What Must I Do To Be Saved? | Theocast

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Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, Justin and I are going to answer this question, what must I do to be saved?

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This is a question that Jesus received often. We're going to look at it in Luke and Matthew. And also, Paul deals with the same type of idea in Romans chapter two.

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Are we going to be examining our good works at the end of our life in order to be saved? So it's a law gospel confusion passage where there can be some days to confuse when reading these, it can sound like our good works are going to play into our salvation.

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So we're going to help bring some clarity on that and walk through those passages together. And then on our next podcast,

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Emperor of Fremonda, we talk about how good works play in to our faith, but they are not a part of our salvation and how things like federal vision, worship salvation, final justification kind of play into that.

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We talk about the prosperity gospel, Joelistine. It's packed. We hope you enjoy. If you'd like to help support

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Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing on your favorite podcast app.

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You can also follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Plus, we have a Facebook group if you'd like to join the conversation there.

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Thanks for listening. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ.

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Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed, confessional, and pastoral perspective. It's good to be here with you this morning.

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Your hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. And I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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And last week we were recording together in Knoxville and today we are side by side only by screen.

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Unfortunately, I miss seeing my brother. But Justin, today's a fun one. We love one of the things that we do before we record.

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We always catch up, see how each other is doing, and get caught up on life and ministry and just care for one another and laugh and drink coffee.

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It's great. Then we start talking about what we want to talk about. And today was a good one. Today was fun. Just kind of reminiscing over the next few episodes, what we're going to cover.

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So today's episode is called, What Must I Do To Be Saved? So Justin, kind of set us up.

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Why did we pick that topic? This is kind of in a stream of things coming down. And today too, we had emergency phone calls that really shortened our time together.

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We could barely get in here to record. We were scrambling. We were both taking the life of the pastor. It's okay.

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It's good times. Yeah, good chat though. It was brief, but a good talk, not only just catching up personally quickly, but then talking about what we wanted to discuss today on the podcast.

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So I'll go ahead and say this. John and I are both in agreement that we want to do in the coming months,

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I think that's a safe thing to say, an overview episode on the law and gospel distinction.

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So a reformed understanding, a historical reformed understanding of law and gospel.

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An overview episode on that doctrine is coming. We're just going to go ahead and say that and own that and you can hold us to that.

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But today's episode is different and in some ways more fun because effectively what we're going to do, the title is

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What Must I Do to Be Saved? And we're going to get there. But what we're going to do is survey three passages that are often preached or explained in a way that we would say confuses the answer to that question.

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What must we do to be saved? And two of these are going to be from the lips of Christ himself and one of them from the pen of the apostle

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Paul. And so these passages are probably going to be well known to people because two of them are parables that people are familiar with.

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And then one is from Paul's most famous epistle, the letter to the

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Romans. And yeah, John, anything from you, man, I'm saving some of my energy for what we're about to do.

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We want to be charitable. We want to be humble. And we also are aware that for many of the listeners, you may not have heard these parables, these passages explained the way that we're going to explain them.

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But this explanation and understanding is not unique to us. Again, it is an historical reformed law gospel hermeneutic that we would be applying to the text in these various instances.

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John, thoughts? Well, to help any student of God's word, you have to understand categories.

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The Bible assumes when we read the Bible, it assumes we know things about natural law.

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So we know what a human is. We know what trees are. We know what a donkey is. We know what water is. It assumes that knowledge because it doesn't say this is what water is, or this is what a donkey is.

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Or even the seasons and the years and all these kinds of things. So then there are things that we must learn from the text.

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It defines things the world doesn't have. The world doesn't have a concept for grace that comes from the

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Bible. It really doesn't have a concept for law other than the natural law that's there. And unfortunately, throughout the years, we've confused those two.

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And that's what's caused there to be confusion centered around the passages that we have today. So before Justin jumps in to Luke, I just want to give a five -second definition here.

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I mean, John, give a 20 -second definition. Take your time. That's right. Yeah. But the easiest way

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I always describe the gospel, because the gospel is a transliteration. It literally just means news, and it means the news that is good.

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And you don't describe news as a potential future, right? News is always past tense.

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It means this is what's happening. It's occurred, and I'm telling you what's occurred. Law always is potential because it is the standard by which one must meet.

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And so there's no past part, there's only a future part. So if you're reading a passage of Scripture, and it's saying that salvation is dependent upon a future act, that's law.

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But if you're hearing a passage, and it's saying this is what has been done, therefore you are saved, that's gospel.

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So we do believe that one is saved by works, it's just as the works of Christ, that's gospel.

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So it's important, the name of this podcast is What Must I Do To Be Saved? We're going to answer that in the end, but we're going to use passages that are often very confused.

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So just remember in the back of your head, if it's talking about a past tense of what's been done on my behalf, that's gospel.

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If it's talking about what I must do now and ongoing, that's law. What I must do in particular in order to be righteous in the sight of God, that is a law proposition.

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And law does not mean bad. Law is good. I mean, God's law is holy and upright and good completely.

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The problem is not with the law, the problem is with us. And I think all of this is going to become more plain as we break some of these texts down.

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So we could call this a dazed and confused episode. We've done this in the past where we'll take passages from the scriptures that are often misinterpreted from a reformed perspective.

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They're misinterpreted, misapplied, and often they are used in one way or another to unsettle

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Christians in order to motivate people to obey. And there's a better way, and we hope to demonstrate that today.

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And so, yeah, grab your cup of coffee or your favorite beverage or whatever you typically do, or maybe you're driving or working out or whatever.

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But think about these texts, think about God's law and God's gospel, and we hope this is encouraging.

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It is to me, and I know it is to John. So your favorite one. We're going to do that one first. Well, I don't know that it's my favorite. Man, it's tough.

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I don't like talking superlatives, John. The first two parables that we're going to deal with. One that gets you excited. Yes. I know.

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I'm so difficult sometimes. You can't just make it your favorite. Well, the

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Lord knows, and so is my wife. Amen. So does John. Bring it to us, brother. Luke. Yes. So the first one is a really good one.

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A very well -known parable. The parable of the Good Samaritan. That is found in Luke chapter 10, verse 25 and following.

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We'll really be looking at verses 25, but I guess 37. Go ahead. Let me just jump in for a second. What Justin's also going to do is show you proper exegesis as well, how to read a passage.

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We typically jump right into the parable, and we don't look at what comes before and after, and we make our application based upon that.

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So Justin's not going to do that. He's going to look at the whole context. Yeah. So the parable itself doesn't actually start until verse 30 of Luke 10, but there are five verses that precede the telling of the parable that help us understand why

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Jesus even told it in the first place. So we're just going to look at this stuff together. I'm not going to read every word, but I'm going to try to give the sense of it.

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So in verse 25 of Luke 10, a lawyer or a scribe comes up to Jesus to put

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Jesus to the test, and he says, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

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So then Jesus responds. This response is incredibly telling. What is written in the law?

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How do you read it? Then the scribe, the lawyer, responds,

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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.

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To which Jesus says, You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.

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Now the conscientious among us are going to immediately have Leviticus 18 .5 bells just going off in their brains because that is a verbatim citation.

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Do these things and you will live by them, it says Leviticus 18 .5. Paul picks that up in Galatians chapter 3.

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This is what the law says, right? Do this and you will live. So already we should note several things.

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The lawyer asks, What must I do? Jesus immediately responds with a question about the law and what the law requires.

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Well, what does the law say? How do you read it? The man responds correctly. Love the Lord your God. Love your neighbor as yourself.

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And Jesus says, Yes, do that and you'll live. Now there is not an ounce of gospel in that whatsoever.

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That is all law. Wait a minute. He said, What must I do to be saved? Is Jesus lying to him?

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No, he's not. He's giving him a law answer, right? And then verse 29, this is key.

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We're just going to keep the train rolling here. But he, that's the lawyer, after Jesus has just said,

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You've answered correctly. Do this and you'll live. The lawyer says, and the text tells us, Desiring to justify himself, he asks

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Jesus a question. Now, brief insertion. The lawyer is seeking to justify himself according to what?

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The law that he just heard. The law. Right. Which is why it's so important that people understand that Jesus did not present good news.

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He presented potential. Yes. He gave him law and the scribe, the lawyer, seeking to justify himself according to the law.

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Exactly. Asks, and who is my neighbor? That's right. So in other words,

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Jesus, okay, we're having this interchange, teacher. We're on the same page, right? I'm telling you, you've asked me what's in the law.

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I've told you what's in the law. You've affirmed that my interpretation of the law is sound. And if I do those things,

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I'll live forever. So tell me now who my neighbor is because I'm going to do it. That's right.

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That's effectively what's going on here. And I think he's also wanting to justify that there are certain people he doesn't have to do it for.

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Sure. Which is why Jesus ends up punching him in the nose verbally. Agree. Yeah. I mean, so his understanding of two things are going on with his lawyer, at least we can say that aren't good.

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Yeah. On the one, it's what you just observed. Dude is wanting to kind of dumb down what love of neighbor requires of him.

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And how often does this happen, right? A lot. The self -righteous always wants to move the law, the level of the law down to make it achievable.

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To where it's achievable. And it's achievable. But then the second part, you already kind of alluded to it, that is that the heart of the issue is that this man is thinking at least, he may already think he's righteous according to the law.

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Right. But he at least thinks very clearly that he can attain righteousness according to the law.

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So that's absolutely imperative. Like if we miss that, we're going to misunderstand the entire parable. But if we understand the context that this is a completely a law situation, you have a man who is trusting in his own righteousness or at least trusting that he can achieve righteousness by the law.

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And Jesus is dumping the requirements of the law on this man. And this man doubles down and says, all right, we'll clarify what it is that I need to do to love neighbor because I'm going to do it.

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Or I'm going to prove that I've already done it. Then Jesus tells the parable. That's right. So for the sake of time, we won't read the entire parable.

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I think everybody understands the parable. But in the parable, Jesus sets up this scenario and he then describes something that culturally would have been offensive and they would not see this as they're not agreeing with Jesus on who the neighbor is.

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This is why the man has to ask the question, right? Who is my neighbor? And so at the end of it, which of these three,

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Luke 10, 36, do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? And he says, the one who showed him mercy.

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And Jesus says to him, you go and do likewise. What's interesting is that Jesus is now answering the question and it's a very prideful question, right?

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When you think about it, when you compare yourself to the law, the law is supposed to be crushing.

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The man is not crushed. Because the law standard is perfection. That's right. So Jesus sends the man away to be crushed so that he hopefully would return and say,

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OK, it can't be done. Like I can't. Yeah. The point of what Christ is doing in the parable, and everybody knows that you've already alluded to it.

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He paints this picture of over the top sacrificial love for neighbor that we all ought to look at it and say, yeah,

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I've never, I don't think I've ever gone to that length to love my neighbor. Right. I mean, that should be what we read. Not consistently every day.

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Correct. Correct. And then, of course, he offends everybody listening by painting the picture of the religious and ethnic half -breed.

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The Samaritan is the one who actually does love his neighbor. So that's offensive. But I think the point, the secondary takeaway is what we often get as the primary takeaway.

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The primary takeaway, as this text is usually exposited, is we all need to sacrificially love neighbor like the

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Samaritan. That is true. That is a secondary application in terms of how I would then think about living in accord with God's law.

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True. It wasn't the point. But the main point, my vernacular, Jesus is looking at this man and indirectly everybody who's listening, and he's like, ain't none of y 'all fools ever done this?

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Like, ain't nobody ever done this for your neighbor, right? I mean, that's it. Like, it is meant to be held out as an unattainable standard.

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You want to know what it looks like to love your neighbor well enough that you might earn righteousness? Well, I'll tell you. Here's what it looks like.

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And anybody that has an ounce of self -awareness that reads that parable or is listening to it should conclude, man,

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I've never done that the way that I should do that. I have never done that well enough to merit righteousness in the sight of God.

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So let's summarize the whole passage. The man walks up. What must I do to be saved in eternal life?

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What does the law say, Jesus says? The man says, love God and neighbor perfectly. And Jesus says, go and do likewise.

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Go and do that and you'll live. So it's very important to understand that this is a law passage.

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This is not a gospel passage. The man is asking the question, how do I get to the place

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I want to be, which has been promised to me. But he doesn't, the man who can save him is, well, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

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So this is a law passage. Put a pin in it because we're going to come back at the end and make it super clear exactly how this use of the law is meant to drive people to the

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Savior. That's right. And we'll get there. All right. So the next passage, also a parable of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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It's found in the Synoptic Gospels, but we're going to look at Matthew's account of the rich young man from Matthew 19 verses 16 to 26.

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So again, a relatively well -known text for many. And we've mentioned this parable at a number of points in the past on various episodes.

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I mean, in law and gospel stuff, inevitably, but also in our episodes on Lordship Salvation, we dealt with this text to some degree, but we have a number of new listeners.

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And this is just a really good parable to illustrate some of the things that we're talking about today. Do you want me to start,

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John, or do you want to start? Yeah. So this is the rich young ruler. And just to kind of set it up, there are a couple of things that are helpful when you're interpreting passages of scripture.

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Again, when I said the Bible assumes certain things, one of the things that the New Testament writers do,

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James is a great example of this, and so is John. But they assume you understand

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Old Testament law and culture, like you've read it. And the Old Testament covenants and how the

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Lord dealt with his people. So they will say one word or phrase, you know, like John will say, and it was the time of the

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Passover. Like John's understanding you understand what that means. So he's not going to go and explain to you what the Passover is or the

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Feast of Unleavened Bread or whatever that included. Exactly. So the phrase that trips people up is at the end.

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So we're going to start at the end because the disciples say, well, wait a minute. Well, then who can be saved?

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Well, the first key word in this, Justin, is the rich, right?

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There's a rich man who comes and talks to Jesus. Now explain why that's such a key phrase from Matthew.

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Huge. Because under the Mosaic covenant, this shows up over and over again in the Old Testament.

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Like it's all throughout the book of Moses. And then there are illustrations of it throughout the history of Israel. God promised under the

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Mosaic covenant, under the Mosaic law, that if his people obeyed, he would bless them. He would prosper them.

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And even he would prosper them materially. And this is where prosperity gospel preachers hijack

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Mosaic covenant paradigms and overlay them into the modern context. And it just doesn't work. But under the

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Mosaic covenant God had made with the nation of Israel, he promised to prosper his people for obedience.

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He also promised covenant curses should they disobey. For example, right now I'm preaching Ruth, and you begin that book, it's the time of the judges, and there's a famine in the land.

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Well, God had said at a number of places in Leviticus and Deuteronomy that one of the things he would bring against his people for their disobedience to his law is famine, for example.

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So this is a paradigm that we've got to have in our minds, old covenant context, Mosaic covenant context.

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God has said, if you obey my law, you will be blessed, not just in a spiritual way, but you will be blessed materially as my people on earth uniquely in this era of redemptive history.

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And so that is in the minds of the disciples. Remember, Jesus is ushering in a new era, but it's a unique period of redemptive history when

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Christ shows up on the scene. He is, in one sense, the end of the Old Testament, his arrival.

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It's just kind of this pivot point, this hinge. And so the disciples are still thinking in Mosaic and Davidic and even

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Abrahamic covenant categories, right? And so for them, if they hear Jesus say what he's going to say, it is so difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

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They're going to be like, excuse me, he's rich. He's wealthy because he's been obedient.

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That's right. This man's coming to you and clearly he's an upright dude. He even understands himself to have kept the law.

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And obviously he's wealthy because he's upright. And you're telling us that he can't enter the kingdom of God. Well, then who can?

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith vs. Faithfulness, a primer on rest.

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And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

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Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

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slash primer. That's the backdrop.

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And so when you read these type of passages, not knowing that you're going to miss really the kind of the heart of it, which the disciples did.

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Real quick, because that whole business of like the rich people struggling in the kingdom of heaven, the only category we have for that is, well, yeah,

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Jesus, you tell them because we're not supposed to love money. That's what we think. And it's like, but the disciples don't respond at all like that, because they're not saying, yeah, exactly right.

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They're saying, woe unto us, because if he can't be saved, how can we? And that's the thing.

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It's so, we missed the point of the passage and we go to the money sections of the passage.

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It's like, no, no, no. The guy wasn't allowed into heaven because he loved money. Well, let's go back. He was divided in his loyalties.

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Go ahead, John. You know, he needed to make Jesus Lord of his life or whatever. So in the beginning, it says that this man, this man comes up to Jesus saying, teacher, what good deeds must

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I do to inherit eternal life? And so he said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There's only one who is good.

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If you would have entered, sorry, if you would have, if you would have eternal life, keep the commandments.

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All right. Sounds very similar to the way in which Luke has told us about the illustration.

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Right. So he says, which ones? And just really quickly, when Jesus says, why do you ask me about what's good?

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He, of course, is implying like only God is good. But the implication there to the man is no human being is good.

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That's right. That's part of the implication. Well, he even says teacher. So he's not seeing Jesus as God. Of course not.

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And he's saying good teacher. And Jesus is like, look, no human being is good. So that, that you try to set him up in the beginning.

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He does. And so the guy doesn't get it. So he says, which ones? And Jesus says, well, you shall not murder.

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You shall not commit adultery. You should not steal. You shall not bear false witness on your father and your mother.

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And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So, you know, it gives us love God, love neighbor. The young man said, well, all of these

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I have kept. What do I still lack? So what's interesting is that the man clearly feels a hole.

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He feels not completed, right? Because he's saying, wait a minute, what am

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I lacking? Like you're not granting me eternal life by your demeanor. Exactly. Like, I think

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I have understand, because he's going to say this. Well, I've done all that, right? So like Jesus is clearly there's something else in your mind, because if it's simply about keeping the commandments,

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I've kept them. Yeah. If it's about keeping the law, I've done it. So what else is there? He says, if you would be perfect.

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He, he finally gives the point of the law because you want to be justified, be perfect.

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And then he points out where he's not perfect. And he goes, well, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and your treasures will be in heaven.

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The point of it is Jesus says, you're failing the law in your heart. That's the problem. You're failing the law in your heart.

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What he's doing right there. A lot of times, you know, this John, as soon as we hear that, sell what you possess, give to the poor, you'll have treasure in heaven, come follow me.

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That there is turned into something like, um, from Jesus himself, friends, uh, surrender all for Christ equals the good news.

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That's surrender all to Jesus and you'll be saved. That's right. That's the gospel people say.

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And we've said this before. The only problem with that message, surrender all for Christ and you'll be saved is that nobody's ever done it.

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No, right. Except for one. So that's a damning, it's a damning statement, not a statement of comfort and good news and hope and peace.

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And so what Jesus is doing here is not giving this man gospel. He's doubling down on the law with verse 21.

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He's dumping the full weight of the law on this man's conscience. This dude has said, I've done this,

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Jesus. I've kept the commandments. In other words, when you say I've kept the law, you're saying I've loved God and neighbor perfectly.

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So Jesus effectively in verse 21 says, okay, prove it. Prove that you've loved God and neighbor perfectly by selling everything you have given it to the poor and following me, the man can't do it.

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And he goes away, dejected. That's the point. You can't do this. That's right. Well, and some people say that's the good news about it.

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As Jesus says, come follow me. That's the gospel. And I'm like, no, that's not the gospel. Not in this context. No, because to come follow

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Jesus is something that you have to do and you can't. That's the thing about it.

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Well, it's kind of like forsake all this and follow me. Forsake sin, come to Christ. And we've been clear on that in the past.

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If there's something we need to do in order to come to Christ, that's not good news. Well, and you have reasons to boast.

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Well, sure. But I mean, in the first place, you couldn't do it. That's right. In the second place, yeah, you have reason to boast, which the gospel, or excuse me, the epistles make very clear that we don't have any.

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Well, the funny thing was that someone pointed this out to me the other day. Well, yeah, the disciples left all and followed

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Jesus. That's like until they didn't. Until they didn't. And I mean, in the way that it's stated with the calling of the disciples is so, it's so matter of fact.

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Jesus goes and says, hey, come do this. And they do. And it's like, it's, it's very clear that the work of God is involved in this and they come and do it.

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And, and it's, and it is noteworthy that they do follow Christ, but because it's just so plainly stated, it's very obvious, even in the minds of the evangelists who record it, it's like, yeah, this is

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Jesus called them and they came and did it because this was all a part of the plan, obviously. Yeah.

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Well, just to summarize back down into it, you know, the disciples are like, wait a minute, Jesus, like, you know.

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What's going on here? If he can't be saved and the, they got the point and that's where, you know, you can see that it's like, they're, they're not catching that Jesus has to die.

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They're wanting to issue the kingdom now. I mean, the disciples themselves are wrestling through bad theology of law gospel themselves.

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Yeah. And then false, false expect, or just improper expectations of even the Messiah and the Messiah's ministry and all the rest.

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Yeah. I mean, the men are walking with the, which, you know, it gives me a lot of comfort to know that men that walked with Jesus struggled to, uh, you know, with these types of things.

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And so, uh, all right. So those are two, I'm like having this urge to get into the next section.

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So let's not really, uh, maybe last comment from me on the, on the rich young man, and then we'll move into the last passage is the point of it at the end, verses 25 and six, again, the disciples wig out because they're like, um, if this upright dude who's been blessed because of his obedience, he's wealthy,

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God's blessed him. If he can't enter the kingdom of heaven, then Jesus, who can be saved? We've explained why they would even ask such a question.

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And then his answer is beautiful. He says with man, it's impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

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Meaning with man, salvation's impossible. Which is the point of the illustration with the camel and the needle, the needle.

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It's like that can't be done. And so it's, in other words, the words, the, the words of Christ here are the man thinks he's going to just be justified according to law keeping

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Jesus proves to him, you can't keep the law for righteousness and everybody's freaking out and well, how can anybody be saved?

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Christ says, God's going to do it. So there we go. Last passage,

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Romans chapter two, verses six to 13, most pointedly, but inevitably we're going to be referring to Romans one through three, uh, in order to really deal with this passage, because it's all of a piece in one sense, right?

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It's a flow of argumentation from the apostle Paul, which brief interjection before we even get to the text,

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I think it's very, I want to be charitable here. I think it's, it's sad.

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And in some ways, ironic that many people who champion good exegesis and champion context when doing exegesis seem to divorce these verses from the context in order to argue what they argue.

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In addition, I don't think they come to the passage with appropriate hermeneutical tools, like a law gospel distinction either, but the context alone makes it very clear what

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Paul's doing. And then the law gospel piece just kind of makes it, if possible, even more obvious.

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But let's get into it, John. Well, I, and to add to your thought there, um, when we say, you know, everybody wants to take the text literal, right?

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We don't want to take it seriously, right? So, but this is a great example of what Justin and I are about to show is that everybody has a presupposition, they have a position that they think about.

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So presupposing it upon the text. And so I've got a lot of good brothers who, um, who are very faithful expositors, but, um, they, they think they're just taking the text literal and then giving the application.

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What they don't see themselves doing is actually bringing a theology into the text, which Justin and I agree.

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We are too. We are bringing a theology to the text, but what we're trying to do is be consistent with the text.

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In other words, if my theology contradicts, uh, the, the, the text, I really should step back and say, where did

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I get, what did I get wrong? Either the text is wrong or my presupposition is wrong. And I'm going to go with the text, not being wrong.

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Another brief thing before we really get into it, just bear with us on this guys, because these things matter. We've talked about something called biblicism before, right?

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And that's where we, with the best of intentions are like, we want to say what the Bible says. We're Bible people.

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It's like, okay, amen. I mean, we, we want to be all of that, but what people do sometimes is with the best of intentions, trying to say what the

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Bible says, they actually introduce and create tension and mystery and even contradiction where the scriptures do not contain those things.

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And this is an example of that, because what's going to happen with Romans two, six to 13, from a biblicism perspective, you're going to say, well, this is what it says is what it says.

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And, you know, it's confusing because it says this in other places, but it says this here, and now we're just trying to hang all this together when what we are going to contend for today is first of all, look at the flow of Paul's argument.

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But secondly, one of the things that the scriptures wholesale reveal is law and gospel and use that, that tool, law and gospel that we've gotten from the

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Bible to go back to a passage like Romans two and understand it to where you're not creating mystery and tension where there actually isn't any.

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So here we go, I guess, right? So Romans two, six to 13 occurs in this context,

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Romans one, 18 to 32. Most people know all of the brilliant Gentiles are culpable before God and they're guilty.

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God has given us all over, you know, to do what we want to do in our sin. Then in the first few verses of Romans two,

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Paul makes the argument that nobody, like if you judge other people according to your own standards, there's an irony in that because you can't even live up to your own standards, you know, you condemn yourself by judging other people.

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And then he's going to effectively say like, you can't even meet your own standards, let alone God's, right? And don't you know, you know, that the kindness of God is meant to lead us to repentance, right?

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Then he's going to get into this beginning in Romans two and verse six, and this is where it goes off the rails. Romans two, six, he,

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God will render to each one according to his works. All right.

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First statement, this is true. God judges all men on principles of righteousness, right?

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Yeah. Do your works. Makes them a good judge. Yes. And that's the argument. A righteous judge.

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A righteous impartial judge is the Lord is effectively what Paul's saying. Verse seven to those who by patience and well -doing seek for glory and honor and immortality.

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He will give eternal life. Okay. But for those who are self -seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury, and then he doubles down on it.

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There'll be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil Jews and Greeks. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good

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Jews and Greeks because God shows no partiality. That's the kind of judge he is. Verse 12, for all who have sinned without the law, right?

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So this is the Gentiles will also perish without the law and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by it.

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For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

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Now, here's how this text is normally explained, and we're going to offer a different interpretation.

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People say, you know, it's mysterious because we're told very clearly in the Bible that we're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.

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But then here we have this very clear statement from the apostle that our works will factor into our final salvation.

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It's mysterious. We don't know exactly how this all hangs together, you know, but man, it's what it's, we're Bible people, right?

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So we've got, we got to talk this way. I mean, seriously, I'm not trying to be unfair, but that's what,

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I mean, I've read commentaries, John, from reputable New Testament scholars who are otherwise pretty good.

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And then they come here and like Robert Haldane said, you either leave Romans two, six through 13, a

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Protestant or a Romanist. There's no middle ground. And I think he's exactly right. So let's just talk about what this is, what's happening in the flow of the argument here, instead of the interpretation that I just articulated that some offer, we would offer this one.

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In the flow of Paul's argument, we've already talked about it. Everybody's culpable before God. God is an impartial judge who rewards those who do good with eternal life.

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He punishes those who do evil with wrath and condemnation. It is not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

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Fast forward in his argument though, to Romans three, nine and following, there's a huge problem, John. According to Paul, no one is good.

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Period. That's right. No one does it. No one's righteous. Not even one. No, not even one.

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Right? So then this is what draws or leads Paul in his argument to conclude this. Verse 19 of Romans three.

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Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, AKA everybody, right? So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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First use of the law is to show us our sin and crush us. That's right. No one will be justified according to the law.

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But now he says, Romans three, 21 and 22, 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.

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Now there's the good news. That's where the pivot occurs, right? So his argument is

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God is an impartial judge who rewards the good and punishes the evil. The problem is no one's good.

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This is why no one's justified by the law and the righteousness of God must be given to people through faith in Christ.

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I mean, there's so many passages that we can build upon this that help us conclude this so we can see

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Justin argued from the context, we can see that he is leading us to be crushed by the law.

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Paul is on par, you know, he would be the second greatest preacher of the law next to Jesus being the greatest preacher of the law because Jesus wielded the law powerfully to break people down to their knees so that they would beg and plead for grace and mercy, which is the point of the law, right?

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It is to point us to Christ. You know, you think about things, I've been in James.

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I'll just think about James right now. James does this cyclical idea where he starts with the gospel and then he brings you to your requirement, showing you how you failed your requirement, and then bringing you back to the gospel again.

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Well, if you ignore the grace passages in James, you can come to these conclusions that James basically is saying that one is justified by obeying the law.

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Right? Like you say, faith without works is dead. And we emphasize that work side. And I would encourage you to go back to hear our episode that we did on James 2.

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But James says this, he's already three chapters in. He's starting in this fourth chapter. He has explained how they have just brutally, completely ignored the gospel and the nature of the gospel.

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And then he says this to them, but he gives, I mean, literally he calls them adulterous enemies of God. And then he says this, but he gives more grace.

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Therefore, it says, now James is now quoting the Old Testament, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

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So think about it in this way. The next verse he says, submit yourselves therefore to God. We don't understand the word humble.

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We think humble is some kind of like, you know, demeanor that we must fabricate within ourselves.

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No, literally humble means one without means, one who has nothing.

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So when you come to God saying, I have no righteousness, I have no obedience,

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I have nothing to justify myself. The Bible says that God gives grace to that person, but he rejects the proud.

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The proud is a person that says, I actually accomplished something. I actually have the capacity to do this.

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The proud is the lawyer in the parable of the good Samaritan. That's right. The proud is the rich young man and countless other people

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Jesus encounters in his earthly ministry who are trusting in themselves that they either are righteous or can achieve it.

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That's right. So there's so many passages that help us look to these ideas, you know, continue how you've begun.

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Well, what does that mean? We've begun by grace and we're going to continue by grace and we're going to reach out the end by grace.

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You know, he is the author of our faith by grace and the finisher of our faith by grace. So that's where humility comes in, is that every time we see the law, we should be able to look at it.

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And when I say Jesus is the greatest preacher of the law, let me give you an illustration, Justin, and I'll let you jump on this. When Jesus says, well, you've heard it say, do not commit adultery, but you have lust in your heart, you've broken the law, he takes it and says, you've lowered the law thinking, well,

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I haven't slept around. And Jesus is like, you're dead in your mind, therefore you're guilty. And that's what should cause humility in all of us.

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Yeah, you're referencing the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter five in particular. The Sermon on the

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Mount, you'd say Jesus is the greatest preacher of the law ever. I can't help but think this, you know, God gave the law to Moses on a mountainside and then the

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God -man, Jesus Christ, on the side of a mountain preaches the law, the greatest sermon on the law ever preached.

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The Lord himself in human flesh is going to speak it on a mountain. I mean, it's incredible.

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You can't make that up, right? I mean, that's just an incredible parallel from Sinai to the Sermon on the

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Mount, and so the Lord is now in human flesh going to exposit the law as it's intended to be understood and used and applied.

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And he does what you just said. He starts in verse 17 of Matthew five, it's important to realize, I didn't come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill it, right?

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Huge. And then he's saying, you ought never remove anything from this law. Whoever does that will be least in the kingdom of God, but whoever upholds these things and teaches others to do the same will be great.

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In the kingdom of God, that's huge. And then he says that they need to have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.

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Then he gets into this whole business of, you've heard it said. He talks about anger and lust.

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So he said, you've heard it said that you shouldn't murder, but I'm telling you, if you've got anger in your heart toward your brother, you've broken the law, right?

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And you've heard it said, don't commit adultery. I'm telling you, if you've lusted after somebody, you've broken the law, right?

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And that's how he starts after saying, I came to fulfill it. Well, going back to Luke and to Matthew, both of these men were trying to exalt themselves to be righteous.

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So going back to James, James says, humble yourself before the Lord and he will exalt you. They were literally saying,

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God, they're saying, good teacher, Jesus, what must I do to continue my exaltation into heaven?

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And it's amazing. James, the brother of Jesus says, it's when you come to the point, you realize you have nothing.

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It's at that moment, God exalts you, not your obedience. So, sorry.

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No, you're good. I'm done. Go. So, all right, let's answer the question like in the last minute or so that we've got here, and then we're going to move over to the

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SR podcast, which we'll tell people about in a moment. What must I do to be saved? In answer, nothing.

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You don't do anything. You receive what Christ has done for you and you receive that by what?

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Faith. That's right. Trust. Acceptance. I mean, that's the language of our confession. Receiving, accepting, hoping in Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.

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I mean, that's it. So one is born into new life. One does not born themselves. That's right.

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And so, and even that faith, right, is what it's the gift of God, you know, and, and it's a fruit in one sense, right, of regeneration.

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It's a fruit of the new birth. And so this is something that the Lord does. I mean, salvation is of the

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Lord. It belongs to him. We receive what God has done for us in Christ. We don't achieve anything in the eyes of God that would justify us.

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That's right. Well, as Justin had mentioned there, we are going to go to the SR and part of that we're going to discuss is the confusion now of bringing the law back into the gospel, and a lot of that is related to good works.

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Good works are necessary for the believer after they have been brought to life, but they cannot be necessary to justify oneself or sanctify oneself.

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So we're going to explain what we mean by that. Where does good works fit into this and how we often take these passages, which we just create some clarity.

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They asked how they could do good works to earn salvation. And Jesus says perfectly. And if you don't do it perfectly, you cannot earn that.

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Well, now does it mean there's no need for good works? And we'll talk about what that is. So Justin and I, we do a second podcast.

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We love it. It's between 15 and 20 minutes long every week. It's called Simple Reformanda, always reforming.

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And this podcast is for those who have partnered with Theocast and are now helping the reformation continue by working with us as one of our partners.

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So if you want to learn more about that and be a part of that community, we have an app where you can get together. There are a growing amount of small groups that are happening now throughout the country, and those are growing with more and more leaders so that you can gather with other believers, either online or locally in your own city and discuss these truths together with other believers.

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If you'd like to learn more about that, you can go to theocast .org. Justin, I will see you in Simple Reformanda, my friend.