening scenes of Jesus' public ministry. You think of Matthew 3 and 4 when Jesus is baptized and then he goes into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. These are very important events in redemptive history. John the Baptist had been calling sinners to repentance and here comes Jesus of Nazareth and John knows who he is. He's his cousin. He had foretold him and he's horrified at the idea of baptizing Jesus since his is a baptism of repentance. Here is the one who has no sin to repent. Matthew 3, 13 to 15 says, Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me? Jesus answered, let it be so now for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus was taking the sinner's place. He was walking the penitential road because it was sinners he came to achieve righteousness for them. He had solidarity with us. Isaiah 53, 12 says he was numbered with the transgressors. And for that purpose, he was baptized with the baptism of repentance from sin that he might fulfill all righteousness precisely where we as sinners have so miserably failed. Now what did Jesus do? Immediately upon his baptism he was proclaimed audibly by the voice from heaven as a son of God. The Spirit came down upon him like a dove and then out into the wilderness he goes. The Spirit leads him into the wilderness. Why? That he would be tested. It's interesting in the book of Hebrews if you've been following along The context for much of his writing is the wilderness. We're like the Exodus generation going through, and the wilderness, he's been talking about how they failed. They were tested, they complained, they disobeyed God, they bickered, they argued, they railed against God. But Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly. He obeyed perfectly and from the heart in his wilderness sojourn. This is what it means that he lived in the flesh. He was in the wilderness where Israel and where we, as it were, have failed. But He succeeded. Where you and I struggle with sin, Jesus has been there. With pain and hunger and temptation, He fulfilled all righteousness. Why? So that He might become the source of our eternal salvation. The context by which He fulfilled God's law was in the flesh, under the attacks of Satan, with the temptations of sin, with all the travails and temptations of this mortal life, an obligation to the law of God. So first, that's the context in which he fulfilled the law. Now secondly, what is the obedience by which he fulfilled God's law? Well, look at verse 7. It says that Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears. In the desert, Jesus ate nothing for 40 days. Of course, that's the very length of time Israel had been tested and failed. They grumbled and revolted over the man that God sent from heaven. But when the devil came to Jesus after 40 days of fasting, tempting him over the same issue, what did he say? He read the scriptures to him. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And so his obedience was under severe trial to obey the Word of God, to fully embrace and live out the law of God. And he stood up to all of Satan's trials. No doubt, as our passage says, often praying, often crying out to God for help. But Jesus did not sin in thought, word, or deed under temptations greater than any that you and I will ever know. We're told that God heard him not merely because he was his son, but also because of his reverence. We might say because of his obedience. Now back in verse three of this passage, we were told that the high priest of Israel offered sacrifices for their own sins. Only after they had sacrificed for their own sins did God hear their prayers and receive their ministry. But Jesus was not of that priesthood. 10 says he's of the different priesthood, the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. We're still awaiting a full explanation of that. The writer of Hebrews is dangling us out there. But he's not like the priest who had to offer sacrifices for their own sins. He came to the Father not on the basis of the blood of bulls and goats, rather on the basis of his own life, his own obedience, his own righteousness. This is my beloved Son in him. I am well pleased. The writer of Hebrews says that's not because he was the son, it was because of his obedience. Because of the perfection of his fulfillment of God's life, his whole life, and then especially his obedience to the whole complex of events surrounding his terrible death. The sacrificial offering by which he consecrated himself as our high priest in the order of Melchizedek, he was completely obedient. William Lane writes, Jesus learned experientially what obedience entails through his passion in order to achieve salvation and become fully qualified for the office as eternal high priest. And his prayers and ministry, not only his prayers, but the work that he did on our behalf is received by God. Why? Because of his constant reverence and perfect obedience. Now, if there's one thing the New Testament emphasizes about the life of Jesus Christ, this is it. That he obeyed God perfectly in all things. That never once did he enter into sin. Never once did he fail his father. Never once did he do anything that would cause him to fall under the condemnation of the law. That's what Isaiah had foretold, Isaiah 11, 5. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist. Faithfulness the belt of his loins. And Jesus claimed this quite openly in the presence of people who could claim otherwise. In John 8, 46, he says, which of you convicts me of sin? Now you try, see what happens if you do that. Go into a crowd of your enemies who've been watching you and say, come on, you got anything to say about me? And they will. But not in Jesus' case. Boldly, he says, which of you convicts me of sin? They simply could not. Even when they brought him before Pontius Pilate, that callous despot was forced to admit, I find no guilt in him. Well, that's God at work, isn't it? Even the secular law. is forced to exonerate him. And then when the centurion, after he had been killed, he saw what had taken place, Luke 23, 47, he praised God saying, surely this was a righteous man. And therefore Peter could say he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth, 1 Peter 2, 22. And so the Apostle Paul sums up his saving work by saying, Now our passage here emphasizes that it was in the midst of pain and struggle, in the shadow of death, that Jesus learned obedience. A couple of episodes come to mind. You think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. where he anticipates the wrath of God that he will experience on the cross. And then secondly, his actual death by crucifixion. And he prayed there, just like the text says, with tears and with great anguish. My soul is very sorrowful, Jesus said, even to the point of death. Great was his struggle on that dreadful night. He fell on his face and he prayed. And so even in the context of the greatest dread, an infinite dread, we can't even conceive, we don't even have a category for that, but he experienced it. Nonetheless, what did he say? Not my will, but your will be done. Such was the perfect reverent submission like no other. Such is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. No wonder the work that he did. No wonder the righteousness that he achieved is acceptable to God. on behalf of those for whom Jesus did it. That's why Jesus cried out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. You see, all the way to the very end, he fulfilled all righteousness, trusting God, fulfilling the law at every point. And his obedience, the righteousness that results from his perfect obedience, opened the way for sinners to enter into salvation. Of course the vivid illustration on the day that Jesus died was the tearing of the veil from top to bottom. For their sake, for our sake, Jesus said, I consecrate myself that they might be holy. Thus he fulfilled all righteousness and he became the source of eternal salvation. Well, first, what is the context of his fulfilling the law? It's the flesh. It's the whole complex of the flesh. What was the obedience, perfect obedience, in every way, under the most trying circumstances, a glorious fulfillment of the entire law of God, fully pleasing to the heart of the Father? Well, then what is the result of Christ's obedience? Verses 9 to 10, being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Now we saw before that righteousness is the source of our salvation. If we're going to have salvation, we must present righteousness. And here by his perfect life and sacrificial death, we find that the words that the Apostle Paul said about Jesus are abundantly true, that He is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. 1 Corinthians 1.30, now in Him, the way to God that was closed by sin is open by righteousness. John Calvin says, he became the author of our salvation because he made us just in the sight of God when he remedied the disobedience of Adam by a contrary act of obedience on our behalf. Now with that in mind, let me return to the questions I asked earlier. On what basis do you hope to stand before the holy throne of God? What answer will we give to that question? A question, why should you enter into my holy heaven? Surely the answer cannot be my own righteousness. Any righteousness I have now or some righteousness I will have hereafter. No, surely the only answer we can give is the one in the hymn we just sang. Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress. Helpless look to thee for grace. Foul eye to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. Now this is what we mean by justification by faith alone. Our faith does not make us righteous. We do not believe that instead of works we present faith, and therefore our righteousness, we are righteous because we believe. We don't believe that at all. Our faith lays hold of Christ. and He is our righteousness. It is through faith that His righteousness is imputed to us. Jesus is the source of our eternal life. He is the righteousness we need. Again, the hymn puts it so well. Not the labors of my hands could fulfill thy laws demands. Could my zeal, no respite, no. Could my tears forever flow. All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. Now let me ask you the question. Is that a legal fiction? Is it dishonoring to God's holy justice for us to say my only comfort in life and death is the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone? Now it would be a legal fiction if I were claiming faith in something that itself did not actually provide a real and true and suitable righteousness. But through faith in Jesus Christ, it is not a fiction. It is a legal reality. It is the actual fulfillment of the law of God on our behalf, received through faith alone. When we stand before the justice of God, it will not merely be God's mercy that says, forgive. It will be the justice of God that says, justify. Why? Because of a real righteousness performed on our behalf, acceptable by God, imputed to our account through faith alone. Justification by faith alone is no breach of justice. It's the gift of righteousness from the God of grace, and to Him is all the glory. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ, not infused into us after a torturous process, one that frankly has more to do with the priests than it does and with the church than it does with the Savior in heaven. No, it is the imputation by God's decree through faith of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Here's how Paul puts it in Philippians 3. He had been speaking about his own fake, phony righteousness in which he once entrusted all of his merits and works. And here's what he says now that he'd seen Christ. He says, I consider them all rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. Now, praise the Lord, there will be a time when believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will not merely be reckoned righteous. Right now, we are declared righteous. We have not yet, we have not been made righteous. That's the difference between the Catholic view and ours. I do not claim to be righteous in my being, but nonetheless, I have been declared righteous because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to me by faith. But thank God, the day is going to come when I actually am perfectly holy when I have been conformed to the image of the Son. That's the work that's going on right now. We call it sanctification. It's part and parcel of justification. It's also good news. Thank the Lord that Jesus not only declares us just, but He actually then begins in a process through this life that's designed to make us more and more holy. And then on the other side of the resurrection, not through the fires of purgatory, but through the glories of the resurrection of the body. We will be perfectly glorious in holiness. How we look forward to that day, I think the longer we live as a Christian, the more we look forward to no longer being sinners, to being perfectly holy. And yet now we stand before God, though we are ourselves very great sinners, knowing that we are clothed in the righteous robes of Jesus Christ. This is no legal fraud. It is actual righteousness that actually saves. It is the source of eternal life for us by our precious Savior who became through His obedience the source of our eternal salvation. Well, there's one question that remains. You may remember it. I asked it earlier. It's the who question or the whom question. For whom is Christ the source of eternal salvation? Well, the answer is given in verse nine. He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Now, what does it mean to obey Jesus Christ unto salvation? Here, it's the obedience of faith. It's what Jesus said in John 6, 29 when he was asked, what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus said, this is the work of God that you believe in the one whom he sent, John 6, 29. And if you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, not that you believe He exists, but if you have not trusted Him, if you have not received His righteousness through faith as the basis of your salvation, well, this is all very bad news for you. Here's what Jesus said, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him, John 3.36. Through the obedience of faith, if you trust His saving work, Christ is your Savior. His sacrifice will pay the debt of your sin, even through His own blood, and He will clothe you in His perfect righteousness so that you may stand before the throne of God. But don't be thinking that this is all easy. If you're to obey Jesus Christ, if you're to have the obedience of faith, then you're going to have to own up to some things and you're going to have to renounce others. You're going to have to confess, embrace, that God is right to condemn you for your sins. You're going to have to own your own total lack of righteousness. You'll have to confess that you are not and cannot be righteous in and of yourself. Why? Because of the sin that is in you. And then you must reach out to the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, laying hold of His free gift of salvation, trusting His righteousness, His righteous life and sacrificial atoning death for your only salvation. And not only must you embrace these things, not only must you confess your need of Christ's blood, own up to your need of His righteousness, but you must repudiate your own works. That's what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3. All the stuff I boasted in, all the things that made me think I was special before God, they're rubbish, he says. And you must do the same. You must repudiate your works, your attainments, the things that the world applauds in you as you stand before God. You must realize that they are stained with sin, utterly unable to save you. You'll have to repudiate your religious attainments, your faith in church-going, your proper upbringing, maybe your status in the world, anything that you would trust in the place of the saving work of Jesus Christ. In fact, you will also have to repudiate the world and all its sinful pleasures. The Apostle Paul described them as the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride in possessions. We must renounce them all, or we use them. But they are no longer our salvation. They are no longer our glory, 1 John 2, 16. So turning from sin is not the means of salvation, but it is the necessary result of it. We say we're saved through faith alone, but that faith is never alone. It always is accompanied by works, a new lifestyle that begins that will be perfected in heaven. But when you have let go of all these things of the world and laid hold of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have gained everything. You will have gained the cross of Jesus Christ, where the righteous son of God died for sinners, and where he became the sure source of eternal salvation for everyone who trusts in him. Amen. Let's pray. Well, Father, we thank you for the clear teaching of the Bible on the doctrine of justification. Father, we have such a tendency to look for something in ourselves, some boast of our own. And you remind us, Lord, that Jesus is the only righteousness we need, the only one we could ever have, and the only one we are to seek. Father, we marvel that out of your great love for us, you would send your Son to come into the flesh, and in that context, to become an obedient source of righteousness for us. But Lord, because of that love for us, we offer our love back to you. Would you now move us forward in practical holiness? Would you establish us on the true doctrine of justification? Would we take no other stand but there? But Father, believing and knowing the truth of justification through faith alone, would we indeed with zeal begin living for you? And would we tell others how they too can have eternal salvation through Jesus Christ? We pray in his name, amen.