The following sermon, entitled Justification by Faith, was preached on the morning of June 13th, 2021 at Hope Protestant Reformed Church in Redlands, California. If you enjoy listening to our sermons, we encourage you to come worship with us. For more information on service times and upcoming Bible study opportunities, please visit our website at hopeprc.org. Let's open the scriptures this morning to Romans chapter 3. Romans 3, we will read verses 9-31. That is the end of the chapter. We do so in connection with Lord's Day 23 of the Heidelberg Catechism. After introduction to the book, The Apostle Paul is wrapping up the first main section in which he's showing that all are sinners. He starts with the Gentiles and shows how they are guilty of sin. Then he moves to the Jews and shows how they are guilty of sin. And now verses 9 and following are the conclusion of that showing, well, if Jews and Gentiles are sinners, that means truly everyone is a sinner. Verse 9 of chapter 3, What then? Are we, Jews, better than they, Gentiles? No, and no wise. For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, as it is written..." And now verses 10-18 are a series of quotations from the Old Testament Scriptures. "...as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. In the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become that is a pure guilty, before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. And that's really the conclusion of the first section of the book of Romans on our sin. Verse 21 is the beginning of the section on our salvation, specifically our justification. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith, of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. See the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing it as one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law. We end our scripture reading at that point. It's in connection with Romans 3 that we have the instruction of the Heidelberg Catechism in Lords Day 23. But what doth it profit thee now that thou believest all this? That I am righteous in Christ before God and an heir of eternal life. How art thou righteous before God? only by a true faith in Jesus Christ, so that though my conscience accuse me that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God and kept none of them and still inclined to all sin, notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, even so, as if I never had had nor committed any sin, yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me, inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart. Why sayest thou that thou art righteous by faith only? Not that I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God, and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only." There are certain things that we tend to circle on the calendar. Perhaps you have an upcoming vacation this summer. and the date that you leave for that vacation has a big circle drawn around it because of the eager anticipation for that upcoming trip. To use a different analogy, some sport teams will circle a specific date on the calendar when they play their biggest rival because they understand that that game holds special importance Well, as your pastor, I've had Lord's Days 23 and 24 circled on my calendar, as it were, on account of the importance of these Lord's Days and on account of the beauty of them. For Lord's Days 23 and 24 are indeed important. They set before us the truth of justification by faith alone, apart from works." Lords Day 23 gives us the positive instruction regarding justification. And that's clear from the outset. It asks, what doth it profit thee that thou believest all of this? The all of this referring to everything in the Apostles' Creed. We've just finished that section of the catechism. And now we want to know what's the prophet? And the answer it gives is that I am righteous in Christ before God. That's talking about our justification. Lords Day 24 will then defend this doctrine. It will make clear that this is not something that we receive on account of or by our works. So between these two Lords Days, we have the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And the Reformed church has always understood the importance of this doctrine. Martin Luther said famously that this is the doctrine on which the church either stands or falls. John Calvin at the very outset of his nine chapters in his Institutes on justification, says at the beginning that this is the main hinge on which religion turns. And we could multiply similar quotes that speak to the importance of this doctrine. And thus it's with a certain level of eagerness that we begin our treatment of the truth of justification. Following the lead of the catechism, And taking Lord's Day 23, we focus this morning primarily on the positive, the basic truth of justification. We'll come to the defense in Lord's Day 24. And because this is such an important doctrine, this sermon, especially the main point, will strive above all for clarity. Not so much for depth. but for clarity because we need to have this doctrine clearly in our minds. So the theme for this morning's sermon is justification by faith. We'll look first at the doctrine itself, second, the instrument explaining those words by faith, and then third, the blessedness. To understand justification, we must see ourselves as guilty sinners before God the Judge. For the term justification is a legal term and thus it brings us into a courtroom setting. And the moment we step into this courtroom, our attention cannot but be drawn to the majestic Judge presiding over this courtroom, namely God Himself. For as He sits in this courtroom, He sits there on His judgment seat, even as He sat there in the vision that Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6. With His throne high and lifted up. With His train filling the whole room. the very doorposts of the temple shaking at the sound of His voice and the angels ever crying out, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord our God. And for good reason. Because this is also the same God who, for example, appeared at Mount Sinai. In that grand display, that revelation of His holiness and of His majesty, when He came down, descended upon the mountain in fire, causing that whole mountain to shake. It's in the presence of this Judge that Isaiah said, Woe is me, for I am undone. It was in the presence of this God that the people of Israel backed away from that mountain and said, Moses, you go on our behalf, and Moses, you speak to us. We don't want to hear directly from this God. This is the judge before whom every one of us must stand. And understand that this judge has a law. a law that is His standard for judgment. And this law requires perfect obedience. Not a mere external, outward obedience, but an internal obedience because His law probes the very depths of our heart. And now as a just judge, God does declare that those who keep this law perfectly will be declared righteous and given eternal life. For example, he says in Leviticus 18 verse 5, "...Ye shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them." But at the same time, the law also threatens death. for all those who fail to keep this law in any respect. That's the punishment that will come upon all those who violate this law. Now every man must stand before this judge. And every man will receive, look here, a verdict that will be given on some basis, and there will be a corresponding sentence. So this morning when we try to understand the declaration that comes from God the Judge to the sinner, there's three columns that we have to fill in this morning. First, on the Left hand will be the column of the verdict. And the verdict has to do with one's legal status. Whether one is guilty or righteous. Those are the only two options. That verdict will be made on some legal basis. That's the middle column. And that has to do with whether or not one measures up to that standard of God's law. And if one does measure up, then that means the verdict's going to be righteous. If one is sinned, then the verdict becomes guilty. But now along with that verdict is going to come, thirdly, a sentence in the far right column. And the sentence is simply what the individual has coming to him or her in light of that verdict that God pronounces. so that all those who are righteous will be given life, but all those who are guilty will be sentenced to death. So now put yourself before this judge. What's the verdict that we deserve? Well, let me tell you, the verdict The declaration we deserve is that of guilty. That's how every one of us, as we're fallen in Adam, that's the declaration every one of us who are fallen in Adam deserves. That's how we fill in that far left column. But now there's a legal basis for that, namely, our sin. Because every one of us is a sinner. That's what Romans 3 makes crystal clear to us. In Romans 3.9 it says, For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." Verse 23 speaks of the fact, "...for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Every one of us has not only failed to keep the law from a positive point of view, but we've broken the law. We've violated it from a negative point of view. We're guilty of sins of omission and sins of commission. And because of that, we could never be declared righteous. That is, we could never be justified of ourselves. And that's the clear teaching of Romans 3. Verse 20, Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in His sight. The verdict we deserve is guilty. The legal basis for that in the middle column is our sin. And now because of that, there's a corresponding sentence in the right column. Death. That's the punishment we deserve. And understand, that's a just punishment. God is righteous in declaring that verdict and its corresponding sentence. Think of all the evidence He has. What a case He could so easily build with the long, endless list of our sins. And understand, this is not something we just sort of shrug off this morning. Let no man here say, well, no big deal if that's God's verdict. Who cares what He says? Let no man think that way. Because remember the judge that we're standing before. The holy, righteous, and majestic God of heaven and earth. Every violation of His law, every transgression against this holy lawgiver and this just judge must be punished with severe, that is, everlasting punishment. That's what we deserve. But beloved, this sermon is not about what we deserve. At least, that's not the main thing. This sermon is about the wonder of our justification. Our justification being the fact that this just judge declares to us that we are righteous. And thus, we have the right to eternal life. But now it raises the question, how could He do this? What's the legal basis for such a declaration to us? And that's what we want to focus on, that middle column. We'll re-explain the verdicts again with regard to our justification, but let's focus on how it is that God could justify us. And the legal basis is Christ's saving work. Romans 3 points us to that. Romans 3 v. 24, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And it goes on to speak of His bloodshed and the propitiation for our sins. This then brings us to the doctrine of double imputation. That's a term that we have no doubt heard. We're somewhat familiar with it, but we want to again make sure it's clear. In double imputation, there's a great exchange that takes place between Christ and the sinner. First, our sin is imputed to Jesus Christ. This is the negative aspect of our justification. And such a negative aspect is necessary exactly because on account of our sins, we owe an eternal debt. From a legal point of view, we are in the red. And our sins must be paid for in some way. Well, in justification, our sin is imputed to Jesus Christ. This is the teaching of Romans 4. Verse 8, for example, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." How could He not impute sin? Well, because implied is that our sin is imputed to Christ. And the idea of that word imputed or imputation is that of our sin being transferred to Christ. It's credited to His account. The way that some debt, a credit card debt for example, could be given to another and that person then becomes responsible to pay for it. Our sins imputed to Christ. And now understand that along with that goes the punishment we deserve for those sins. You see, when our sin, our guilt, is credited to Christ's account. It's as though the punishment we deserve is sort of attached to it. It's pulled along like a truck carries a trailer behind it. It's tethered to it. The punishment's tethered to the sin so that when our sin is transferred to Christ, so also is the punishment. He becomes responsible for both. He becomes responsible for the debt and thus the punishment that we deserve on account of that debt. And understand, this teaches us, reminds us of what the saving work of Jesus Christ is. On the one hand, that saving work of Christ is the enduring of that punishment we deserve. The paying of the debt that we owe. He had to make perfect satisfaction by his atoning death at Calvary for Jesus Christ stood before the just judge. And the just judge gave him a verdict. Guilty. And we ask, how could God ever say that about His Son? Well, the legal basis for that was our sins had been placed upon Him. And thus, the corresponding sentence, the corresponding punishment was death. And the wonder of our salvation is that Christ took that punishment upon Himself. He endured the wrath of God against our sins. He made perfect satisfaction of God's justice. But that's not all that He did, beloved. If all that Jesus Christ does is pay the debt, Really, all that would accomplish, and we speak obviously hypothetically here, is all that would accomplish would be to get us back to the garden. If that alone was His work, it would mean we'd be like Adam, sinless, but still able to fall. We would not yet be confirmed in everlasting righteousness. But Christ's work is more than that. That's why we speak of double imputation. Because first, in double imputation, our sin is transferred, credited, imputed to Christ, but now there's the other half. Secondly, Christ's perfect obedience is imputed to the elect sinner. This is the positive aspect of our justification. And this is necessary because if we're going to stand before this just judge, we need more than a blank slate. We need a life of perfect obedience. And in justification, Christ's obedience is imputed to us. That's the teaching, for example, of Romans 4. and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also." And righteousness here refers to moral righteousness. It's talking about a life of perfect obedience. And now, again, it uses the same language of that being imputed, transferred to our account that money, funds, can be moved from one bank account and transferred to another bank account. That's what happens with Christ's obedience. It's imputed to us. And now along with that, comes the right to life. Just as when our sins were imputed to Christ, they carried along with them the punishment we deserve. Well, the opposite holds true as well. When Christ's perfect obedience is imputed to our account, it carries along with them, in tow behind it, is the right to eternal life. And now again, that teaches us about Christ saving works. that it included a life of perfect obedience. You see, His work was not merely what He accomplished at the cross during those three hours of darkness when He suffered God's wrath. But His saving work was His whole life of obedience. Whereas we sin in thought, word, and deed, every thought Jesus Christ had was holy. Every word that ever came out of His mouth was good. And every deed He ever performed was righteous. Always, at all times, He loved God with His whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. He loved the neighbor and He hated sin perfectly. And it's that obedience that's imputed, transferred to our account. You see, Christ doesn't go back and relive our lives for us, correcting all the wrongs along the way, but it's Christ's obedience. The obedience we see when we read the gospel accounts. It's His obedience as a 12-year-old when He stayed behind at the temple. It's His saying no to sin and temptation. It was His life of constant prayer. His submission to the will of Father. That's the obedience. that's transferred to our account. And that's why we speak of a double imputation. And now it's on the basis of that saving work of Jesus Christ that God justifies the elect sinner. He declares us not guilty, but righteous. So let's go back now to the three columns that we've been looking at where there's a verdict made on some basis with a corresponding sentence, and see how that gets completely changed as those who have Jesus Christ as our legal, our federal head. Only here now we're going to need Two rows. A top row and a bottom row. A negative and a positive, so that really what we're doing is building a big chart up here. Let's start with the negative, the top row. The verdict that our God declares to us now, not guilty. That is, your sins are forgiven. That's a part of our justification. that God remits, that God wipes away, that God blots out all of our sins. He says to us, not guilty. How could He say that? The legal basis? Christ's perfect satisfaction. The satisfaction that is the pain of the debt, the suffering of God's wrath at Calvary. And now along with that comes a sentence. No more death. In abolishing the guilt of our sin, He also pardoned the punishment that we deserve. To use the language of Romans 8, verse 1, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. He says to us, not guilty because Christ paid the debt and therefore, no condemnation, no death. But yet, there's even more. There's the whole second row in this giant chart that we're building. Because He says to us, not only not guilty, but you are righteous. That's the positive verdict that our God declares to us. Not just you're innocent as though you've done no wrong, but righteous as though you've kept the law perfectly in its entirety. How could God say that? Well, the legal basis here is Christ's perfect obedience. Every good, acceptable, holy, righteous deed He performed has been credited to our account, and that's the basis for God declaring to us righteous. But now, as those who are righteous, there's a sentence. And the corresponding sentence is eternal life. a life of peace and joy with your God. That, beloved, is the wonder of our justification. But now we have more to explain. Because although we now understand what's all included in that declaration that God makes to us, there is the question, well, how does all of this happen? By what means are we justified? And that brings us to the instrument of our justification. And the instrument of our justification is faith. We are justified by means of faith. And that's the teaching of Romans 3. Verse 28, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. And the word by there is important. We could read it this way, by means of faith. And that language teaches us that this is the instrument of our justification. And that's what our confessions teach us as well. For example, Belgian Confession 22. The second paragraph we read, Therefore, we justly say with Paul that we are justified by faith alone or by faith without works. However, to speak more clearly, It says what we do not mean, but then it says, for faith is only an instrument with which we embrace Christ our righteousness. So, faith is the instrument of our justification. Nothing new there. But yet we might wonder, well, what exactly does that mean? We've heard this. We know this. But perhaps it's still a bit vague and general. Well, when we speak of justification by faith, that is, faith being the instrument, in order to understand that properly, we have to draw from a distinction that Reformed theologians have made throughout the years, and that's the distinction between objective justification and subjective justification. Our objective justification is God's declaration regarding the sinner that He makes within the tribunal of God, that is, within His own courtroom, in heaven itself. God views us as those who have Jesus Christ as our legal head, and He makes a corresponding declaration of our verdict in the corresponding sentence. In light of the fact that we've been chosen in Christ, in light of the fact that He is our federal head, God declares that we are righteous in the court of heaven. That's our objective justification. Our subjective justification takes place in the believer's own heart and conscience. And really what it is, is that God's declaration in heaven is brought home to our heart and our conscience. That objective justification is communicated to us so that we come to know it and come to believe it. So we have that distinction in place. When we talk about being justified by faith, faith is the instrument of our justification. Well, it functions as the instrument in our subjective justification. For the reality is, with regard to that objective justification, logically, not temporally, but logically, it really precedes faith. God has that justification in view when He gives us all the saving benefits, including the gift of faith. But now when He gives us faith, In a certain sense, He's delivering that declaration of pardon to our hearts and to our souls. And then faith functions as the instrument of our justification in that faith is the tool by which we embrace Christ as our righteousness. And that's how we have to understand the idea of being justified by faith having faith as the instrument of our justification. That's how the Reformed confessions consistently speak. For example, in question and answer 61 of the Catechism, Why sayest thou that thou art righteous by faith? It gives us the negative. We'll come to that in a moment. But at the very end it says, "...and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only." So by faith, we receive and we apply the righteousness of Christ to ourselves. Belgian Confession, article 22, for example. speaks of the fact that faith embraces Jesus Christ with all of His merits. It appropriates Him a little further down. It speaks of the fact that we possess Jesus Christ through faith. The Westminster Standards put it this way again and again and again, that faith receives and rests in Jesus Christ. So it sort of means that we're justified by means of faith. And to make that even clearer, we need to see that that does not mean that faith itself justifies us. So we've explained it positively. Let's look now at the negative. And to get at the negative, we address a heretical conception regarding the role of faith in our justification. There are some, many in fact, who teach that faith itself justifies us. That faith is what makes us acceptable to our God. And the teaching goes this way, well, we're fallen sinners, We cannot keep the law, and therefore, God does not expect us to keep the law to become righteous. Instead, He says, okay, we can do away with that requirement. And instead, He takes and accepts our faith instead of obedience and says, on account of faith, I declare you righteous. That's the heretical view of others. And they point to passages such as Romans 4.3. Romans 4.3 we read, for what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed, we're talking about faith, and it, his believing, was counted unto him for righteousness. See, they say, it's right there. Our believing is what's counted to us for righteousness. Now, we need to be able to address this because this is such a widespread view. This is the explanation of Arminian theology, and thus, the view of the vast majority of evangelical Christianity. Well, the Reformed Confessions explicitly reject this teaching regarding faith as the basis for our justification. For example, question and answer 61 of the Catechism. Why sayest thou that thou art righteous by faith only? Not that I'm acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God. The Belgian Confession teaches the same thing in article 22. Second paragraph, therefore we justly say with Paul that we are justified by faith alone or by faith without works. However, to speak more clearly, here it gives us the negative, we do not mean that faith itself justifies us. And then it goes on to explain it's merely the instrument. So faith itself does not justify, does not make us acceptable before our God. That's easy enough to say. Why not? Why can't that be the case? Well, there are at least three brief reasons that we can give this morning. First, if faith made us acceptable to God, that would make void, that would nullify God's law, that is God's standard. In other words, the unchanging God of heaven and earth would be guilty of changing His standard. Because God's standard from the very beginning has been His law. He gave His moral law already to Adam in the garden. It's always been His law that has been the standard He's used when making His just judgments. But now if we teach that God accepts our faith as the basis for our justification. Now all of a sudden we're admitting a new righteousness. The standard has changed and that means we've made void. We've nullified the law. We've done away with the law. But Scripture itself teaches us that's not true. Scripture itself warns against that. Verse 31 of Romans 3. Do we then make void the law? Do we nullify the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish the law. Teaching justification by faith does not make void the law, it establishes the law exactly because it shows that yes, the law had to be satisfied. It had to be kept in all, in every respect perfectly. Christ had to do it for us. So that, first of all, is why faith does not make us acceptable. Second, faith itself cannot possibly be the basis for our justification. To put it bluntly, faith in and of itself is useless. when it comes to being acceptable to our God, of having a relationship with our God. For on the one hand, it'd be a different righteousness. We've already explained that. But more importantly here, the second reason is that faith does not have its origin in man. And how, if I may speak this way, silly to teach that Something God gives us is something we can give back to Him to earn our righteousness that makes no sense. So faith is not what makes us acceptable to our God. It cannot be because that would make void the law. Because faith itself does not have its origin in man and third, If we teach that faith is the basis for our justification, then we are displacing Christ's perfect obedience. Go back to the chart we made with the verdict, the basis, the sentence. The Arminian would agree with the top line, not guilty on the basis of Christ's satisfaction, therefore no death. But then when we get to the second row, the positive aspect, Arminian theology says righteous, the legal basis, faith. That is, Christ's perfect obedience is removed from the picture and faith is inserted as a substitute, as a replacement. And when you put it like that, you see how serious that is. We want nothing to do with that theology. Christ's obedience is the basis for God's declaration that we are righteous. And Christ's obedience alone But Pastor, what about Romans 4 v. 3, that passage that you read? How do we understand that? Romans 4 v. 3 says, "...it that is Abraham's believing is counted unto him for righteousness." Well, the Reformed faith has always understood that the Apostle Paul is using a figure of speech here. We're going to learn a new word this morning. The figure of speech is what's called a metonymy. A metonymy. In a metonymy, a word is used in the place of instead of some closely connected object or idea. To use an example, that's not Romans 4. Some have said, there's a saying that, well, the pen is mightier than the sword. That phrase actually contains two metonymies in that the word pen is being substituted for the written word. That's the concept. That's the idea in view. And the sword is a word being substituted for the concept, the idea of military strength or military aggression. Those are metonymies. The Reformed faith has always said, Romans 4.3 is using such a figure of speech in that the believing is a word substituted for the object of our faith, that is for Christ Himself. For you see, we can never separate faith from its object. We can, we must, and we ought to separate faith from the fruits of faith. And we'll see that when we get to Lord's Day 24, for example, that when we're in the realm of justification, we make crystal clear the distinction between faith and the good works that flow from faith. But we cannot, we must not do the same for faith in its object. As one Reformed theologian put it, faith without its object is like eyes without light, ears without sound. You cannot have faith apart from the object of faith, Christ Himself. And that's what's implied here in Romans 4, verse 3. Implied is that Paul is talking about Christ and His righteousness as we receive that by faith. So hopefully we have this doctrine clear in our hearts and minds. But this is not a mere abstract doctrine. As those who are justified by faith, we are most blessed. And that brings us to the blessedness of justification. This is the teaching of Romans 4, verse 6. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works." Blessedness here refers to satisfaction, joy, contentment. This blessedness is saying that if I have this, I have what truly matters. If I lose everything else, I am still blessed." And it's on the basis of Romans 4, verse 6, that the Belgic Confession says what it does. In article 23, we believe that our salvation consists in the remission of our sins for Jesus' sake. There's the negative aspect. And that there in our righteousness before God as implied, there's the positive. As David and Paul teach us, declaring this to be the happiness of man. This is our happiness. It's on the basis of Romans 4, verse 6, that Herwin Bovink, the great Dutch theologian, said this, quote, "...of all God's benefits given in the covenant of grace, first place belongs to justification. It is a benefit no mind can fully comprehend." End quote. A benefit no mind can fully comprehend. We'll never understand the depths of this. Another Dutch theologian said this, quote, this article referring to justification, "...is of such high moment that Luther himself and all the writers of the Reformed church were always of the opinion that it is the foundation of the whole Reformation and the source of all true consolation and gratitude." End quote. The point is that this doctrine should thrill our souls this morning. This is not merely a doctrine to defend, it is that. But it's a doctrine worth defending, exactly because of the blessedness of it. And that's true, especially because we're justified freely of God's grace, freely of His grace. That's the language of Romans 3, verse 24. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. On the one hand, this means our justification, that the ultimate explanation for our justification is God's grace. That is, everything that we've already described as the legal basis is what theologians have called the external cause of our justification. That is, Christ's satisfaction and Christ's obedience is the external cause, the ground for God to declare us just. But that raises the question, well, why did God send His Son? What moved Him to provide us with a righteousness in Christ? His grace. His grace. And that's what the theologians therefore call the internal cause. What was in God Himself that moved Him to send His Son to die for us and to live a life of perfect obedience that we might be justified. It's all of grace. On the other hand, that we're justified freely of God's grace. Not only means His grace, that attribute of God, is the ultimate cause for it. On the other hand, it also means this is not something we've earned. That's made clear in Romans 3, verse 28. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. It's not by works. And again, we'll treat that more directly when we come to Lord's Day 24, but it's worth at least mentioning here. How blessed are we that we do not have to make satisfaction ourselves, that the suffering that we experience in this life is not how we atone for our sins. That after this life, there's not purgatory waiting for us where we're going to have to suffer for our sins to finish up the satisfaction. At the same time, how blessed are we that we do not have to earn positively our righteousness. That we do not have to worry, have I done enough? Have I reached the threshold where I can finally be sure that I will get that declaration and I will be given the right to life? How blessed are we that it's not of our works, but it's on the basis of Christ's satisfaction and Christ's perfect obedience that God justifies us. And as Romans 3, verse 27 teaches us, this means there's no room for boasting. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. All the glory goes to God. But again, the main point is, this speaks to the blessedness of our justification, that we're justified freely by God's grace. But now we can go a step further. regarding the blessedness that we have as those who are declared righteous in Christ. Because not only are we justified, there are what we can call the fruits of our justification, the effects of our justification. Being justified, we have liberty in Christ. That is, we're no longer under the bondage of trying to earn our righteousness before God by our works. We're not debtors to the law anymore. Being justified, we also have peace with our God. That's Romans 5 verse 1. We who were the enemies of God have been reconciled so that we can now have peace with our God. We can even enjoy fellowship with this God. Being justified, we're adopted as His children. We're made His sons and daughters so that we can speak to this just judge of heaven and earth as our Father. And we can know that He will care for us both physically and spiritually. Being justified, we now have peace of conscience. No more does our conscience need to be plagued by fear and doubt anymore. Being justified means we have confidence in approaching unto God. We can be sure He will never turn us away, but that He will always receive us into His presence. And all of this is to say that being justified, we have happiness. Are you happy this morning? Do you want to be happy? Then look to Christ, believe on Him, embracing Him as your righteousness. Amen. Let us pray. Father, our hearts rejoice to hear through the preaching that blessed declaration that our souls long to hear, that on the basis of Christ's saving work, we are now righteous. And thus, there is now no condemnation for us. Instead, we can look forward to eternal life with Thee, a life that we enjoy already now in part, Fill us with thankfulness and inspire us to worship Thee, the One who is both just and the justifier of us, Thy sinful people. Hear us for Jesus' sake. Amen.