Matt Slick, Bible Study, Gal. 3 b

The Meaning of Justification by Faith

Because oh, yeah, we're live, aren't we? All right, we got started a little bit late here because we're talking about the early days of dating with my wife. And I was telling great stories on how to get women.

And oh, yeah, it'll be obnoxious and irritating. It works. They were entertained. So anyway, let's see. There's two watching. If you guys could text me, let me know if you hear me. And we'll pray. And we'll just jump right in.

And we're gonna continue on Galatians 3, verse 11. That's what we're gonna go to. So if any of you guys are interested, let me know. And so if you can hear me, hi, Nina or Nina, I'm not sure which way to pronounce it.

If you guys can hear me, can you hear me? Okay, good. All right, everything's good. All right, let's pray. We're gonna jump right in. There's gonna be some interesting stuff here tonight. There's some interesting stuff you may or may not have heard before.

All right. Lord Jesus, thank you for today. And thank you for this evening, Lord. I ask that you would bless our time together here. And for those who join us via the web, we ask, Lord, for your blessing on them as well.

Please open up our hearts and our minds to the truth of your word. And we ask, Lord, for your wisdom and your grace, your blessing upon us. And we ask this, Jesus, your precious name. Amen. All right.

So we're gonna just jump right in to 11. And we'll just kind of review as we do. Now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident for the righteous man shall live by faith. That's Habakkuk 2 .4.

So we're gonna review what justification is. Now, a lot of times, you know, I get a little concerned that I'm repeating myself too much. But I think it's good for people who don't do what I do. I'm always repeating it through teaching, through radio, through debates.

So we'll go over terms. And if you know them and I ask questions, just volunteer. But the idea is for you to get to know the terms well enough that you can repeat them automatically. And you should build it.

If you can learn to think in terms of definitions and how they relate to each other, the Bible will just open up. In fact, a woman called up on the radio show today and she actually started crying a little bit.

I'm not mocking her at all, it was great. But she just was so thankful that she said that she'd been listening to me on the radio for a while and going to the website and that she could understand the Bible more.

But because for years, she hadn't been able to understand it and that's what I've told people is that, it's not just listening to me, but if you listen to a teacher who knows the theology and knows the terms, they can put them together as you're going through things and point and point.

At first, how do you do this? It was like kind of like martial arts. Here's the stance, here's what you do. It takes a while before it becomes automatic. And then all of a sudden you're putting things together and you're becoming better than the sum of their parts kind of thing.

So nevertheless, justification is the legal standing before God where the person who is justified is viewed as legally righteous before God. Legality, law, God gave the law. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, these kinds of things.

This is the issue of the law. The law is a reflection of the character of God. Jesus says in Matthew 12, 34, he said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. God says, you shall not lie. Out of God's heart is why he spoke this.

He cannot lie. He's the standard of holiness, et cetera, and the standard of righteousness. So we all have a problem in that we have sinned because everybody has fallen short of the glory of God. Everybody sinned, Romans 3, 23.

And the wages of sin is death, Romans 6, 23. So because of this, we have a problem. We have a spiritual legal problem. The spiritual problem aspect is our fellowship and intimacy with our Lord is affected by our sin.

And we have a legal problem because the judgment of God upon us for our sin, which is breaking the law of God, 1 John 3, 4, that judgment upon us is waiting. And the analogy that Jonathan Edwards, the super, super bright, probably the only world-class genius ever produced in America, Einstein level, but in theology.

He was not a great speaker, apparently. He would hold onto a rope while he was preaching, but people would fall out of their chairs because he was so good at his explanations and his imagery. And I remember in seminary, someone read some stuff.

I still remember the image. And maybe it was college before seminary, but where he talked about the mercy of God. His hand is holding the thread of your life, the way a spider is suspended by a thread over an open flame.

And nothing but the mercy of God keeps that thread intact. And when he lets go, your life ends and you fall into the fire. And this is the image that he would use. And people were affected by this. And this is a good thing.

I think this is how we need to preach. I want to preach like this, takes practice, but nevertheless, the imagery will stick with us. And the flames of fire await all who do not reside and rest and hide in the person of Christ.

And hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. I forgot the verse location. And all who reject Christ are siding with the enemy and will join him in eternal torment. Matthew 25, 46, Revelation 14, 11, 20, 10.

So we have a problem and the problem is damnation. And damnation is the proper movement of God upon the sinner. It's the legal, moral, spiritual movement of God upon the sinner, where the sinner is then cast into that place of darkness, damnation.

So God can judge because the law has come forth. And when you break a law, there's a consequence. So the judgment of God, he is telling us that the law is a tutor to lead us to Christ, we'll get to that later.

But the law being a reflection of the character of God is itself a very good thing. But it's bad for us because we can't keep it because only God can keep it. The reason he can keep it and we can't is because he's God, we're not.

During seminary, Westminster Seminary, where I got my MDiv, I remember a professor and I've said this many times over the years and I'll continue to say, it was one of the most important things that I learned in seminary was when he got up to the board and said, gentlemen, I'm gonna teach you one of the most important things you're ever gonna learn here in seminary.

I opened my book, got my pencil ready and he wrote two sentences on the board. There is a God, you are not him. And over the years, those two statements coupled together, it's true, there is a God, he's holy, we are not.

He's perfect, we are not. He's pure, we are not. He keeps the law, we don't. The disparity between us is infinite because God is infinitely great, infinitely superior to us. So the gap between us is infinite.

The only way for that gap to be bridged is by an infinite bridge. That infinite bridge is God himself and the person of Jesus Christ who kept that law. First Peter two, verse two, 22, excuse me, 222. He never broke the law, he was without sin.

So he was made under the law, Galatians 4 .4, which when we get to Galatians 4, we'll be reviewing this. Made under the law and for a little while lower than the angels, Hebrews 2 .9. And if you go to Philippians two, five through eight, it talks about him cooperating, I like to say, with the limitations of being a man, emptied himself.

And he was sent down by the father from heaven, John 6 .38. So he had pre-existence and stuff like that in the word. And this is part of the eternal covenant. We'll probably get into some covenant stuff in a week or two.

I'm probably gonna take a little tangent at some appropriate point because I need to study covenant more. It's becoming more of an issue in a good way. I may do that, but we'll see. Anyway, so to be justified then is to be declared legally righteous.

Well, because we cannot do anything that will merit or earn, achieve, get that justification, that right standing, the only way we can get it is if it's imputed to us, if it's reckoned to our account.

Because sin is breaking the law of God, 1 John 3, 4, and Jesus equated sin with legal debt in our father, heart, and heaven in Matthew 6, 12, and Luke 11, 4. When he says, forgive us our debts, forgive us our sins.

And so sin is a legal debt. So all of this is legal law, legal law, judgment, damnation, these are all legal things. When I ask people, who are we saved from? The right answer is God. He's the righteous judge.

And what are we saved from? Well, yes, it's true, we're saved from our sin. And we could be saved from the enemy and things like that. But ultimately we're saved, the what is the judgment of God upon us.

And we have to understand that God is the one who is that standard of righteousness, and that he alone is the one who can keep it. And so Jesus, who's God in flesh with two natures, both God and man, hypostatic union, John 1, 1, verse 14, Colossians 2, 9.

We see in him the manifestation of the two natures. And so he being God and the attributes of both natures ascribed to the single person, we call this the communication of the properties. I am thirsty, I will be with you always.

So then the I claim the attributes of both natures. So therefore the I had holy and divine qualities and properties. And therefore that means God is the author of his own law, is sitting there under the law, can keep that law.

Furthermore, there's a doctrine called federal headship. Federal headship is that the male represents the descendants, not the female. So when Adam and Eve were in the garden, she sinned first, but sin entered the world through Adam, Romans 5, 12.

When they hid themselves, a pre-incarnate Christ came to the man and said, where are you? In Hebrews 7, seven through 10, it talks about how Abraham paid tithes to, or Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek while in the loins of his father Abraham, while in the seed of his father Abraham.

We see in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, in Adam all die. We see in Romans 5, 18, through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men. In Romans 5, 19, through his transgression, the many were made sinners.

So we see representation here. And so Jesus was our representative and he represented the elect because the elect are the ones chosen by God before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1, 4. We have been chosen from the beginning for salvation, 2 Thessalonians 2, 13.

And therefore, because he was representing us, the elect on the cross, then it could be said in Romans 6, 6 that we died with Christ, Romans 6, 8, that we're crucified with Christ. Because if we have died with Christ, we're crucified with Christ, then we have died to the law, Romans 7, 4, if we died to the law, sin doesn't have any power over us and it cannot be imputed to us, Romans 5, 13.

So all this background is to say that justification means that the righteousness that was earned by Christ, God in flesh, while he was under the law, kept it perfectly. And because he's divine, there's an infinite quantity, I don't like the word here in this context, but I'm gonna say that for now, quantity of righteousness because of his infinite nature.

And we're in him and so therefore, since we died with him and we're raised with him, then the righteousness that he has is for us because we had that righteousness with him. And that's how we're justified.

And this is why justification is by faith. Because faith is only as good as who you put it in. So if you put your faith in me as your justifier, you're in a lot of trouble. Faith is only as good as who you put it in.

So you have to have faith in the true and living God. This is why defending the doctrine of God, the Trinity is very important and Christology and everything like that. But faith is only as good as who you put it in.

Now, God grants that we have faith, Philippians 129. And the Bible says, having therefore been justified by faith, Romans 5 .1. So if we're justified by faith, then we are justified by faith when we have faith.

Otherwise, we're not justified by faith. And it's the faith that God grants, Philippians 129. And with that, the righteousness of God that is reckoned to our account, Philippians 3 .9. We have a righteousness that's not our own.

A righteousness that comes from God through Christ Jesus. So you see, the thing is that justification is a legal standing of righteousness before God and the law. And by me putting all this together, I'm trying to give you guys an overall scope and understanding of how these things relate.

Furthermore, propitiatory sacrifice, propitiation is a sacrifice under the law, according to the law. It's a sacrifice that removes the wrath. It doesn't make it potentially removed, it removes it. Expiation is a potential removal, but propitiation is an actual removal.

So if Jesus is a propitiation for our sins, but not only ours, but the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2 .2 and also 4 .10, then what we would see is that as a propitiatory sacrifice, he actually removed the wrath of God.

Now, this is consistent with Colossians 2 .14, which says he canceled the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees, which is hostile to us. He took it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. So the certificate of debt was taken away at the cross because that's where Jesus died with it.

He's a propitiatory sacrifice on the cross, which then removes the wrath of God from us. And it can only be that it was the elect. So when we look at this, we know from John, as I said at the beginning here in Ephesians 1 .4, that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

You can go to Colossians 3 .1 -5 and Romans 6 .1 -3, and it talks about us having died with Christ. And because we've died with Christ, Romans 6 .6, Romans 6 .8, then we are free from sin. We're free from the bondage to sin.

We're free, we're in Christ and we're justified. And we're justified by faith alone in Christ alone, because without that justification by faith alone, it's by faith and our works. But it can't be by our works because our works are filthy rags.

Everything that we do is touched by sin. Filthy rags, Isaiah 64 .6. And everything that we do is touched by sin. No one does good, no one seeks for God, no one understands Romans 3, 10, 11, and 12, and 1 Corinthians 2 .14.

So because of this, the only thing that we have by which we can even approach God is the faith that he grants us, Philippians 1 .29, and it's his work, John 6 .28 -29. That, therefore, when we go and put it in Christ and his sacrifice, the faith that he has given us in the work that he has accomplished is what justifies us.

And we have the right standing before God, period. That's how it works, all right? Okay, next week, there'll be a test on all of this with memorization verses that you gotta get through. All right, so, all right, that's worth repeating, actually.

So let me start it again. No, you can look at that in a video, but it's, there it is, okay, I just put it together for you. When you have this, it makes sense. If you can understand this, you go, I get it.

And then we can backtrack and go into why the trinity is necessary, because then you have to have a full incarnation, hypothetic union. We can get into other things, but I won't do that. Okay, let's go to verse 12.

The Law as Tutor and the Curse of Self-Righteousness

However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, who practices them shall live by them. So James 2 .10, coincidentally, for whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles at one point, he'll become guilty of all.

Now, what'll happen when I debate people is they will say, I was doing this last night for a couple of hours on Discord. I was in a room, they're asking me questions. And so one guy said, in Genesis 3 .21 is where God, pre-incarnate Christ, covered Adam and Eve with skins.

It's a covering. To atone means to cover. There was an atonement there, and it was by his hands. The Catholic guy told me, he said, baptism's necessary for salvation. That's where you get saved. And I said, but it's a ceremony, it's a work you do.

He says, no, it's the work of God. Just as God covered them with animal skins, so when we get baptized, it's God baptizing us through the hands of the person who does it. Well, I just say, show me that in Scripture.

It doesn't say that. And I said, what he was doing was the actual physical act of the pre-incarnate Christ in the garden who actually probably killed an animal, took the skins, put it on him. That's a direct work of God, but it does not say that by a baptism of somebody upon you, that that's what justifies you.

Now, people go to 1 Peter 3 .21 and Acts 22 .16, 2 .38, but we'll get to that maybe later. The thing is that what they were trying to do is say that you have to do good works, but they're not really your own works, they're the works of God.

If they're the works of God, then God's doing them through you. Let me ask you a question, I said. I said, do you drive a car? Yes, when you drive the car, are you driving the car? You have your foot on the accelerator, the foot on the brake, you put the blinker on, you turn the steering wheel, are you driving the car?

Or is it God driving the car through you? Because if it's not your work, how can you then be credited for it? How can you then be responsible for something that you're not doing? If you wanna say it's God doing it through you, then well, that's by inspiration.

Like inspiration, what God threw us. But it was absolutely true that Paul was the one actually doing the writing. It was just that what he was doing was from God. And that's an apostle, it's not a priest that you wanna say later's baptizing you.

They worked so hard to add some work to the finished work of Christ. And I gave them an analogy, an illustration. I've done this before here. And I said, look, picture yourself on your knees slowly crawling up a slight hill and there's muck and crap and filth and mud.

And as you're crawling up, you realize, you see blood mixed with dirt and it's trailing towards you. And you keep moving forward and you're carrying a bag full of your works. And you are crawling up this hill and then you see the source of that blood because you see the feet with the nails and the blood dripping off that cross into the dirt running down.

And you take your works and you push them out in front of you and you push them out to the cross and say, here's what I have to offer. I said, this is what you're doing. You're mingling your filthy works with the blood of Jesus in order to be justified before the holy and living God.

And I said, because of this, you're damned because you are not trusting in the sacrifice of Christ but in your own works along with that sacrifice. So basically you're justified by your works. And we'll see this when we get to Galatians chapter five when Paul says, if you receive circumcision, you're trying to be justified by the law, by one thing.

One thing that you add means that you're trying to be justified by a whole bunch of other stuff. Now, the reason I'm speaking like this is because the gospel must go forth, the gospel must be understood, the gospel must be proclaimed.

The Christian church largely doesn't understand all of this that I'm telling them, largely because they don't spend hours, like I do studying and debating for decades. Okay, I get that. So the teachers that God has ordained in the church is to equip the Christians for the work of ministry.

And these are some of the things that you need to learn. This issue of justification, propitiation, imputation and things like that. You have to understand what these things are and be able to relate them in your own mind and be able to explain them.

It doesn't mean perfectly, but you gotta do that. Because once you do that, when you start reading other things, it'll fall into place. And this is important. And so Paul's doing this. He says, however, the law is not on the faith.

Contrary, who practices them shall live by them. Because if you're gonna practice them, then that's how you gotta live. You're living by the standard of holiness that God has set. And you're actually saying, I'm gonna live by this standard.

I'm gonna keep the standard. What I'll often do with people who are Catholics or Eastern Orthodox or whoever else says you can lose your salvation. I say, you're keeping the law. Give me these things you gotta do.

Give me two or three things you gotta do to keep yourself saved. And actually say it this way. I say, give me two or three things. I'm gonna type them out, write them out that you have to do to keep yourself right with the infinitely holy God.

I wanna know what it is you can do. And I actually get a list. Usually I get a list. Well, you gotta be faithful. You can't do bad things. You gotta go to the stick of sacraments. I say, okay. Now I said, then what I say is, would you do me a favor?

Because usually I'm on the microphone. I'll say, would you please take your microphone and put it towards your shoulder? Because I wanna hear you while you pat yourself on the back on how great you are.

Because you're able to do this. You're able to keep the law. And I set them up and they go, well, no, I don't keep it perfectly. Oh, so you don't keep the law. Well, I try. Oh, so trying means you're not doing it.

So you're now condemning yourself because the standard of righteousness is God himself. Be holy, prime holy, 1 Peter 1 .16. And he says, Deuteronomy 27 .26, that you gotta keep all the law. And Paul quotes that in Galatians 3 .10, which we've already went over last week.

And that the issue is that the standard is God's righteousness, not your ability. That's humanism that's crept into their theological perspective. What they're saying is, I try. God understands my sincerity and my heart.

Now, that's foolishness. Because essentially, that's like saying, well, God, my heart is good enough to be with you because it's sincere. That's why I should be saved. That, with the blood of Christ. Pat yourself on the back again, you arrogant fool.

And that's what I called them last night. Politely, I said, I'm sorry, but I have to say this. You guys are arrogant fools. You're arrogant in that you think that you are able to please the infinitely holy God, even in part through your works.

And you're fools because this gospel that you believe, the false gospel will damn you to hell. I said, you need to repent and come to the true and living faith. Paul is laying this out here. Verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, a curse is everyone who hangs on a tree.

So the curse of the law is a requirement. And I have an article written about the requirements according to the law, how the sacrifice had to be pure and perfect, et cetera. We won't get into that now.

Verse 14, in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith. Now he's talking about Genesis 15, six. Then he believed in the Lord as Abraham and God reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Now this is important because Paul the apostle is trying to argue against the Judaizers in the Galatian church. He's trying to tell them, you keep the law, you foolish Galatians, you know, Galatians 3 .1, and you've been severed from Christ, whether those you're bothering, you would mutilate yourselves.

I think it's Galatians 5 .12, I think. And so he is trying to make the case and trying to show them how bad off they really are in their theological perspective. And he's saying, look, you have this law, but look, the Bible actually says before the law came, Abraham was justified by faith.

Because see, this is what came first. And here you are misunderstanding what the whole aspect of the law is. It's not a standard that shows how you can keep your relationship with God. It's a standard that shows you that you can't keep your relationship with God, which is what we're gonna get to later on here.

And you'll see it become a tutor to lead you to Christ. Verse 15, brethren, I speak in terms of human relations, even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it.

So Paul is just simply using everyday language, everyday understanding about covenant, about making agreements. And man's covenants, he's saying, they're not as important as God's covenants. Even human covenants though, people abide by the agreements.

They understand that there are obligations they have to keep with their covenants. Now God had covenanted with Abraham, in you all the nations shall be blessed. And that's Genesis 12, three. But Paul in Galatians 3, eight, which we just went over last week, quotes Galatians 12, three and calls it the gospel.

Now, let me ask you, does that mean that the Abrahamic covenant is still in effect? In you, Abraham, all the nations shall be blessed, right? That's talking about the Messiah, the seed. And Paul calls it the gospel.

Is the Abrahamic covenant still in effect? Right? Does the Abrahamic covenant command that we include children in it? Yes. Doesn't it command we include infants in it? Yes. That's another door. Now, verse 16.

There you go. That's right. Yeah, I could. Now, the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, and to seeds, as referring to many, but rather to one, and to your seed, that is Christ.

So this is where he begins what we call a parenthetical statement. He's gonna kind of take a little jaunt here to the side. He's gonna talk about some stuff. But he's saying that the issue is spoken to, the covenants with Christ.

Now, this is enigmatic a little bit. Now, I already quoted Genesis 12 .3, but also in Genesis 12 .7, Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to your descendants, I will give this land. And so he built an altar there.

Genesis 13 .15, for all the land which you see, I will give it to you, to you and your descendants forever. And so God is making promises in his covenant with Abraham. So covenants have agreements and stipulations and boundaries and conditions.

There are different kinds of covenants. Some are conditional, some are not. So my wife and I are married. Here's my covenant sign, my wedding ring. And our covenant, our marriage, ends when one of us dies.

When one of us dies, the other is no longer married till death do you part. And of course, it can be broken through adultery because the covenant is, you'll keep one to another, et cetera. And since neither one of us are gonna do that, we're stuck with each other.

And so death is our only escape, right, honey? For her. Somebody's not saying amen over there. So anyway, if you were here before the study started, you'd be amen. Poor woman, she's gonna put up with me.

All right, so verse 17, what am I saying is this? What I am saying is this, the law, which came 430 years later. So Abraham was 430 years, there's some debates about the exact numbers, what they mean, it's a really interesting study.

And Moses came along and gives the law, the 10 commandments. Now, as I've said before, I'll say it again, the 10 commandments, the two tablets were not six and four or four and six or five and five. They were 10 and 10.

Because the covenant means that when you make a covenant with somebody, each person gets a copy of the covenant. So if I make a contract, we sign contract, we each get copies, that's how it works. And so the pattern of the covenant of the 10 commandments follows the suzerain vassal treaty pattern of the third millennium BC.

I've gone over that before, won't go into it now. But the covenant documents were put in the Ark of the Covenant, which is covered with the mercy seat upon which the blood was sprinkled, which is the footstool of God, the Ark.

So in the presence of God, in the presence of people. Now, the law came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God. What covenant? The covenant that he's gonna give Abraham the land and descendants and the seed.

And Abraham believed God and was credited to him as righteousness. Paul's making the case that justification was by faith, without the works. That's what he's doing. He's trying to convince the Jews. Can you imagine if he was trying to write a letter to the Roman Catholics?

It'd be similar, right? And they would still find a way to mess it up because they gotta have works. Verse 18, for the inheritance is based on law, for if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise, but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.

I think that's a brilliant statement. It's like, oh, that's a good point. If it came by the law, well then it's not by a promise, by faith, by the word, but it's by promise, not by the law. I mean, I could just see the Jews going, oh, he's got me on that one.

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. All right, so if it's by a promise, the implication is there by faith. And that's why Romans 2, 28, 29, 30, last two or three verses in Romans chapter two says that we who are of faith are the true children of Abraham.

That's why. When I, like I told you before, when I first started studying Paul, he actually damaged my faith. The reason he did was because I didn't understand what he was saying and it made no sense to me.

Now when I read Paul and I really study, I see, boy, was he smart. He was really smart. Romans is not just a, hey, I'll just read it in one sitting and I'll be fine. No, it takes a while, right? I've taught Romans I think two or three times in 40 years and it takes a year to go through it, a year.

That's once a week, a year. And it's a great book, there's just so much there. Now, so why the law then? If the promise by faith is how we're justified, then what do we need the law for? Well, the law was added, verse 19, because of transgressions.

Having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made. The law has three major aspects, the civil, moral, and priestly. The civil law deals with how or offense posters to be moved and stone walls are moved and the scales are even.

Judicial punishments that come in. Moral law, based on the very character of God, lying is always wrong, stealing is always wrong. And the priestly law, to anoint yourself with this kind of oil, be clean for so many days before you do this, the priest goes into the temple, offers this, all this priestly stuff, which is fulfilled in Christ.

So the law was here to show us several things, the character of God in the moral aspects. It was also to show us the requirements of the purification of the sacrifice to come. Because the only way we could be justified is if by God himself were to die for us.

I could expand on that later. But the Old Testament priesthood is the type or the foreshadowing of the true priesthood that was belonging, that belongs to Christ. Where he's a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews 620, Hebrews 725.

So it shows us, the law shows us the moral character of God. It shows us the righteous character in judgment and the civil aspect, and it shows us the requirements of holiness and purification in the priestly aspect.