I invite you to turn in the scriptures to the book of Romans, to Romans chapter 3. And as well, I'm going to be making fairly frequent reference throughout the sermon to a section of a confessional document called the Belgic Confession of Faith. Written in 1561, a summary of what we as Reformed Protestant Christians believe the Bible teaches. And you can find this in the thin Forms and Prayers book on page 175. And I'll refer to articles 22 and 23 as we continue to work through core doctrines of the Christian faith. Now last week, last week we considered together the purpose, the meaning, the necessity of Christ's crucifixion. And we saw that while there are different aspects to why Christ died and what he was accomplishing, something essential to the meaning of Christ's death is this idea of penal substitution, that Christ went in our place to be the substitute, to bear the penalty. However, that only deals with half of the predicament of human sin. Because in bearing the penalty for sin, Christ says, made us free from guilt, but God, from the beginning, covenanted in such a way that his ultimate blessings are conditioned, not merely on freedom from guilt, but on personal, positive obedience, on fulfilling the command. God called Adam not just to sleep in the garden forever and never have a conscious thought, and that's one way to remain innocent, but he called him to bear his image, to be fruitful and to multiply. to guard and to keep. He called him, in a word, to be a priest and a king bearing the image of God. So that raises a question. With all of the imperfection of our best works in this life, how can God justly give you rewards that he conditioned on perfect fulfillment? And that brings us to the answer that we confess in Belgic 22. I'll only read a part of it, but then I'll read the rest as we work through in the sermon. Here what our churches have for hundreds of years, really with the church spiritual throughout all the ages, believes. We believe that for us to acquire the true knowledge of this great mystery, speaking of the gospel, the Holy Spirit kindles in our hearts a true faith that embraces Jesus Christ with all his merits and makes him its own, and no longer looks for anything apart from him. For it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ, or if all is in him, then he who has Christ by faith has his salvation already. In other words, Jesus has done it all. If it's sufficient to have him, then we need not add anything or look to anything beyond him. What a glorious hope if you indeed do embrace that. But on the other hand, do we find that in scripture? I remember very well. I remember like it was yesterday. Oh, there's so many things that I've forgotten very well. But I remember like it was yesterday, the first time that I ever read a very clear statement concerning the doctrine of justification, like grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone. And I turned to the person who was next to me because we were actually sitting on prefabricated model furniture in a Walmart. And I had printed out this statement that I had found online. because I was looking for a solution to my own lack of assurance. So I and this friend were sitting there, and I was reading it out loud, and I turned and I said to this person, if this is true, this is the best news I've ever heard in my life. If, because I wasn't even sure that it wasn't wrong. I wasn't sure if that's actually what the Bible taught, because I had been told that it was something of, you know, God does part and you do part, and the two parts come together, and as long as you did your part, God will do the rest. What does scripture say? Hear together with me the word of God in Romans chapter three, beginning at verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And verse 28, For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We're gonna do that again. Do you notice that? It's responsive. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. Let's ask the Lord special blessing. Father in heaven, we are grateful for the best news there ever was. that in Christ you do all for those whom from eternity you appointed him as his inheritance. We marvel that Christ is such a Lord as would count sinners in inheritance. And we honor you that by your spirit you fit us to be glorious in his sight, changing us. But even before that, Lord, we thank you that while we were yet godless, you would call us righteous. We ask that you would please lead us into this passage, into this truth, grow us, strengthen us, not only for ourselves, but that we might be well-equipped to do spiritual battle and to spread this knowledge into all the world. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. From a fairly young age, I somehow fell into an interest in Greek mythology, found books in the public library about Hercules and all these figures And pretty quickly, you'll learn that there is a lot of tragedy in Greek mythology, many tragic figures. And among all of them, I think one of the most tragic figures is the character of Cassandra. You can read about Cassandra in Homer's Iliad. She is a priestess of this pagan false god, Apollo. And one night, while she is going about her duties in the temple, According to the myth, Apollo shows up and he tries to incite her to evil. And she has the audacity, really the piety, the good conscience to rebuke the God. And so what does Apollo do being petty? He curses her. And the curse that he gives her is that from that day forward, she will have perfect knowledge of the future, but no one will ever believe her. And so as all of the tragedies, all of the horrors mount up against the city of Troy, Cassandra is warning and warning and warning everyone what is going to happen. And her fate is to watch as her husband and her brothers and the citizens of this city go out to doom because no one believes what she's saying, though it's true. There is a kind of tragedy to the speech of God's law. Not because the law is cursed, but because sinners are under a curse. And as a consequence, even as the law speaks faithfully, unregenerate man hears everything it says with a garbled voice. The law speaks one thing, but man in sin hears another. And even regenerate Christians who are, to use another's words, hardwired for law, have a tendency to fall back into mishearing what the law actually says. See what we read in verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. When the apostle speaks of those who are under the law, in context, he's not just talking about the Jews who are under the old covenant. If you read Romans one through three, he's laying out how all the world, unless you are a believer in Jesus Christ, is under the law. Because here he's using the word law in a distinct way. He's talking about the original covenantal way that God dealt with human beings. Where he had given specific terms and said, if you do these things, you will live. And if you don't, you will die. Where life was conditioned on personal moral performance, And Paul is belaboring this point. It's not just the Jews, if they do not believe on Christ, who have this voice of the law warning them, but all of the Gentiles as well. You say, well, they didn't receive the law. I thought the law was given at Sinai. I thought God gave the Ten Commandments there. It was inscripturated there. So how are the Gentiles under the law? And Paul lays out in Romans 1 and 2 that the work of the law is written upon the heart of man. As it says in Romans 2.15, it shows that the work of the law is written on their hearts as they experience convictions, as they feel the work of conscience, this distinction of right and wrong. The job of conscience is to tell you there is accountability. There is a standard, even if people disagree about what it is, through our corruption, through our darkness. yet conscience itself bears witness. There is a God to whom we'll give an account. And what is the function of the law when it speaks to people who are yet under it? What the law says according to verse 19 is this, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped. And it's this image of people Telling the Lord, but, but, but, but, but, but I did this and I did that. I served you in this way. You said don't lie and on that occasion, I sure didn't lie. But the function of the law is to stop every mouth because the law was never do some things most of the time. The law is do this and you'll live. Don't do this and you'll die. It's binary. Those are the options. and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Let the gravity of that sink in. By works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. First, what does it mean to be justified? To be justified, for any children here, we don't use that word on a daily basis, but it is for someone to declare that you did the right thing, and in your heart, you're right as well. To be justified is to be pronounced just or righteous. Here again, for by works of the law, and the Greek word for works here simply means an act of the will, so it goes all the way to the heart, For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in sight. Well, what are works of the law? Jesus was asked to give a summary of the law. And he said, love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor, what? As yourself. So let's read it that way. For by any attempt to love God and love your neighbor, no human being will be declared righteous in his sight. Which means that even if from today for the rest of your life you gave everything that you could consciously bring to the table to love God at every moment, you rose early, you prayed for 18 hours a day, you gave all your gifts and goods to the poor, everything is given to others. out of a desire to honor him, you will go to hell if you are not in Jesus Christ. For no human by works of the law shall be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. The law can reveal your need, but it cannot cover your sin, and in your sinful state, you still owe perfect obedience. And so that brings us to now this point in the scripture where the apostle, led by the Holy Spirit, begins to unfold one of the clearest, one of the most beautiful, one of the most full, one of the most comforting statements of the doctrine of assurance that we have anywhere in scripture. The basis upon which you can be confident that as you go into God's presence, he will say, well done, my good and faithful servant. enter into the joy that has been prepared for you. And so our goal this evening is unusual compared to what I typically do. You all know that I typically lay out two or three points very clearly, and we just look at those in order. But tonight we're going to just walk through Romans 3, 21 through 4, 7, and see what it says. We're going to move through the verses and ask what it says about the nature of justification, and then how we are to respond to that. Now, as I said, I've already defined justification as a declaration of righteousness. Ordinarily, how do we, on what grounds do we declare a person just or righteous? By the way, you do this all the time. You make judgments all the time, so do I, about people driving, about your neighbor and what they do with their lawn, or their speaker volume. We're always making judgments about other people. Deciding if, in that instance, we think that they are righteous or unrighteous. Ordinarily, our judgment about a person's justice is based on what they do, and to the extent that they had a voluntary choice in that. But here in Romans 3.21 and following, Paul says that God has revealed an alternative way, a different way of being declared righteous. Think about that. a way of being declared righteous that doesn't have anything to do with what you personally did relative to that command to love God and love your neighbors. How can you, a different way to be righteous without actually doing what is right? How can that be real? And here Paul lays it out. This goes to the very heart, the glory of the gospel that we as Christians, and in particular, we as Protestant and Reformed Christians have insisted on through the ages. Verse 21. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. When he says apart from the law, again, he means that it's on a different basis or a different principle than that which was contained under the law. And what is it that is being declared here? Verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Now let that sink in. Since he's already said that it is apart from the law and that no one is justified by works of the law, which is loving God and loving your neighbor, then what it means in this context here relative to justification, what it means to have faith in Jesus must be set in opposition to any kind of moral cooperation as being the ground or the reason why God is pardoning you and declaring you righteous. Everything in terms of the goodness you would bring to it is not why you're being declared righteous. Through faith in Jesus, which means that faith in Jesus must be not simply trusting Jesus to help you help yourself. Trusting Jesus to give you the moral fiber to climb up the ladder. Jesus gave you the boost, or Jesus is cheering for you from the bleachers, hoping that you score. How many of those who profess Jesus Christ in churches throughout the entire world think that's the gospel? I thought that was the gospel. I don't know when I came genuinely to faith in Christ for sure, but I know when I came to Assurance, I came to assurance when I looked away from anything I did do, was doing, would ever do, as the reason why God was now declaring me righteous. And I hope you can say the same. What is that hope? Summarized very beautifully for us here in Belch Confession 22. Again, for it must necessarily follow that either all that is required for our salvation is not in Christ, Or, if all is in him, then he who has Christ by faith has his salvation entirely. Therefore, to say that Christ is not enough, but that something else is needed as well, is a most enormous blasphemy against God. For it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior. And therefore, we justly say with Paul that we are justified by faith alone. or by faith apart from works. Why did God establish this alternative way of being declared righteous? Who is it for? The short answer is, if he didn't, all people would be condemned. Because there is no one righteous. No, not one, and that's Paul's point here. Look at verse 22, Romans. 322, for there is no distinction, he's saying, whether between Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, young and old, male or female, there is no distinction, for all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith, a gift to be received. I had the great pleasure last night of going to a children's birthday party. My son was invited to a party and we went to one of those bounce houses with the inflatables and it turned out that the adults were far more interested in jumping on them than the children were. We all went home injured. And then we came to the time when The gifts were shared out to this young boy. It was delightful to watch him receive these gifts. And as he received one after another, he pulled from the inside of his coat a large roll of bills, and he began to pay cash to each of the families who he'd know he did not. They were gifts. Isn't that the point? They weren't something that he had earned. They weren't wages. It was a gift simply to be received. Some of us really like giving gifts and have no idea how to receive them. And the moment somebody offers us something, we're already plotting, okay, I gotta give it back. I don't wanna be indebted to anybody. And it's good for it to go around and come around. But the very nature of gifting and of grace is simply to receive. And here the apostle is saying very clearly Those who are justified, since no one is justified by works of the law, the only people who are justified are the people who receive it simply as a gift. Which means if you're trying to be good enough to deserve it, you're not getting it. The only people who will enter glory are justified people. The only people who are justified received it as a gift. which means you don't have to do something other than, by faith, receive it. Paul says in verse 25 and 26, this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. And here he's saying it had seemed like God was being partial to people of faith like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It seemed like God was being unjust because he didn't bring judgment on them Even as some, certainly the demons knew of this fact, some human beings died in this life and passed into judgment, but other human beings were being taken into a place of peace described as paradise. Why was an Abraham suffering when clearly he was sinful? Here it was to demonstrate God's righteousness that Christ had to die on the cross. Justice, as we saw last week, has been paid. Verse 26. and it was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. How does this work then? Why is it that faith, or how is faith connected to our justification? Here a very important clarification needs to be made. I think this was the area that I struggled most with. In the period from age 10 when I first heard the gospel, but I don't think I really understood it clearly, up to age 21, when it was very clear. And I know that some of you are right in that age group, and I wonder if you have grasped it, and I hope that you have. You see, I thought that faith was the one good thing I could do, and that because I had faith, that was what, I don't know, deserved from God. I knew that, technically speaking, it didn't deserve anything, but I thought that God was grading on a curve, like he accepted the part for the whole, and faith was the one good thing I could do, even though the scriptures say faith itself is a gift, because the Holy Spirit works graciously in the heart of the dead man to bring that man to life. Faith is the instrument of our justification, but it is not the ground of our justification. When I say it's the instrument, I mean, that's a classical way of describing it. I mean kind of like another analogy that people have used throughout the ages. Imagine a lead pipe, but there's molten gold flowing through it. Faith has no special value of its own, but it receives, and what it receives, this gold, is the promise of justification in Christ as we are united with him. Faith brings us by God's covenant into union with Jesus Christ, so that everything that is his is counted ours. And everything that was ours, all of our sin and all of our guilt, was counted his. Faith is the instrument of union. But faith of itself doesn't have merit. Belgian Confession 22, however, we do not mean, properly speaking, that it is faith itself that justifies us. For faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ, our righteousness. Christ is our righteousness. But Jesus Christ is our righteousness, crediting to us all his merits and all the holy works he has done for us and in our place. And faith is the instrument that keeps us in communion with him and with all his benefits. When those benefits are made ours, they are more than enough to absolve us of our sins. Think about the wonderful effect that this has on us when we walk in it. It removes every ground for fleshly boasting. Everything where one person might say, I did this, that's why I'm different, that's why I'm accepted. I again, when I speak of myself, it's simply because I know myself better than I know anyone else. I remember praying prayers. Which, when you hear them, I trust anyone who has the Spirit of God will hear this and be like, what? What even did you believe? But I prayed on my knees prior to really understanding the gospel. God, there are people in this city, I was living in Appleton, Wisconsin at that time, and I wanted there to be a revival. And I think I wanted that in the way that, say, Saul, as a Pharisee, wanted things for the Lord, but he hadn't yet come to the grace of the gospel. And I was praying for a revival, and I prayed, Lord, There are so many people here who have not yet accepted you, and I pray that you would make it so clear to them, Lord. I pray that you would lay out before them the truth. But Lord, if then they're so stubborn to not receive it, damn them to hell, because it's so obvious. I prayed like that. I mean, partly that was just youth, partly that was being a late teen, but I really thought the difference with me is that, you know, it's pretty obvious I just made the right choice. No, the glory is in the Lord. It's entirely, and after that I would have thought, well, it's that I persevered longer than others. But where does that come from? Faith is trusting in the Lord to do all of it, to be all of it. Romans 3.27, then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By law of works? No, but by the law of faith. And here he means the principle of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. And he gives the illustration of Abraham. who is justified by God, but clearly you read his life and you find it wasn't because of some special good thing he did. It says he believed the Lord and the Lord counted his faith for righteousness. So in place of having righteousness, the Lord accepted this faith that unites him with Christ the promised one. Now, what do we do with this? I want to exhort you by way of conclusion. Hold fast to this. Defended in your own heart by the word for your very soul. Defended in the world against the devil. Defended in the church. He would like nothing more than to see this one truth eroded. I do believe that the devil is perfectly content to have these large and sometimes gorgeous buildings that are called churches all throughout the world. He's perfectly content to have them packed with people. and to even have people who are on the moral uptick. He can abide that, it makes him queasy, but he'll take it. If, if he does not have to hear the true gospel proclaimed. Galatians 1, verses six through nine, I don't ask you to turn there, but here again, this familiar but essential statement. The apostle says to these Galatians who were tempted to turn back to confidence in their works, he says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the good news of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. But don't go that way yourself. For you younger ones here, you are going to go out if you haven't realized this already and you're going to discover, I don't think I'm overstating it at all, the great majority of professing Christian churches do not proclaim this gospel. Now that's not to say that there are not believers in the world, and we thank God the number of them is huge relative to, you know, the beginning number of the disciples. But Jesus wasn't kidding when he said broad is the way that leads to destruction. There are many churches, I was in some of these churches for years, where I heard with my own ears the pastor say that the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant is that in the Old Covenant, it's like an umbrella that is in its closed position. It's really hard to hide from the rain in that. We'll come to what that means. But under the New Covenant, it's like an open umbrella. And he said, under the Old Covenant, there were so many ways to end up under the wrath of God by doing what was wrong. But under the New Covenant, there's really only a few sins that could really put you back out in the rain. And as long as you stay under the umbrella, you're saved, because Jesus covering is for all the sins that are not really, really adamant. And then he gave an example. He said, some of you, this is when I was in Bible college, he said, some of you might be considering going out and getting drunk this weekend. Let me just tell you, that'll put you back in the rain. as if you just go in and out of the umbrella based on your works and deeds. Now, don't get me wrong. If you live consistently in a way that is a rebellion against the law, such that you end up excommunicated from the church, we don't have any credible ground to think that you have ever come to know him. But that's different than saying that our works are somehow contributing to our justification. They do not, not at all. Not even the character of faith as being compliant and obedient, contributes. The very obedience of faith is not why we are saved. It's the instrument, but it's not the ground. Jesus Christ's own humanity, his life of human obedience is our confidence. Why did he become a man? To live a perfect human life for you, which means if your faith is in him, you already lived your best life. It's concluded and it's raised to glory. It's seated at the right hand of God. How should that then shape you? One, shouldn't we be so much more grateful than we are? And don't just beat yourself up about that. Confess it and then receive fresh grace that even in the midst of your ingratitude, he sent Christ. And then shouldn't this be what we tell others? Because everyone you will ever meet, unless they are a genuine Christian, defaults to thinking that works. make the difference. They do. And when they hear that you're a Christian, they presume that you think that you're doing the good things. Take the short line whenever possible with somebody. Get to the point to tell them, oh, there are different kinds of Christians, but the kind of Christian I am, I think the Bible says that our goodness doesn't have a thing to do with why God saves us, but simply trusting what Jesus did. So this should shape how we confess the gospel, how we trust the gospel, and how we hold fast to the gospel. Hear finally these words from Belgic 23, and I exhort you to heed this counsel. And therefore, beginning midway, Belgic 23, and therefore we cling to this foundation which is firm forever, giving all glory to God, humbling ourselves and recognizing ourselves as we are. not claiming a thing for ourselves or our merits, and leaning and resting only on the obedience of Christ crucified, which is ours when we believe in him. That is enough to cover all our sins and make us confident, freeing the conscience from the fear, dread, and terror of God's approach, without doing what our first father, Adam, did, who trembled as he tried to cover himself with fig leaves. In fact, If we had to appear before God, relying no matter how little on ourselves or some other creature, then alas, we would be swallowed up. Therefore, everyone must say with David, Lord, do not enter into judgment with your servants, for before you, no living person shall be justified. True faith frees you to stop sowing fig leaves from the law, and instead to be dressed in that imputed righteousness, that credited righteousness, even before he begins to clothe you with that lived-out righteousness of the Spirit. Let's ask the Lord to work this deeply into us now and go before him in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we thank you again this evening for the opportunity to hear the best news. And we pray that you would work in our hearts a fresh dependence upon you, that you would fill us with admiration for our Savior, and all that he suffered and all that he did, which was right. We pray that you would work in our circumstance to have opportunities and due time to share this good news with others, and in doing so, to boast nothing in ourselves, but only in you. For in Jesus' name we pray, amen.