Living Out Sola Fide

Well, it is certainly an honor to be with you again this evening. God-forsaken Phoenix, Arizona. Which Texas team was in the Super Bowl again? The guys with the star or something? Fifth largest city in the United States?

Believe me, I wish it wasn't the fifth largest city in the United States because most of them are driving RVs and they move very slowly. It's not a lot of fun. It is good to be with you. To close out the conference, please notice I do have this.

Thank you. Appreciate that. And there are some of you going, and thank you for leaving the bowtie at the hotel. Actually, I thought the bowtie would go right well with this personally. So, but thank you.

Encouragement back there. My wife will never speak to you again, but I appreciate that. That's good. It has been an honor to be with you. Anytime you have an opportunity of speaking with Steve Lawson, you don't want to have to preach after he's done preaching.

So I'm glad we had an afternoon for you to sort of get distracted so that I don't look too bad when we have an opportunity of speaking this evening. I've been asked to talk to you about living out what we've been talking about.

Obviously, it's one thing to have a conference and to get all excited. I mean, what we could have done in the afternoons is played reruns of Martin Luther, the movie, and gotten you really into Sola Fide and things like that.

But it's one thing to know those things, and that's one of the major issues today. We don't have a lot of people who know about the historical issues and know about the Reformation, can be excited about what has happened in the lives of people in the past.

But the greatest way to denigrate what we've been talking about is if we do not live in light of the truths that we have been speaking of. There certainly is nothing that detracts more from the message of Sola Fide than to have people who will take that message and then not see how that has any impact upon our lives.

Living in Light of Justification by Faith

I'd like to to start with a question today that only you can answer, and so I'm asking each and every one of you this question. When you awoke this morning, knowing your own heart, if you look back over the preceding 24 hours and you know the thoughts that were in your own heart, you know the attitudes that were yours, the words that you spoke, if you think on those things and then consider the holiness of God, you consider what happened in Isaiah chapter 6 and the vision of the Holy God sitting upon His throne in His temple.

And while the holiest man, Isaiah, when he sees God, says woe to me, I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips, I live amongst a people of unclean lips. When you consider the holiness of God and your own thoughts, your own life, your own actions, when you woke up this morning, why were you not afraid of the wrath of God?

Why were you not afraid of the wrath of God when you woke up this morning? That is a question I would like to ask you. Is it just a presumptuous thing? Is it just simply the matter that, well, I just don't really think about about stuff like that?

I mean, there are many people who woke up this morning that were not afraid of the wrath of God because they never think about God. They don't think about eternity, they don't think about the fact that He has sustained their life, they don't think about things like that.

But hopefully for us, that's not how we are. So why did you not fear the wrath of God? I submit to you that the only meaningful answer to that question is to be found in the doctrine that we have been considering this weekend.

The only biblical answer that can be given to why we as the people of God do not fear the wrath of God is because that wrath has been fulfilled in our place by another and we have experienced the declaration of the heavenly judge in our behalf on the basis of his work, you are righteous, you are right with me.

That is the only answer that can be given. If you're looking to anything in yourself, if you're looking to anything you have accomplished, anything you've given to the church, any time you've given, any type of righteous act on your own part, then you're looking in the wrong place.

That is the practical application of sola fide. I want to look at just a few texts this evening and speak with you about how we should live in light of the reality of justification by faith. Let's look at Romans chapter 5 verse 1.

Romans chapter 5 verse 1. I specifically asked Brother Lawson if he was going to spend a whole lot of time on this because I wanted to. Some of you who have read my book on the Roman Catholic controversy know that I focused very clearly upon the key issue in dealing with Roman Catholicism and that is that the gospel of Rome cannot give anyone peace.

That that is the message that I would want to have delivered to the Roman Catholic people. That through the intrusion of unbiblical sacramentalism, a denial of this truth of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, the intrusion of mediators and merits and so on and so forth, that that gospel cannot give peace to any individual.

Romans chapter 5 verse 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I want us to consider these words. They come at the end of an extended discussion and you have seen already in Brother Lawson's presentations a lot of that discussion. Romans 3 and 4 up till Romans 319, the bad news, the universal sinfulness of man.

Then that transition point where Paul says all of us are guilty before God. He presents the picture of the person standing before the judge, head down, no longer professing innocence, no longer professing any self-righteousness.

The tongue has been stopped. The convict recognizes the authority of the judge and the righteousness of the sentence. That is the person who is ready to hear about a Savior. That is one of the greatest downfalls of what is called evangelicalism today is that we have become so afraid of the faces of men that we will not honestly deliver to them God's own verdict.

We bring people into the church and we prop up their little self-esteem and we tell them they're not really that bad and then we wonder why they rebel against any preaching of godliness whatsoever. It's because we have a bunch of unregenerate people in the pews and there is no greater task, no greater punishment to place upon a preacher than to put him in a church filled with people who really have never come to the place where their tongues have stopped wagging about their self-righteousness.

Talk about turning ministers into computer techs, that's how you do it. And yet that is so often what happens. And so Paul has brought out this truth of the universal sinfulness of man and then he has presented the gospel of justification.

He has talked about how man is made right before God, how God has demonstrated his righteousness in the person of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice of Christ. Then in chapter 4 he's gone through and he's talked all about Abraham and how Abraham is an example to us.

We're going to look at one of those texts here in a moment and here he says, therefore, having summarized this, therefore, what came before? All of this teaching about the empty hand of faith, the consistency of grace and faith.

Therefore, there's the connection to what he's saying there, therefore having been justified. One of the great tragedies of the Roman Catholic system is that a Roman Catholic might say, well yes, I've been justified but I don't know if I still am.

You see, the labor of regeneration is the baptismal font and so the child that is baptized the font is justified and given divine life and yet they can commit a mortal sin and lose that grace of justification.

And one of the most frightening statements I have ever read is in a book by Ludwig Ott called Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma wherein he states that the reason we can never be certain of the state of grace is that we cannot know without a supernatural revelation whether we have fulfilled all the requirements necessary for achieving justification.

Fulfilled all the requirements necessary for achieving justification. What a thought. What a contrast between the biblical gospel where it is not we who fulfill conditions to achieve justification, it is Christ who fulfills all those conditions and we by faith are united with him.

That is the difference between the man-centered gospel of Rome and the gospel of Jesus Christ found in scriptures. Having been justified, we look back upon our justification. We look back upon a divine act.

God is the one who justifies and he justifies on the basis of that faith that was exercised in him. The God who justifies. He is the one who does that and we as believers look back upon that. One of the great tragedies today is that there are people within evangelicalism that are trying to push justification to a future fulfillment.

Yes, there is a concept in which everything is fulfilled in the future in its finality, but justification according to the Apostle Paul is something we look back upon. It is a foundation we stand upon.

Having been justified, past tense, that is something the child of God knows has already been an experience in his or her life. Having been justified by faith, we have peace. We have peace. Now I need to be consistent here because I need to let you know about something called a textual variant.

You see I've learned that if we don't talk about these things then the liberals come along and tell us about them and they use them as a means of shaking our faith. There's a textual variant here and sometimes Roman Catholic apologists will use this or maybe just a plain old agnostic liberals that try to say well you can't really know what what you believe.

There are some manuscripts that have one letter difference in the word we have and it changes the way of expression so there would be something along the lines of let us enjoy the peace or let us have peace with God.

Here's what it would look like if you'd like to see what it would look like in the original language. You can see there's exactly one letter difference between the two. Those of you who read Greek recognize the difference between the indicative and subjunctive forms here and if you didn't then remedial Greek might be in order.

But in the unsealed text, the all-capitalized form of the text in which it was originally written, that's all the difference there are between the two forms. Now the majority of scholars even on the Roman Catholic side would say we should translate it in the indicative.

We have peace. That this is certainly consistent. It is the most consistent form. With Paul's entire exhortation here he is saying we have this peace but even if it was in the subjunctive I don't think he's bringing any question into our having peace.

It would become exhortational. Let us live in light of this. Let us recognize that because of what God has done there's no longer enmity between ourselves and God. There is this peace that we are to enjoy.

But I want to make sure you're aware of that reality. Let us have peace with God. What does that mean? It is sad that in our day we're so few give consideration to the holiness of God, to the law of God, that there would be any question about peace with God.

And yet anyone who reads the scriptures knows that there is much discussion of the enmity that exists. People are surprised to discover the Bible talks about men as the enemies of God. As haters of God.

And yet the Bible speaks in this way. And we certainly see this around us. We certainly see this explaining the evil of man that we see in our world today. Men hate the holiness of God. They hate his law.

They love to mock his law. And as God removes his hand of restraint upon a society as a part of his wrath that hatred becomes more and more clear. And do we not see that happening all around us in Western culture?

And yet we as believers have peace with God. True shalom. I was in a debate many years ago in 1991 in fact at a large Roman Catholic church in the San Diego area with Father Mitchell Pacwa. And some of you may have seen Mitchell Pacwa on EWTN.

He's a gentleman for whom I have a lot of respect. He speaks 12 languages. He is a scholar and in all of our debates he has never engaged in ad hominem. He's never engaged in cheap debating tricks. We've always debated the actual subject.

I think that's why there's some of the best debates that I've had on the subject of Roman Catholicism because you don't have to worry about all the personal stuff. And I asked him a question. Since he is a biblical scholar he knows the languages.

I said now you know that the Greek term there is Irenae. And yet it represents in Paul's thinking as a Jewish man the Hebrew term shalom. And Dr. Pacwa you know that shalom is not merely a ceasefire. There is no shalom along the border between Israel and Gaza today.

When you have tanks and artillery pieces lined up on both sides of the border and you have people with rockets and so on and so forth they may not be shooting right now but that's not shalom. Shalom is a wellness of relationship.

Shalom has a positive aspect to it. And I said Dr. Pacwa knowing what you know about shalom in your religious system you cannot say that before your head hits the pillow this evening that you will not commit a mortal sin.

A mortal sin that would destroy the grace of justification and make you the enemy of God. And so how can you say sir in light of what shalom means that you truly have shalom with God in light of the position that you hold.

And I am thankful that he struggled mightily to try to answer that question. In fact at one point after I got to redirect the question it became silent for a moment and he simply said I don't know. Now most of my opponents would have come up with something.

It might not have had anything to do with what I was saying but they would have come up with something. I appreciated the fact that he did not do that. It's an important question. It's a vital question.

Do you have peace with God? And when you think about what it took for God to bring about that peace in your life, the sacrifice of Christ, the massive withholding of divine power that would allow the very Creator to be treated as Jesus was treated by those men.

To bring about his purpose, accomplish his intention. When you think about what that took, isn't it amazing that mankind thinks that there is somehow merit, there is somehow something in things that we do that could purchase anything from God.

How arrogant could we be? How arrogant is any work salvation system? And yet that is the very bent of the heart of man, is it not? Is that not what church history teaches us? It is. This salvation, this peace that is ours is through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And my friends, our society is placing pressure upon you every single day to be embarrassed by that statement. Western society today is placing pressure upon every Christian to be embarrassed that we say there is only one way of salvation and it's Jesus Christ.

Who do you think you are? How can you think you have the only way? That's arrogant, that's hateful, that's unloving. That's not how to get people into Christianity. And sadly so many who call themselves Christians have heard that message loud and clear.

What were the numbers recently in the poll? Of those who call themselves Christians, 80 percent, was that the number? Said that they don't believe there's only one way of salvation. Even amongst evangelicals it was over 50 percent said that Jesus isn't the only way of salvation, that you can be saved by other means.

And yet what are we really saying when we say that? What are we saying when we say that? That God sacrificed the divine second person of the Trinity while there were other ways it could have been done.

You need to realize the world is telling you stop believing in Christianity. Compromise that one point. There is no Christianity without that one point. The whole message is that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and no other way.

And the world may put every form of pressure upon us but we need to realize we cannot compromise on that vital issue. One way, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not through any other means, not through anything we've done, not through any works that we can accomplish, no merit of our own. That's why I like what Paul had said earlier in Romans chapter 4. For this reason it is by faith in order that may be in accordance with grace.

We used to go up to Salt Lake City to the General Conference, the Mormon Church, every six months and pass out tracks. We did that for 18 years and no, we didn't get tired of doing it. The reason we stopped doing it is street preachers started showing up a few years ago and they just destroyed any opportunity of doing outreach up there whatsoever.

They would stand there with signs yelling and screaming at the Mormons. One of my favorite lines that I heard used with the Mormons there was, it shouldn't be Mormon, it should be moron. Yeah, that's how they preach.

Destroyed any opportunity. The Mormons tried to stop us for 18 years, the Baptists stopped us almost instantly. In fact, they really didn't take to the fact that I exposed them and said these people are obviously way out of line because they even showed up at my church on Easter two years ago to protest my church as well.

So they're equal opportunity slanderers. But anyway, what we used to do is we would go up there and we had some tremendous opportunities. And one of the tracks we passed out was titled, grace plus works is dead, being meaningless.

If you want to stop a Mormon in their track, try that one. Just wait a minute, it's faith without works. Yeah, but let's explain what this means. And we went into the nature of grace and how if you attempt to add human merit to grace you destroy the grace.

And here in Romans 4 16, that's Paul's point. He says, for this reason is by faith in order that it might be in accordance with grace. The hand of grace can only fit the empty hand of faith. If you have something else in there, if you're trying to bring merit, if you're trying to bring something before God, oh God I'll do this, I'll do this.

Even Luther in the thunderstorm, I'll become a monk. Anything in that hand will disrupt the union of the two. Grace plus works is dead. Grace by its very nature must be free. To attempt to add any form of merit or payment to it destroys its very nature.

That is why we must stand firmly despite the fact the world says, oh you can't be so narrow-minded. You have to be more, you have to be more loving. It's not loving to compromise God's truth. Who are we supposed to be loving toward first?

Are we to love our Lord, our God, first and then our neighbor? Is it loving to a neighbor to allow them to embrace a false gospel? Oh but the world tells us, you know we just all need to get along. You know Rodney King theology, can't we all just get along?

And yet the gospel divides when people want to try to change the gospel and people want to do exactly that. I mentioned yesterday morning that there is no book in the Bible that contains stronger language than Paul's epistle to the Galatians.

There are some comments he makes in there that are that are really strong and it is in that context we have Galatians chapter 5 and Paul says it was for freedom that Christ set us free therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

He's writing to churches that have demonstrated that they don't really have a firm grip in understanding the centrality of this truth of justification to the gospel. They've been carried away by these false teachers who talked about believing in Jesus.

They talked a lot about the Bible but they said faith in Christ alone is not enough. There are these other things that need to be done and Paul has already anathematized them and he's already said that if righteousness could come by any other means then Christ died needlessly.

You empty the cross of its power when you say there is some other means by which God brings sinners unto himself. Yeah these are black and white categories aren't they? There's no wiggle room here and so Paul is exhorting these churches and he says it was for freedom that Christ set us free.

Those people who are coming along and saying you need to do this you need to do that they always set up a system where in essence they control the grace of God and they partial it out to you. Is that not what the entire indulgence system was all about the time of the Reformation?

And by the way are you aware of the fact that there are more sections on indulgences in the modern today's Catholic catechism than there is on justification? Indulgences are alive and well in the Roman Catholic Church.

That theology hasn't gone anywhere. You can't sell them but you can still obtain them. So when people tell you oh Vatican II changed all that mmmm afraid not. It's still there it's still part and parcel of the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.

It was for freedom that Christ set you free. Therefore keep standing. There's an exhortation here. There is going to be people who are going to try to enslave you. They're going to try to bring you under the control of false teaching.

Keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. And that's what it is. Justification by faith sets you free. Not free from doing what is right before God but free from all the man-made systems that men contrive to control us and control the grace of God.

And then there's that verse that some people are a little bit scared of just a few verses later. No reason never be scared of the Word of God. Notice what Paul says. You have been severed from Christ you who are seeking to be justified by law.

You have fallen from grace. I remember as a senior in high school at a large Southern Baptist Church one Sunday morning my small group Sunday school teacher and his wife had both come to the conclusion that the Baptists were wrong about this this perseverance of the Saints eternal security things.

They decided one Sunday morning they were going to introduce their classes on the same morning to this idea that you can lose your salvation. Well I have never stood up and left a Bible study class before but I did after giving testimony to the teacher that he was going against the Word of God and arguing with him and what was the one verse he was using?

This one. Who is this addressed to? Look at the words. You who are seeking to be justified by law. You see there's two paths. There's the path of grace and there's a path of obedience to law. They go 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

You cannot follow those two paths very far. You have to choose which direction you're going to go. Paul's whole point in Galatians is you've got to go either way. If you're going to go the way of obedience then there's only one standard perfect obedience and you've already failed.

The law can only condemn you. The law's purpose was never to justify. It was to be our tutor to bring us unto Christ. The way is grace. So if you're going this direction you are seeking to be justified by law.

Well Christ is over there so you've been severed from him. He's not on that path. You've fallen from grace. Grace is over there. You're going that direction and you're not going to stand very long. You who are seeking to be justified by law.

Christ will not be a co-savior with you and that's what all work salvation systems are about. Christ did most of it but not all of it. He will not be a co-savior. It is either his righteousness and his righteousness alone and that's why the empty hand of faith brings nothing with it or you're going to have to find your own source of righteousness and in the process say Christ is not sufficient for me.

I realized that all the false teachers want to talk about Jesus. I know they all want to claim his name but they shouldn't be because the scriptures are very very plain on this issue. Strong words. Severed.

Fallen. You can't wed these two things together. That is why so many today have simply rejected biblical authority because they look at this and they go there's no way to interpret this any other way.

If I accept this as scripture then it's gonna limit me too much and so they reject it and I've often said my ministry could be a thousand times larger than it is. You want to have a small ministry? It's real simple.

Talk about Roman Catholicism and be reformed and that's about it. That'll pretty much that's that'll do it and we've been in existence for 25 years and we have two people so I demonstrate before you the truthfulness of that statement.

But I've said many times it's because the book of Galatians is in the New Testament I can't compromise on this. As long as that's scripture I don't see any other way around it. Strong words. Very very strong words.

Now I want to go to another text and you're gonna be a little surprised that I go there at least some of you might be. Because when you talk about sola fide if you talk to a sharp Roman Catholic apologist you know what they're gonna say to you?

If you don't know you you need to know. This statements could go along this way sola fide yeah that only appears one time in the Bible. In James 2 24 where it says see a man is not justified by faith alone.

So why do you believe it? How do you respond to that? I learned in the years that we went to the Easter pageant in the Mormon Church out in Mesa five six nights a week talking to thousands of people that young Mormon people learn James 2 20 long before they learn John 3 16.

Faith that works is dead. And Luther didn't like the epistle of James. He didn't know what to do with it. There's no reason to fear what James had to say. Let's look at what he had to say. I guess I think it's very important.

What use is it my brethren if someone says he has faith but has no works can that faith save him? I think starting with verse 14 is the key. You have to recognize what the epistle of James is. It is an exhortation to believers to live in light of their profession.

It is not a discussion of how a man is made right before God that was mentioned briefly in chapter one and it was a gift of God at that point but the whole essence of James is exhortational. He's writing to believers and in this section he is addressing the inconsistency that exists in someone who says I know God but he hates his brother.

I know God but he lives like the world. And so he asks a rhetorical question. What use is it my brethren if someone says he makes a claim I have faith but he can't demonstrate the reality of his claim.

Oh yes I have it. It's a little bit like I've been doing a lot of traveling recently and when you travel outside the United States you got to have a little something called a passport. And if I came back from I landed in where did I land in Philadelphia I think Chicago it was a big place who knows if someone on the East Coast but you fly in from Heathrow and you stand in these lines and you walk up to this guy and they they seem to hire people that have been professionally trained to never smile.

No matter what you say no matter how chipper you might be they can't smile. They don't want to. I think they get paid extra. I think there's cameras on them and they they get docked for every grin or something like that.

And so if I walked up to that place and fella says passport please. Well I've got it. Where is it? Well I claim to have it. I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna go visit with some even meaner people in a really dark room.

I've got to have evidence. I've got to produce it. The claim is not enough. The words are not enough. I've got to produce the evidence or I ain't getting home anytime soon. And James is talking about people who say I've got faith.

I just can't show you any evidence. I still live like the world. I don't love the brethren. There's no change in me but I've got it. And James asks the question can that faith save him? Now notice I've emphasized the word that twice now.

Now look at your translation. Whatever translation you've got. I know the new King James doesn't have it. New American Standard does. Any of you who've got that 47 pound ESV? What does the ESV do? Does it say that faith?

That faith. Good. Way to go. That's why you got it. Okay good. I'm sorry the main reason most of you have that is because John Piper told you to get it. That's all there is to that. People ask me about this translation issue.

The pastor and I were talking about beforehand. I said well it's quite simple. The ESV is the NESB without semicolons. That's what it is. Take a look at it. They're pretty close. Anyway in the original language there is an article before the word faith and it is called the anaphoric use.

It is referring back to a particular kind of faith. The way the New King James translates it as I recall and if I'm wrong about this you can correct me but there are some translations that do not translate that article and so it simply says can faith save him?

But that's not what James is saying. He's saying can that faith, that kind of faith, that said faith that has no evidence of its existence, can that faith save him? And the only possible answer that could be given to that is no.

Because you see that's not faith. That's not what God works in our hearts. And so just a few verses later we read even so faith if it has no works is dead being by itself. Saving faith is the work of the Spirit of God in a person's heart.

God has a reason in saving us. It is God's purpose to conform us to the image of Christ. He has a purpose in what he's doing and I really think that when our theology becomes so man-centered as it is in so many evangelical churches today where God is just really lucky to have any of us believe in him.

I mean he's just doing his best and he's just so blessed to have us. And that's how it's put by many people today. If they don't see that God is accomplishing his purpose and that it's focused upon forming this peculiar people in Christ Jesus for his own honor and glory.

If they don't see that they become focused on this human thing. That's why they come up with schemes that look at James chapter 2 and and can say well actually you still can be saved by that kind of faith.

When that's clearly not James's point at all. A faith that has no existence in reality and that's what deeds are. Works. See the problem is we see works here and we assume that's the exact same thing Paul is talking about when he talks about works of the law.

It's not. He's simply talking about the fact that faith can demonstrate its existence and that's what he says in verse 18. Look what he says. Someone may well say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without the works and I will show you my faith by my works.

You see what James is doing? He just went to Missouri. He just went to the show-me state and he's saying you want to say you've got faith? I say I have faith but I can demonstrate it because it's changed my life.

I am acting in accordance in unity in harmony with my profession. All you can do is say words but your behavior betrays the reality that your words have no meaning to them. And so he says show me. Show me.

Real faith will be able to show me. And that then leads to the famous verse James 2 20. But are you willing to recognize you foolish fellow that faith out works is useless. Some translations say dead.

The point is that a faith that cannot demonstrate its existence. A faith that exists only in the realm of the spoken word and not in the realm of real life is a dead faith. It's an empty faith. It's worthless.

But you see if we believe that faith saving faith comes from the work of God the work of the Spirit in our hearts then obviously that kind of faith is never going to be dead. Not because we somehow prop it up but because it is the work of the Spirit in our hearts.

There's nothing to worry about in James chapter 2. He and Paul are addressing different things. And if you have friends and family that are involved in false religions that really hammer away on that.

In the bookstore I think there's still a few copies of The God Who Justifies in there. I labored hard on a 24 page chapter exegeting James chapter 2 very very carefully. And hopefully that will be of some assistance to you should you have family members in situations like that where you're going to have to be addressing that particular subject.

James 2 is a tremendous passage and sometimes I think we shy away from it. Because there is a truth that needs to be emphasized. How do we live out Sola Fide? Well if we believe that that Fide is the gift of God.

If we believe that the whole reason that I have faith is not because I'm better than someone else. Not because I'm smarter than someone else. Not because I have a more sensitive heart than someone else.