Justification, What We Believe, Part 31

He could show justice and hit me back with equal force or he could show mercy and not hit me at all

But if he hits me lightly, it's really not justice and it's really not mercy You see the only way we have a

God that's fully just and merciful is by having a God That pays the fine himself because only he can and then because he paid the full weight of the fine

He can now offer to us Forgiveness, welcome to the rap report with your host

Andrew Rappaport where we provide biblical interpretation and application This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast Community for more content or to request a speaker for your church go to striving for eternity org

Well, welcome to another edition of the rap report I'm your host Andrew rap worth the executive director of striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast community of which this Podcast is a proud member Check out the over 50 vetted podcasts over at Christian podcast community org and you can check out everything

We do at striving for eternity at striving for turn org today. We're going to talk about a doctrine who the dreaded doctrine of Justification much confusion.

Why do I sound like a broken record actually seem to be saying that with each of these doctrines we get into Especially with the doctrine of salvation that there seems to be much confusion

Well, that is exactly the reason we have a doctrinal statement and we are going through it in this series

This is the series of what we believe and if you want to follow along just go to striving for eternity dot org go to the about section and under there choose what we believe and we're in the doctrine of Soteriology, which is the doctrine of salvation.

That is the topic. We're gonna cover today We're gonna cover specifically the doctrine of justification and I have not one but two

Co -hosts with me. We'll have to see if we could figure out their voices you you listening audience

You'll have to figure out if you could figure out Which one identifies as Spencer and which one identifies as Nicole we'll have to see maybe they'll change up their voices but these are the hosts of and I should say that what we're doing is trying to grab different folks in as co -hosts for for me from the

Christian podcast community So each of you get to hear some voices and get to hear some brilliance from other

Podcasters and you go check out their podcasts, but Spencer and Nicole are the co -hosts of religionless

Christianity and If you want to know why they're religionless, so you're good. You have to go to episode 1

I'm just saying you got to go and binge the whole thing But they actually have two podcasts on one feed and I'll think they are gonna give them a second to explain

But they have a daily devotion, which is a five -minute Daily, and then they have an hour -long one those who are long -term listeners of this podcast

You know, I started off the same way and then separated them. So you get something every day So whichever one of you wants to identify as Spencer now

I'm saying that folks because if you listen to their podcast, you you know that they are very into the Discussing the the modern culture and What is it you you you you call it the plan you play a scream and the plunge into the slew of this ponder

Yeah, we take our weekly trek through the valley of the shadow of death before we dive into the news every week

But I do want to say thank you first off for having us We're very honored to be here and I have this opportunity to co -host with you and I am

Spencer You didn't figure that out and I am here with my lovely wife Nikki my co -host

Nikki Nicole He introduced me as Nikki. You called me Nicole either way And yeah, we are the host of religionless

Christianity We ourselves are very religious very Christian But the world and the culture we live in is not anymore and that's where the religion list comes from How do you live a

Christlike life in a religionless world and Yeah, every week

Monday through Friday. We just do five -minute daily devotionals. Just kind of walking through the words. It's not the most

Theologically deep breakdown of verse by verse through the Bible. It's just when we read a section of Scripture what jumps out to us?

What are we thinking when we read through it? How can we make it applicable to our lives that sort of thing? and then Saturday is the big show usually about an hour to an hour and a half and we try to look at news of the week and Try to understand how should a

Christian handle this, you know, whether it's entertainment culture politics How should a

Christian digest it and handle it in their lives and then we do try to add in a Bible topic You know a podcast discussion

Movie review something to that effect at the end of the show as well So that's who we are and that's what we do unless you have anything else to add, honey

No, that's it. I Sometimes are listening you guys go through the news. I really think that you're just trying to torture your wife.

Yeah You know like let here's here's what we have in the news, honey And I just yeah, you hear

Nikki reading it and like being like, oh, I can't believe That's what my friend.

Yeah, my friend Becca that was here visiting passing through I was telling her that exact thing

I was like Spencer's all about the news and I'm like Well, and that's the reason why

I like having I mean obviously there's a lot of reasons I like having Nikki on the podcast with me, but she's a great test case because she doesn't read the news

She doesn't watch the news a lot. So a lot of the stuff that we discussed She's never really heard of and I'm assuming that some of our listeners a lot of Christians We know are exactly the same.

Yeah, really and because they're probably smart they avoid the news at all But you want to know the world that you live in so she's a good test case when we bring up stories and she's like Wait, they're doing that.

Yes, they're grooming your children in school. It's good to know it Yeah, I think it's important that we talk about it and I'm glad that he brings it up for me it's good because so many people don't realize

I I used to I stopped because This was too much to do but for many months.

I used to listen to LGBT Transition Podcasts to hear what they're talking about.

I stopped because they're just they're literally so perverted They were there I kept trying to find ones that would just describe what it is

They're trying to do what their agenda is and not get into all the sexual Descriptions and it's just it was so perverted.

I'm like, you know as a Christian I just could not continue listening because it's just all about their sexual perversion

I mean like in graphic detail like that's what their audience wants to hear I guess and and I'm talking like the big ones the ones that have like Thousands of that like ten thousand hundred thousand downloads and I'm like, this is just all complete perversion and I would do it because so my audience would know what is

Coming forward with what they're looking at and so that we see what our culture where our culture is headed And I was like, you know, there's other ways

I can keep in touch. I can read Articles that folks like that put out and and not have all the talk.

So yeah, it is it is hard yeah, I feel like almost like ashamed even like reading the news we read

I feel like Like I'm disappointing God even like because it's shameful to even speak of the things, you know

I don't know what that scripture is But even Ephesians 5 let me just ask do you feel like you need a shower after reading the news because sometimes

I do Yes, yeah we do I mean it's something that we read and discuss and even when we're writing our notes out and stuff

You're like, it's just dirty. It's like it's disheartening. Oh folks today we're doing is you'll get you see the

Nicky's and Spencer's voice because we're gonna have them on for what I'm going to be doing throughout the series

What some of the guys decided was that I should bring in different co -hosts from the

Christian podcast community So you're gonna get three four episodes with each of the the different podcasts.

So with 50 podcasts This could take a long time. This could be several years before We settle down but we're doing that so you guys could get to hear some other voices and Get to know some of the other podcasts at the

Christian podcast community So let's dig into the topic that we have today of justification

I'm gonna ask if one of you would like to read the section of the doctrinal statement on justification and again for those

Not if you're driving if you're driving either pull over if you want to read it along with us But if not, just listen, you can read later.

It'll be in the show notes But if you want to follow along it's at striving for attorney org Go to the about section under what we believe and again before we read it

I'll just mention the reason we started this whole series Was so that we could

Realize that doctrinal statements are important. How do you know whether to find a good church? Well, you want to read their doctrinal statement?

And what we're trying to do is show you with with our doctrinal statement everything that's in there and all the stuff

That's not in there. You're gonna see we're gonna end up discussing a lot of things today that are not listed

Specifically in the doctrinal statement, but they are and what we're trying to answer so what we'll do is go through read through the doctrinal statement and do as we've been doing this series if you're in at this

Point we're 20 some episodes in but go back to the original one and the start of the series and go through them

And you'll see that these build upon each other. So if you wouldn't mind reading the section on justification, all right says

Justification before God is an act of God by which he legally declares righteous those who through faith in Christ repent of their sins and confess him as Sovereign Lord this righteousness is apart from any virtue or work of man and Involves the imputation of our sins to Christ in the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us

Hence God is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Thank you.

And so this topic of justification, this is building if you listen to previous episodes

This is building right where we left off. I We started off this whole discussion of salvation

With regeneration and if you think about it that actually came from where where we are as a man men

Human beings that we're sinful. So the next thing is we need regeneration We talked about that and then we talked about election last two episodes and we talked about the fact in election that this is

God's side of the discussion. Well again with justification This is this is a work

God does that's why it says we say Justification before God is an act of God This is not something that you and I can claim some sort of Ability to do we cannot justify ourselves.

We're gonna get into this because this is the main issue When it comes to justification you have two different views of justification

You have a view that we justify ourselves by works or the biblical way

God justifies us by what he does and We play no role in that.

So it's it's one of those two that we're gonna end up being Now what Romans 8 33 says?

Who will bring a charge against God's elect God is the one who justifies?

Now that's that seems pretty clear That it's God who justifies because actually that's exactly what it says

Surprise, so when we have people that say well, we can justify ourselves what they're ultimately doing is revealing that they have a works -based man -made religion and This is what we end up seeing

When why we're saying that it's right out of the gate with with justification. We had strong turn to try to say

Justification is an act of God you and I Cannot justify ourselves.

We can't bribe God with good works. We can't buy our way in with good works It's an act that only

God can do I think this is something that is a stumbling block for people whether it's from their specific faith group or just maybe that American individualism

Man's pride and ego, but you know the idea of sort of divine accomplishment or you can't help

God you can't do anything It's simply a work of God and I think our pride can cause that to be something that holds some people back from really wanting to accept this idea of Justification by faith in God alone.

Yeah, because this is such a major issue because when you think about it, I Always teach there's only two religions.

This is always fun to do when I'm on the streets doing evangelism I get up on a box I go how many religions are there in the world and you get shouts of hundreds to thousands and and I go there's two and People go, huh?

Yeah, there's there's really only two there's divine religion and man -made religion Now the question is how do we know which one's which right because that's that's what it comes down to and how do you know?

Which one's which I was speaking to a guy last night He's Roman Catholic and I said look there's one thing that sets

Christianity unique from every other world religion I said it's the fact that every man -made religion has human effort

God says he saves you but humans say well we add something we do good works

You know, I said if you're he's Catholic I said well in your religion, it would be it'd be faith plus works in Islam it's one good deed counts for ten bad deeds in Rabbinic Judaism, which is not biblical

Judaism. There's a difference but the modern Judaism we know today it's doing Torah it's obeying the law that those are all works and So what we end up seeing is there's two religions and justification by by God is

What sets apart divine religion from man -made You know, I was just thinking on what a blessing it is this to learn like the doctrine of depravity

I don't know any other religions that even have something similar to that. But if you're

You know your need, you know that you can't You can't even try to be righteous enough like it's it's not possible that it isn't just the idea that it isn't possible

Because I think some people maybe think it might be possible or it could be possible for some To have their own righteousness that God would be that you would accept.

Yeah it's quite interesting because I was preaching yesterday in church and I Mentioned Joel Steen's book your best life now, and I mentioned if this is your best life

Then you have hell to look forward to I'm thinking I'm thinking of I said I'm thinking of writing a book your worst life now, right that that would sell

I'm sure right? Hey get a copy of your worst life now because you're right people that have a man -made religion

Want to praise men in their efforts? how good we are and This is completely opposite Now when we say when we say that justification before God is an act of God What this is saying and this is consistent with what we've been saying when we talked about regeneration elections and when we talked even total depravity

We talked about the fact that because of our human nature. This can only be an act of God.

We can't save ourselves and this there's

This presents an issue for many people because what we're saying is that by saying that It's an act of God what it we're not saying or we're saying speaking against is the idea of a works -based system and Every man -made religion, which is every religion other than biblical

Christianity is a man -made system So I got news for you as a listener

You are going to have to deal with the issue of justification by faith alone all the time

This whole idea of justification. It doesn't matter who you speak with any Unbeliever, you're gonna have to deal with this issue if they're involved in any religious system because every one of their religious systems are going to deal with the fact that they believe works are part of Their salvation or getting right before God and that's where we talk

The way I speak of it is getting right before God to avoid this Vague term that people have because it's so deluded is saved.

What do you save from people don't know and that's why when I talk to people I talk about Justification which they don't understand

So then I get to explain it or I'll say are you right with God? And they they understand what it means to be right with God because we understand when we're not right with somebody

Yeah, when people in these other religions where it is works -based do they have

Assurance of they can't call it salvation, but I guess assurance of Heaven whatever their heaven is if it's works -based

Do they really have that a hundred percent assurance? No, not really. In fact, if you look like in Islam, you're you should never think that you're

Guaranteed like that's like that's almost anathema to think that you you know for sure the only way to know for sure in Islam That you are going to heaven and this is in the

Hadiths is to die in a holy war in a jihad and That explains why so many people that could be wicked criminals would be willing to die in what they call a holy war

I mean you think about the What we end up knowing about the? hijackers in 9 -11

Those that hijacked the planes and flew them into the towers of the the Twin Towers They were getting lap dances at a strip joint the night before and you go like how could they like in?

That makes no sense How could you say you're doing something for religious reasons and may doing that the night before?

Because in their religion, this was the only way guaranteed and that they thought hey I'm gonna be ushered into heaven by this one act because anything else would be wrong

Mormonism which teaches that you have to be Absolutely perfect sinlessly perfect.

You never know if you are talk to a Mormon and ask okay. Are you there? They'll say no because none of us can keep that now

I know and we've talked about this in previous episodes There is a branch within Christianity called sinless perfectionism where they believe as Christians.

We must be sinlessly perfect We've we've covered that and we're gonna cover that in the next section on Sanctification big -time, but no you can't be sinlessly perfect because you still have indwelling sin

And I always like my friend Matt Slick says says anyone who believes they're sinlessly perfect Just spend 10 minutes with him and he'll get them angry enough to reveal

They're not sinlessly perfect but The reality is when we talk about justification

There is one passage That everybody turns to to say that works are necessary for salvation

Spencer, you know what passage that is, right? yeah, so I think you're kind of talking here about James chapter 2 where James kind of talks about faith plus works and You know a lot of times and we've had discussions with Roman Catholics before and they'll point to this and they'll say well

James and Paul disagreed You know because Paul talks about faith alone, but James clearly describes justification is through faith and works and that's one of their big sort of verses they like to go to and The reason they go to it is because it seems

So I'm saying seems to clearly say faith without works is dead and Though they love to quote that in verse 26

Okay, the context gives us something different. Now. One thing you don't see people do is Start at verse 14

So let me start reading some of this and I'm gonna start in verse 14 and just work through this in a bit James 2 14 says

What uses it my brethren if someone says he has faith?

But has no works. Can that faith save him? So right off the bat

What we're dealing with is not a saving faith. We're dealing with someone that professes to be a believer

But is not a believer How do we know they're not a believer because they don't have the works that go along with salvation

That's the thing that James is talking now in the broader context whenever you interpret Context is

King. You must understand the context the broader context of James What James's purpose is is to reveal this is what?

Salvation looks like this is what genuine faith looks like So he's taught he gives about a dozen plus different ways of testing yourself to know if you're in the faith

One of them is do you have the works that go along with the faith? And I was just thinking on like the fruit of the

Spirit. It's like the work that we do is belief and abiding in his word So those works that people see are just like the fruits of the

Spirit and it isn't anything That we do like I can't make myself not be an

Angry person like I can't cause myself to just be patient like that is just abiding with God abiding in his word and and That's just gonna happen.

It's his work we can only Say all I've done is abide in God and it's his work in me.

Well Nikki as a mother if you Had your children and you have you've a small brood of of children there

You know working on your on a basketball team or so, but but no if you had a five -year -old and Still in a crib

Still just drinking milk out of a bottle. Is that healthy? No, no Would that be the norm would that be what you'd expect for a child?

No, no So the expectation is as a believer we would Naturally have the works that a believer would have

So if we have someone that's in church for 20 -30 years, and they're still acting like a newborn That's a problem.

And I would say that would be my fault not working in my child or giving them what they need to be nourished and grow properly and God will do that for his children.

He will not leave us as orphans and Just drinking milk and leaving us on our own.

So The blame would fall on me as a mom, but we can't blame God because if you are something he's not that's the whole point

God is not gonna fail God indwells us for the purpose of and we'll talk about this next episode of sanctification

He works in us for that specific reason. So we're going to Grow in our faith if we're a believer and we're gonna have the works

So the the first thing if you and you have to when you deal with justification You have to deal with James chapter 2 14 and following you have to Because you're gonna come up with this with whether it's

Catholics. It's Mormons. It's Jehovah Witnesses Any group that uses the

New Testament is going to turn to James 2 to justify their justification by works

Every one of them. I don't know now is a good time to bring it up But there's a second verse that they'll go to a lot as well

And this is Philippians chapter 2 verse 12, and I'll just read it here It says therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now not only is in my presence

But much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling So they'll point to this one a lot too and go well see

James tells you works And now here Paul as well is telling you to work out your own faith

Yes, so let's let's cover that because what you have here is and when we started this series on when got to section of Salvation doctrine of salvation we've covered this but it's always good to have the reminder because Well, some of you weren't listening you were driving and not paying full attention

No, but it's good because we need that repetition. We need to the reminder. That's why so much scripture is repetitious, but The word salvation that we use is a very general term and sometimes we use it for a specific

The word can have three different meanings theologically it could mean regeneration that point in time where you went from being an enemy of God to a child of God where God does something in you and You become converted

That is what some will refer to as salvation past tense. That's in the past for those who are believers

If you are converted then you're in the in the part of salvation that's also referred to as salvation and the salvation specifically

Philippians is referring to of Sanctification that we'll get to in the next episode that talks about that process of salvation that starts at regeneration and goes until the moment we die and It's the process of being made more and more in the image of Christ And that is the same as we'll go back to James 2 and talk about that's the same that's discussed in James 2

It's that sanctification and works are involved in our sanctification The work of love that's a major one.

That's the fruit of the Spirit is love We should be identified. We should be marked as Believers by our love for God and love for others.

And so that is sanctification But that's also referred to as salvation and specifically in Philippians That's what

Paul is referring to work out your salvation your sanctification We have to be more precise

Gone from using the word salvation to be more precise and use them in three senses salvation past tense regeneration salvation present tense sanctification salvation future

Glorification the moment we die and we're done with this body of sin and we're glorified So when we speak of salvation in Scripture We have to be reminded that the authors of the

New Testament are not as precise as we've become Afterwards because of error by the way go through history go through church history

You're always gonna see the reason we have such precision in our theology is usually because error cropped up Why did we have in the

Reformation period so much focus on? Doctrines like justification because the Catholic Church was teaching justification by works and the error crept up so that needed to be responded to and so let me just quickly continue with James 2 just so you see this because he's we have to realize is

James throughout the book is dealing with Sanctification. How do you know you are a believer?

so when he says in verse 15 if a brother or sister says you're without clothes and You say go and be warm Like if that's not what a

Christian would do a Christian would take care of their fellow believer and so in verse 18 He says but if somebody says

Right if someone may well say you have faith and I have works Show me your faith without your works and I'll show you my faith by my works.

What he's saying there is that the works are the natural progression of Sanctification if you are saved you will have works of a

Christian and So the whole thing he's focused when he says in verse 26 for just as the body

Without the spirit is dead. So faith without works is dead. He's not saying you need faith

Plus works to be regenerated. He's saying if you claim you are regenerated

Let me see those works in other words if you're regenerated you'll have the works that go along with it you'll be sanctified

Yeah, and even you know The very end of the book of James chapter 5 I think verse 19 and 20 where he talks about if your brother

Wanders from the faith and you bring him back you've saved a soul. Well, how do you know if he's wandered?

How do you know if he's living right if he doesn't have these works that are evident in His life to know if he's living according to the gospel and according to the commandments of God We have to have something to verify that with and these are the works that he's talking about Yeah, sure say you have faith.

Let me see the works that should accompany that we would expect that if Somebody is going to claim if you're gonna claim to be a medical doctor

You should understand something of the human body Right if someone

Are you gonna go to a medical doctor that you say, you know doctor? I I need to have heart surgery and he goes.

Yeah, you know, um, I think I've read something about the heart before Right, you know if he doesn't know where the heart is, you know, he goes to your knee to look for your heart

You're gonna go. I'm gonna find a new doctor Why because the doctor the guy who's claiming to be a doctor reveals?

He doesn't know Anything about being a doctor he's just Professing to be a doctor.

He's being a hypocrite. He's pretending to be a doctor and he's not a doctor yeah,

I mean Spencer haven't talked about before how like the Outward signs that we see like in other people or in ourselves

So that we because those signs reveal their heart because we don't know someone's heart. So we need the signs

God knows the heart like he doesn't necessarily need the sign. So and I'm thinking like Abraham Believed God and it was a credit to him for righteousness

But then we hear Others they have like a act like a their faith had works

Abraham's was just belief like God Saw his belief Yeah, and that's actually the example that that gets used throughout scriptures

That how do we know Abraham was a believer look at his acts look at his behavior

It's not that the behavior saved him the works didn't save him the works demonstrate

That he is a believer I mean it wouldn't be so easy just if everyone had a big e on their forehead if they were elect

I mean evangelism would be so much easier. You just walk up to a person go. Do you believe yet? No, okay

Let me tell you the gospel and then you don't have to waste your time with Right, that'd be so easy.

God doesn't do that for us, right and God Demonstrates to us like he could just say

I am this I am that take my word for it, but he's demonstrated in acts in his acts

Everything about him. So you said earlier how do these false religions have an assurance of salvation? Where do we get our assurance of salvation from the book of James is giving us 13 ways to test ourself

And what are they all it's look at your life and say am I behaving the way a Christian would behave?

Do I show preference to people with money or do I just say I'm gonna show no preference and do do

I watch my tongue? Do I have the works of it? All of these things are things that he's saying examine your life.

Am I living the way a Christian would live and if the answer is Yes It's like ah, so I must have faith and not just for other people because we know ourselves better, right?

We know if we're faking it, I remember a guy who came to church he was wanted to date a young lady

He was a bartender. He came in pretended to be a Christian was at every

I mean Sunday school Wednesday night. I mean Sunday evening. He never missed anything for three plus years that the church did

He was at air and even if she wasn't involved he was active and Then it was announced and he just he was always trying to date her but then it was announced she was getting married and all of a sudden the guy disappeared and Three in the morning.

I'm I go over to the bar because I knew he found out he was back at the bar And so bartending and so the thing you don't want is to come out of work at 3 in the morning and see me sitting on your car at 3 in the morning and You never want to ask me to keep you accountable because I actually will do it

I go out of my way. So he sees me he comes to his car and with a bunch of guys and he sees me and he's like Uh Guys, I'll talk to you later and he comes over and he literally just told me hey

I was just I was faking it because I just wanted to date Suzanne and I mean he did like you'd look at him and he

Outwardly had everything that looked like a believer Inwardly, he knew he was faking it the whole time and even it like we've only gotten to one part of one sentence here but there's so much in this that we're want to cover in this because This is a major issue when it comes to justification that this is an act that God does not we do

That's a major distinction. So let's let's define. What is justification? We do it here in the in the statement

Justification before God is an act of God by which he he being

God legally declares righteous those

Through faith in Christ repent of their sins So what we're trying to do here say that this is a legal act justification is actually a legal term

It means to be set free and how are we set free? So so God declares we are now just we're set free

We're set free to be righteous But how through faith in Christ Now we're also saying through repent of sin repenting of sins now we've talked about repentance already this is something where we're talking pre -show and I know that Spencer was asking the the question that he wanted to raise of Is repentance a work because there's people who say that Well, no repentance is a response

To God working in us now. We've talked about the doctrine of superintending and I did a whole bonus episode on that I I actually preached in church.

I'm down here in Florida in Orlando, Florida got the privilege of preaching at Beulah Baptist Church a great church in Winter Garden if you're ever down there and I was preaching on the doctrine of salvation

Which I was asked to preach on and we talked about the doctrine of superintending so go back to a few episodes listen that because it's a very important episode in understanding this difference of regeneration how

God works through us in such a way that that we make choices to repent It's actually God bringing us to that choice.

So God gets all the credit. We can't take any but it explains how We could choose

God and God chooses you really God chooses us. It explains this what's seeming to be a contradiction

Which is always great when I'm preaching something like that and I hear someone as I get to the point of explaining and if you listen to that previous episode on superintending when

I explain how their superintending is we see it in sanctified in Inspiration of Scripture we see it in sanctification and I'm just about to mention how we can see it in Regeneration and all of a sudden someone in the front goes

Wow Like that light bulb moment that he got I didn't even get to Regeneration and he was like that makes sense and he was so excited.

He actually spoke out Well, and isn't it I guess even kind of silly because the notion that repentance is a work

But repentance isn't even something we can do on our own repentance is a gift granted to us from God I can't say well, no

Lord. I I did that sin yesterday, but I Forgive me for it. And then that just somehow makes it go away.

God has to actually grant me the forgiveness of it so you're basically saying in a sense that God granting me a gift somehow negates my free gift of salvation

That just see I mean God can't negate himself almost because repentance is his gift towards us

Yeah, and that's why when we talked about regeneration we talked about that regeneration is a supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit We can't do supernatural works, right? And so people will try say oh, but we can choose and see this is the thing

I'll say yes, we can we just can't do it apart from God Because God super intends he works through us so that even though choices

We make are exactly as God intended them to be such that God gets all the credit We see that in salvation when

James wrote James. He did it by the inspiration of Holy Spirit. That's God working through him So he chose what words to write, but those were the words

God intended to be written. Yeah, and the order in that It happens.

Are you like you're spiritually born again? when you repent

Is that correct? The order you'd say well see this is where and we talked about this in the in the

Section on regeneration because so many people struggle with it. The order salutis is what it's called the order of salvation and People struggle over that Chronologically either order that people have

I'm gonna say is wrong right because chronologically you don't have a point where you were an unregenerate believer or Regenerate unbeliever, right?

You can't have either one. So regeneration and belief have to be simultaneous Logically though We would say that regeneration precedes faith

Logically because we're saying that God has to do that work first But so many people because we talk about that in a logical sense.

They start to think of it in a chronological sense and hence the problems and so I Try to avoid the whole order salutis

Logical or chronological by talking about the doctrine of superintending that God works through us such that the choices we make are exactly as God Intended him to be such that he gets all the credit if you're following in the series folks.

You've heard me say this I'm repeating it multiple times because This is difficult for some people to understand

I had so many people come up to me after church on Sunday said man I gotta think through that again that really made a lot of sense

But it struggles or they have other family members that are like you made this so simple but I have so many difficult conversations on these issues of God's sovereignty human responsibility and the reality is is

People have difficulty with it because they're committed to a theological system that teaches one or the other

Mm -hmm, and the answer is both. It's not an either or it's a both and and so therefore

The scripture is quite clear and It is something that becomes easy to understand unless you're committed to a theological system that makes it hard to give up and if you want just search on YouTube for Bula Baptist Church and the in search for my message there if you want to listen to it, but When we talk about this, we were we want to understand what?

Justification is it's a legal term. It's a judge passing a sentence So the judge is passing a sentence guilty or innocent

There's actually a different one by the way folks don't always realize this I had a believer in Christ that I went to church with and he went to court and it was voided

Now voided is is really interesting. What voided means is it should never have gone to court he basically worked as a military police and Spencer you work in the military.

You understand military police. He worked as a dispatcher for the military police and The police actually were the military at the time was covering up a rape case and They would not deal with it and he kept trying to get attention to it he ended up going to the

FBI and they fired him and they brought charges against him so that he couldn't get his pension and When it got before the judge and the judge looked at the evidence, he actually voided the case

Said this should never have happened I'd bring that up because when we talk about justification

There's people that say justification means just as if I never sinned That would be to void the case that would be to say this should never have happened

If you never sinned It would be Unjust for God to bring you before his court

That would be a case where it should be voided the only one that should ever have been voided would be

Christ himself So it I understand the the thinking behind this the thinking behind justification is just as if I never sinned is to say that we because of what

Jesus Christ did he paid the penalty and We no longer have the guilt of it.

It's been paid That is not voided and is not not innocent

I Know that's a double negative. It was on purpose To say someone is innocent is

To be okay, you have not committed the crime But we have committed the crime.

That's the whole thing of justification here. We are guilty Christ is not guilty.

He paid it For us, that's what justification actually is

It's a legal term to say your crime has been paid for it's as if you you had a 10 million dollar fine

And someone else pays that fine because you're incapable The judge doesn't say you're innocent

He doesn't say you're not guilty He says you're paid in full that's justification

Yeah, and you know, I don't know if maybe this is out of left field or Not the right time to bring it up.

But is this a problem with our modern style of church? You know, you call it seeker sensitive if you want or any of the other names where we don't really preach on sin

So much God's kind of there to help you overcome battles He's there to supercharge your life, but we don't really you know, when you look at the

Puritans and the Reformers I mean go and listen to sinners in the hands of an angry God and we don't preach that way anymore

So we don't think that we even really have sins that are that bad. Yeah, so somehow yeah

We can be innocent before God or even going back to working your own salvation Is it just because we don't actually hear how sinful and depraved we really are

Because Spencer the the gospel message we hear today is that God has a Spencer hole shaped hole in his heart and he's here

I mean that he's there for me. That's essentially the message, right? I mean you think about it it's not worded that way, but the way people share the gospel is

God Created humans because he like he's missing something. He wanted fellowship with us.

No, he had fellowship within the Trinity He doesn't need us Yeah, but you're right so much of the gospel presentation that we hear today has really watered down this idea of justification

Because they've watered down the gospel to avoid things like God's wrath Just the fact that God is just and he's going to punish

The idea that there's a hell like those things aren't popular And if you want to build a big church

You've got to avoid those things so that you have you know butts in the pew so that people will give them money to do your big ministry

God never This may be a shock for some pastors. God doesn't actually need

A lot of people in the pews to give lots of money to do the ministry that God wants to do he could do that Mm -hmm any way he wants with or without you pastor

Right these people that try to do all this marketing and figure out a way to build the church It's God's church.

You want to build it? Yeah, build it. Here's an idea You want to you want to see God build his church get out of his way?

Stop trying to do it yourself. I know people like the idea that God needs them.

Like I helped God I I got all these people saved for you. God look like Like this is a boastful thing you know, it's funny you said

I haven't thought about this in a long time, but we were at a church and we were attending a church me and this other guy who was

We both traveled and spoke and he was preaching for there's a pastor who had been he was out for surgery so we were taking turns preaching for him for for a month while he was out and my friend

Brian preaches and this woman gets saved and Brian's so excited.

He tells the pastor like anything the pastor is gonna be excited in the past like she got saved months

You know like three four years ago from my wife, you know And it was like and literally this pastor wanted nothing to do with Brian like just ushered him out

Like he basically was like you don't need to pretty like he came back even though he was he was sick and struggling

He came back to preach because he was so offended that like I was like Brian was like was it a notch on the belt for this guy like, you know

You're right. There is a lot of that where there were people do get like that and when we understand justification properly

We understand this is something God does we haven't we have no say in this matter And and we're so we're saying that this is this is a legal declaration

But we're being more specific with it is how do people get saved? We're saying when through faith in Christ and and the words that we see in the

Reformers are alone Right work were justified by Christ alone in faith alone, right?

Why do we add these words because we're trying to say it's not by works when we have the five solos That is a doctrinal statement.

The same is what we're doing here. It's just that we've gone into more detail And so we're saying that repentance of their sins is is important now

When I share the gospel, I don't tell people to repent of their sins Okay, they need to they need to turn from The guilt of sin.

I actually say sin singular Because there's a difference when you ask someone you got to turn from sins and turn to Christ.

So stop doing bad deeds Well, that's works right if you communicate that you that we're turning from works

Turning from bad works and you leave it there and you don't say turn to Christ because so many people do this

They say you have to repent of your sins Well, then that's not telling them what to turn to So what

I'll say is you gotta repent of sin. What do you gotta repent of you? That prideful idea that you could be a good person or you could do good works

But repentance means a turning if you don't communicate what they turn to Mm -hmm, then you haven't communicated the full message of the gospel and and what repentance is so We say repentance of sins here because we we have the idea of the understanding as we said when we talked about This in the section on repentance.

This is turning from those sinful deeds and actions of pride and selfishness and turning to Christ and Then we say here the second and this is

Romans 10 9 and 10 to confess him as Sovereign Lord you you don't just repent of sins but it's the putting off of the sinful nature putting on the

Glorified nature, but it's not we don't have yet But the really this is what we would see in 2nd

Corinthians 5 21 one of my favorite passages It's actually referred to further down, but it's putting on the righteousness of Christ So we put off our sinful deeds and put on the righteousness of Christ In following with that you see in the doctrinal statement says this righteousness is a part of any

Virtue or work a man and we've been saying that throughout Right the whole idea of this doctrinal statement in the way, it's worded is to make it clear that This righteousness that we now have as believers is not something we could take credit for And when people say that they did a work or they even if they say that they chose

Christ and then because they chose Christ God afterwards chronologically then saved them or brought them to Repentance or that they repented or whatever they want to word it that their regeneration occurred because of their choice then they have some virtue and that's why

I Worded this this righteousness is apart from any virtue or work of man

We've talked a lot about the works, but now let's talk about the virtue There are many professing believers who say well,

I chose God and therefore God was somehow obligated to Bring me into the fold

No, it doesn't work that way and that's that's actually why there's so many False believers and hypocrites out there that say why

I chose God and then later they're gonna they come out as atheists go Well, I was a Christian. No, you weren't first John 2 19 says very clearly you went out from among us because you were never of us you went out to expose you

Were not of us. You were a hypocrite that stopped pretending and they hate when I say that but the reality is what did they trust?

for their Justification their virtue they're they're saying a prayer walking an aisle making a choice in Each of those it's their virtue that they're appealing to in Scripture.

I mean, especially the Apostle Paul is quite clear I mean, what is Ephesians 2? I mean makes the point that this is not something you can do so that you can't boast

It removes any opportunity for you to boast because you you can't add anything to it yourself

I mean it I feel like it's very clear again I mean the man -made religion gets that wrong, but I feel like Scripture makes that evident over and over again

Something apart from you that you cannot boast over it seeing and the people that were speaking though are gonna

Respond to you and say but that's works. I'm not talking works. I'm talking my choice my repentance something

I did right Yeah, and that those people who walked away from God and they're saying like you said

I used to be a Christian But I walked away Then they're admitting that they believed a different religion than Christianity because they're saying it was in their power

To choose to walk away when really it's God who holds on to you Yeah, Nikki, you make a great point that I usually want to deal with people that claim to make this claim

I used to be a Christian. I'll ask them. So you're telling me you were a Christian. Yes So your ultimate authority was

God and his word and it's amazing. They always say yes, I go So then how did you walk away?

Yeah, I could oh cuz I studied this I studied that I said But but then the Bible wasn't your ultimate authority God and the

Bible were not your ultimate authority, right? And it's like sometimes you get the light bulb Usually they don't but it's like no you're you were not a

Christian the way the Bible describes a Christian Authority was not God in the Bible your ultimate authority was you and when you wanted to believe you're a

Christian That's what your ultimate authority said and when you didn't want to be Pretend, you know when you stop pretending your ultimate authority said you weren't a

Christian, but you're your ultimate authority So when we say this didn't mean this is that's why we put in here virtue and works

So and I know this is a run -on sentence. I get it. I was never good in English But This is one long run -on sentence in in the doctrinal statement, right?

Justification before God is an act of God by which he legally declares Righteous those who through faith in Christ repent of their sins and confess him as sovereign

Lord That's a long run -on sentence Before we continue it because because I want to jump into this righteousness

We actually kind of started it right but it I've failed because we've had such a great discussion

I failed to give a word to our sponsor, which I should have done much earlier. I Hope Michael Adele's not listening to this episode

But we got word for our sponsor, which is my pillow if you guys want to get a good night's sleep

I've we're gonna we're gonna realize that Spencer and Nikki have talked on their podcast They know

I've called Spencer before and said I got a solution to your sleeping problems because they on their show talked about sleeping Problems.

I said you need a my pillow mattress topper And I don't know if you guys have have you tried that one yet have you solved your sleep dilemmas

We have solved we don't have the my pillow mattress topper We do have a my pillow pillow, which we very much enjoy and the bed is nice Although I keep hearing about you know

The my pillow and every time I'll go on a jog and I listen to a podcast whatever and I'm like Well, I should try the slippers.

They sound awesome I love the slippers But for you guys since you guys for folks who have not listened to folks you need to go back to religious

Christianity Go back and listen to previous episodes where they they had this discussion over, you know

The fact that let's just call what it is, you know, Spencer's just was too cheap to get Nikki that bed she needs

No, they were trying all these different beds and I just said get the mattress topper

I loved my mattress topper at my pillow. So I Thrilled I do love the slippers

I just got a new pair for the because I have I had winter ones and I actually bought the ones that aren't

All the fluffy ones so I was using those for this in the spring and I like those But if you want to get a great discount from them go to my pillow comm use the promo code

SFE stands for striving for eternity that lets them know that you heard about them here so that they keep sponsoring this show

We'll be having a new sponsor soon was speaking with someone yesterday. We're working out the details so the other sponsor here is

Lagos Bible software and actually I got to give Credit where credits due to Spencer and Nikki so on their show.

They they're also Sponsored by Lagos and they have their own page for Lagos and I heard them referring to their page

And I went wait a minute They have an easier page To do and so I called

Lagos and said hey I I want this easier one instead of I always would give the bitly dot is to have a short link

I created a link. Well, they said okay, we could do that for you So the new page to go if you want to get

Lagos 10 upgrade to Lagos 10, or maybe you're new to it Go to Lagos comm that's

LOG OS comm slash SFE Stands for striving fraternity.

I but I had to get one that was a little bit shorter than you guys had I had to Executive director you deserve the better link

No, I'm just I just realized that I'm lazy and I prefer something shorter I mean striving fraternity is just way too long to type

SFE is so much easier much easier So when we talk about this the fact that righteousness the righteousness is apart from any virtue of man we also say here and involves the

Imputation of our sins to Christ and the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us

This is what is taught in 2nd Corinthians 5 21 It says that though he who knew no sin became sin

That we might become the righteousness of God This is

Martin Luther referred to as the great transaction. I Remember in seminary, this is what seminary students do you you sit and debate over you completely and utterly useless things

Okay, that's that's seminary for you But I remember sitting around we're sitting around talking and one of the guys goes

What is the core of the gospel? Wow, like can you reduce the gospel down to you know, a few things like what is it?

That is the minimalistic thing you need for the gospel And I thought I was being really ingenious and I said well

Romans 9 and 10 you have to Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that you know, he rose from the dead

So confess and believe that's it two things. I thought I was brilliant I got it down to because there were people coming up with a list of five and you know

People were doing all the you know, the if you have any evangelism training They have like five things that you you have to do

You know in an outline and I thought I was being brilliant by two and this one guy that yeah

There's always that guy in the crowd that speaks very little and when he speaks he says everything that needs to be said

He just as everyone's discussing and everyone's like going oh that's good too. Yeah believe and confess

That's just two and this guy just looks quietly and goes imputation and all of us just fell silent looked at him and it was like We just kind of did the head bow like you're right

Once you understand the doctrine of imputation you understand the full gospel message.

It's it's there It's it's the fact that as we say here that our sins The now when we say our sins it's it's the the punishment of our sins it doesn't mean that Jesus becomes

Somehow a sinner It's not that that's not possible. It means that he took on the punishment of sin

The sin that we owe eternity and a lake of fire the consequences in he took that on himself.

He paid that So that then he can offer to us his righteousness And so what we see in that is this

Christ Because he's an eternal being even though The death on the cross was a three -hour period in time that three hours was suffered by an eternal being and Him being an eternal being had an eternal consequence

We really can't comprehend eternity. We can't comprehend what it means for God to be eternal the way I always explain it is right now

Adam and Eve are in the garden Abraham's offering Isaac David is slewing Goliath.

We're having this recording right now. You're listening to it. Jesus is on the cross It's the same eternal now to God We can't comprehend like that.

But for Jesus being on that cross for three hours It was an eternal thing and that's how it's an eternal consequence.

So he took that sin upon himself and Offers to us his righteousness and let me just say this

I said what makes Christianity unique and if you get my book What do they believe you'll see in the epilogue.

I say there's three things that make Christianity unique I was talking to a guy last night and I was sharing these three things with him and he did look to me says

Andrew You're blowing my mind. I have never thought of these things because I said there's only two religions to him.

I already said that Christ doing all the work on the cross is that's unique to Christianity that God does all the work and we don't add to him

But this is another Justification in the sense of the imputation because what we see is

That we have justice and mercy and you can ask anybody who believes in God is God just as I did to this

Catholic last Night is God just he said yes is God merciful. He said yes, how could that be? Justice and mercy are mutually exclusive If the law says that if I hit

Spencer, I would not do it I've seen his his guns there and I'm not talking his physical guns, you know his arms there that he's got

He's he works out quite a bit what we see is the reality that we have a

Law that says if I hit Spencer Spencer must hit me back with equal force now I could he could show justice and hit me back with equal force or he could show mercy and not hit me at all

But if he hits me lightly, it's really not justice and it's really not mercy You see the only way we have a

God that's fully just and merciful is by having a God that He's the fine himself because only he can and then because he paid the full weight of the fine

He can now offer to us forgiveness Mercy so it makes

Christianity the other thing just wrap it up The other thing that makes Christian unique is it's the only religion based on a person not a system of teaching

Right because without with it's because Jesus is fully God fully man. That's why he could pay the fine

That's what makes it all about Jesus and not a system or teaching well, that's you know,

I think a good point in the idea of salvation justification is that You know your salvation isn't just based on Sinlessness that Jesus takes away your sin, but it also has to have his righteousness added to it

You have to be sinless and righteous because if you're just sinless then you're just that moral neutral nothing, but you actually have to Adhere and you know live out the righteousness and that's why because we've if you've sinned once you've sinned a thousand times

It makes no difference you've sinned against God. So we need the sinless life of Christ and his righteousness added

To us, which is again is something we cannot we can't add Christ's life to us By ourselves.

He has to add it himself his righteousness So you have to have both in order for that salvation to take hold

That's a great lead -in to the last sentence here in the doctrinal statement Hence God is both the just and the justifier the one who has faith in Christ.

This is exactly what romans 326 says right this is Jesus is the one who not only is the one that's just It's based on his just nature when we speak of justice.

We know what is just by the nature of God Injustice is anything that is against the nature of God.

His nature is what defines so we end up seeing is when we talk about Justice it's based on his nature.

So therefore it's because he is just That we can have this but he's also the justifier so not only does is it based on his nature

But it based on what he does and this is why we can't have anything to do it it can't be based on any works or any virtue that we have because it is all of Christ and so When we see in scripture that he becomes sin

That we can have the righteousness of God. This is what imputation is. This is the gospel believer the sins that you committed are

Committing will commit. We're all paid at the cross It's what

Colossians says Colossians 2 all our trespasses We're paid at the cross.

And so what you end up seeing is Every sin we've ever committed are committing will commit.

They're all post -cross all of them So we shouldn't beat ourselves up over sins like oh god how could you forgive me

I deserve we do deserve But it's been paid for and there are Christians who still live in guilt

Thinking somehow they can't be forgiven Christ took the full weight of sin for the believer on himself at the cross and Paid it there

So that we could be set free even more not only we set free from the punishment of Sin, but what should really blow your mind as a believer

Is that he gives us the righteousness of himself see

We no longer have in God's eyes when he looks at us. We don't have that guilt of sin

He's not looking at us as the sinner. We are He looks at us through the eyes of the righteousness of Christ, he sees the

Christ's righteousness let me just give a quick story from R .C.

Sproul a great book he has called The Prince's Dirty Clothes a Children's book with the purpose of teaching this doctrine of imputation

So yes You can teach a child the doctrine of imputation and that's what R .C. Wanted to do is to expose that and show that by writing a child's book

It was his first children's book and now he then he wrote a whole series of them So but what the whole idea is you have this priest and he's got dirty clothes

And yes, I'm gonna ruin the end of the book for you. So sorry Spencer I know you guys are gonna go get this book for your kids gonna

Now we're gonna know the ending I mean, I don't know it's a great book Well, the kids won't know the ending but I would read the book to my kids multiple times

So they knew the ending and still loved it but and I'm gonna do it for my grandchildren, but the whole idea is you have this priest and he's on his way to Before the king and on the route he falls off his horse and he's got dirty clothes and he can't be presented before the king

That way and so he's told he he's got to come back and he's gonna have a second audience with the king but he's got to be cleaned up and he goes to get it cleaned and The guy can't get it cleaned

And so he realizes he's in trouble and the son of the king comes to him and says I will take care of you

Just show up and he shows up with his filthy clothes and he knows there's nothing he could do he's just at the behest of the son of the king looking at to see what can

I do and the son as He enters in and he's being told you cannot be presented before the king that way and he's

I'm just doing what I was told By the son I'm cozy and the king is like looks at him.

You have filthy clothes and The son comes down and takes the robes off of the priest

Takes his royal robes and puts it around the priest Turns to his father and says father now can the priest be in your presence?

and the whole picture of that is in a Small way, it's not a great illustration, but it's as best as humans can do to describe this

That is what happens we stand before God in our filthiness and Jesus Christ takes our

Filthy clothes off of us and puts on his robe of righteousness Turns to the father and says now

Look at the child That is what we we have in imputation this is what justification is that we had our sinful deeds that we did paid by Jesus Christ and Then he

Gives to us his righteousness. So at the judgment seat of God when

God looks he sees his own righteousness on us Now it's not just as if we never sinned

It's just as if it's been fully paid By someone else in an exchange.

He gave us all of his perfect infinitely holy righteousness

Believer we should not be beating ourselves up if we think that we have sinned and somehow can't be forgiven if You are a believer in Jesus Christ.

You have been forgiven fully Everything you cannot lose your salvation

Why it was paid at the cross and to say that somehow Jesus didn't know

Some sin you would commit 2 ,000 years after the cross Is to say Jesus is not

God He's omniscient he knew every sin we would commit and he says he paid it at the cross and he gives us his righteousness is

He an Indian giver that he would give us his righteousness and take it away from us

No, he is not. In fact, that's exactly what would Paul's case that he makes in Romans 1129 when he says the gifts and speaking a gift of salvation the gifts and calling are irrevocable

Hmm is God some sort of Indian giver that gives these gifts of his righteousness and then somehow you can make it dirty again

That he takes the full weight of your sin. No That you see now how when we look at these the theology how it all comes together

When you have a good biblical theology It is based in the nature of God and those who say you can lose your salvation are saying that God somehow is not omniscient

Or they deny Colossians 2 19 to say that he didn't pay all the sin

If he paid all the sin at the cross that he knew of and he knows of all of them Then they're all paid for you see how these work together, but I want to encourage you believer

This is a rejoicing message when we think about the message of imputation and justification

And if you don't know Christ and you're listening, let me encourage you Hopefully this told you what the gospel message is clearly

It's time to turn from trusting yourself as a good person and turn and trust Jesus Christ Trust in him alone as a payment of sin.

So you might have his righteousness and have eternal life Next week we'll cover we'll have

Spencer and Nikki on again covering the doctrine of sanctification. I'll be fun. They'll play a two -parter I'm sure but I thank you guys for coming on and let me just give you guys last minute to plug

Religiousness Christianity what kind of things you guys might be covering soon? Yeah, I mean we're gonna kind of pick back up So the end of the year we were kind of walking through for our daily devotionals

We were looking at an Advent devotional from Bonhoeffer. That's done Now we're getting back into the gospel of Luke.

We've started going back through that for our daily devotionals I guess the great thing with the Saturday podcast. We don't know what the world's gonna throw at us

We're gonna continue to finish for our Bible topics our assurances of salvation. We've been going through Romans Road We're going through the book of first John and the assurances that we can you look at in ourselves to find out if we are saved

So we're gonna continue on with that. That's kind of like a continuation of this of this episode right here That encourages people to go check out religionless

Christianity you can find it on the Christian podcast community at Christian podcast community org and with that that's a wrap

This podcast is part of the striving for eternity ministries for more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church