God Who Justifies

we will be looking at, so if you still have that open, that way you don't have to turn back there yet once again.

I do bring you greetings from the elders of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. We are a small fellowship, been there for a long time.

My fellow elder Don Fry has been there for 27 years in the same place.

We own a little former Church of Christ building, which means even if we wanted a choir, we'd have no place to put it.

And all of our instruments sit in unusual places in our worship center, if you can call it that, because they didn't have any place for pianos or organs or things like that.

But the baptistry is very centrally located and very easily seen from all places within our little church.

But it is good to be with you, and I thank you very much for your hospitality you've extended toward me during this time with you.

I hope that the wide range of subjects that we have addressed has been of use and assistance to you.

And it is very nice of you to bring in Phoenix weather for me while I'm here. You didn't really need to do that.

I did notice when I came out it was 20 degrees warmer here than it was back in Phoenix, which is just not the way that it will be in January.

I can guarantee you that. So while you all have that fun, white, fluffy stuff falling down out of the sky, if that happens in January and February, we will be getting our suntans ready there in Phoenix, Arizona.

But then again, come July, you can laugh at me when it's 114 degrees and humid out there.

So Romans chapter 4 will be our focus, but I would like to be a little bit more general in making some comments from chapters 3 and 5 as well, as we address this morning in the brief time that we have together the subject of the

God who justifies. Now normally you hear that discussion under the title of justification by faith, and certainly that is the terminology that has been prevalent since the time of the

Reformation in the sense that that has been the great doctrine, the great area of battle between Protestant and Catholic, and actually these days now with the resurgence of orthodoxy in the

United States between Protestant and Eastern Orthodox as well. How is a man made right before God?

But you will notice that I have not titled the sermon this morning or the book that I wrote last year,

Justification by Faith. Part of the reason for that is there's probably at least 12 different books that have been titled that.

For some reason folks right in that area don't tend to come up with new titles. But more so to emphasize the divine truth, and that is

God is the God who justifies. You'll notice that we read in chapter 4 verse 5 that our faith is placed upon the one who justifies the ungodly.

Justification is a divine act. It is something that God does.

So often we think of this divine truth as how do we bring about our own justification?

What is it that man must do? What conditions must be fulfilled? And sadly the debate frequently does focus on that very kind of thinking when from the very start that is not a biblical way of approaching this subject.

Justification is something that God does. God is the one who the

Father as the righteous judge makes a declaration, a forensic legal declaration in regards to the believing individual, the believing sinner.

You may recall the language that Paul will use just a few chapters later in chapter 8 when summing up the great work that God has done for us in Christ.

He will refer to the great golden chain of redemption and he'll talk about how those who are justified are also glorified, referring us of course to the eternal nature of this act.

When God justifies it cannot be undone by someone else. All those who are justified will be glorified.

But then he goes on to talk about how Christ is the one who intercedes for us. And in verse 33 he also says, who will bring a charge against the elect of God, it is

God who justifies. Literally God the justifier, God the one justifying.

God is the one who justifies. It's a divine act. It's something that he does. And so when you place it in that context you can see very quickly just how far from the biblical truth so much of what is taught in our land today really is because it places it very much within the human context.

Justification becomes the goal. We do certain things and in response to what we do then

God justifies us. It's nothing new that we have to fight for the truth of God's freedom and salvation and his freedom in being the

God who justifies. When apostles walked the earth, here when the apostle

Paul walked the earth, when he traveled around Asia Minor and into Europe itself,

Paul had to constantly struggle to make sure that the freedom of the gospel would be safeguarded and defended.

And why is that a constant struggle? It's quite simple. It is a constant struggle because it is the natural bent of man's heart to seek to insert himself into the glory of God.

It is the natural bent of the heart of man to seek to gain some kind of honor and glory for himself.

And so as a result of this man is constantly trying to come up with new and unique ways to undo the simplicity of the gospel that brings about justification.

The apostles had to constantly fight against this and we are called as servants of the same truth that they proclaimed to take up the same cause that they had.

If they had to fight the battle, we have to fight the battle as well. It is very clearly not the teaching of scripture that after, that there's going to become some point where we no longer agonize for the gospel.

Jude told us that we were to stand fast, that we were to agonize, that we were to struggle for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

And he gives us no indication that there's going to be some day coming, at least until the coming of the Lord, when we are going to be able to take for granted the truths of the gospel itself.

And so here in Romans, Paul lays out for the church knowing of course, Paul under the wisdom of the

Holy Spirit was a very wise man. And you'll notice that two of his letters, two letters that are very much teaching in orientation, that is they lay out tremendous aspects of the gospel in clear and logical form.

Two of those letters, Romans and Ephesians, were sent to some of the most major cities in the ancient world knowing that if the churches in those places could be grounded in the truth, then as they would proclaim the truth and the truth would go out from them, those churches that would be established as a result of that likewise would be grounded in the truth.

So Ephesians sent to Ephesus, Ephesus sitting there at the head of the Lycus River Valley.

And we see that churches like Colossae and Laodicea up the Lycus River Valley come into existence, not because of missionary work of Paul, but because of the fact that he spent all that time there in Ephesus grounding the church, teaching the church, and then he sends to them a summary of his teaching that then becomes distributed throughout the churches there in the

Lycus River Valley. And where even more important should Paul send a tremendous epistle of gospel truth, but to Rome, the very center of the ancient world at this time, where all roads lead to Rome, as it was said, the reason being it was the center of commerce and government.

And if he could establish there in the church at Rome, these truths, then he could guarantee that those truths would go out throughout the known world.

And so here in this epistle to the Romans, interesting to a church that he knows is already established.

He starts off and in the first 11 chapters, he is establishing them in the gospel.

He is evangelizing the Romans in essence, and he is reminding them of the great truths that they've already been introduced to.

There are already living, vital churches there. There are people meeting there in homes throughout

Rome. You see the names listed at the end of the epistle, the various people that were involved in the church life there in Rome.

And yet he wants to make sure that they are fully aware of what the doctrines of the gospel truly are, knowing that there will come those who will attempt to pervert.

There will come those who will attempt to subvert and undermine the work of the church there in Rome.

And so in these first chapters, in chapters one, two, and halfway through chapter three,

Paul, in essence, focuses upon the bad news, the bad news.

He establishes the universality of sin, the need of man, his utter incapacity.

And in chapter three, he concludes by saying that every man's mouth must be closed.

Every man's tongue must be stopped. No more excuses can be made. No one can point to any self -righteousness.

Instead, every mouth and excuse must be ended so that Jew and Gentile stand on an even basis and both can be justified by faith.

Not one by a mixture of faith and works or one by the law or whatever it might be.

Everyone must stand at the foot of the cross. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.

There's not one person who's going to be a better Christian than another person because of their genealogy or whatever it is that they have done.

All are placed in the exact same position of utter hopelessness so that by faith they can be made right before God.

And so beginning in verse 21 of chapter three, Paul has then laid out for us the doctrine of justification by grace through faith.

He has, for example, said in verse 24 that we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

That this, again, is an act that is free. It is an act that takes place solely within the realm of grace.

It is not earned. It is not merited. And it is based solely upon the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

This redemption that is worked out upon the cross of Calvary. So that there is no boasting, he then concludes, in anyone but in the

Lord, God's work of salvation is a free work. It is based solely upon the work of Christ and there is nothing that we can add to it or any way that we can somehow complete it by something that we do.

But Paul, Paul was a very practical man. Paul recognized and understood that no truth, no matter how clearly it's expressed,

I mean, when you look at verses 21 through 30 of chapter 3, it is just, the clarity and the ease of understanding is amazing.

But Paul recognized there is none of God's truth that cannot be perverted.

There are none of God's truths that cannot be encrusted with tradition over time. And so he recognized that he needed to address certain issues that he himself had faced.

We need to remember that Paul spent quite some time, for example, in Ephesus and he would have dialogues with the

Jews and he would, in essence, have debates with them and he knew what kind of argumentation would be thrown out against the gospel of grace.

He knew exactly how his opponents would respond to the proclamation of verses 21 and following in chapter 3.

And so he lays a defense, he lays a bulwark, he does what you can do to try to head off objections to the truth knowing that even once you've done that, there's going to be some other persons come along, come up with some other way after that, but you need to express the truth anyways.

He heads off some of these objections and in chapter 4, which we've already read this morning, you can see how he deals with this particular issue of the

Jewish person who would come along and say, no, no, no, you need to understand this Paul, this Paul's a renegade.

This Paul has come up with his own viewpoints and his own kind of gospel that really has no connection with the

Old Testament, has nothing to do with the Scriptures and you need to realize that truly to enter into this ministry of Jesus the

Messiah, you need to be circumcised, you need to enter into the covenant community and you need to follow the laws of Moses, etc.,

etc., etc. And so Paul in chapter 4 is going to demonstrate the inconsistency of the

Judaizers just as he did in his entire epistle to the Galatians. The inconsistency that is there is an attempting to wed works of merit with grace and that of course is exactly what man does.

Man is constantly attempting to find some way of meriting something before God so that they have at least some small portion, some small element of credit, shall we say, for the work of salvation itself.

And so I'd like to primarily focus upon verses 4 through 8, maybe touch a little bit on 9 and 10 if the

Lord gives us time to do so. But it is interesting to me, it has always been encouraging to me to note, that in Scripture some of the clearest doctrinal teaching that becomes so vital in the defense of the faith comes up in these places where the truth is placed over against error for reasons of contrast.

The truth shines brightest against a backdrop of error. And so, for example, when

Paul is defending the deity of Christ against those proto -gnostics in Colossae who would make him a mere creature, some of the clearest affirmations of his eternal pre -existence, the fact that he's creator of all things, come out in those contexts.

And in here, dealing with those who would attempt to say that we must do certain things with the idea of receiving something back from God, it is in this context that we have some of the clearest statements about the role of grace and the freedom of grace in salvation itself.

And so Paul begins by bringing up his favorite example. It's obviously exactly what he did when dealing with the

Jews in previous years of his ministry. Let's look at Abraham. Abraham of course is the example for the

Jewish people, the great progenitor of their race. Let's look at Abraham and ask the question, how was

Abraham made right before God? How is it that the very first Jew, shall we say, was made right before God?

Was it by works that he did? Was it by the receiving of circumcision and the law and all the things that the scribes and Pharisees boast in?

Well, of course not, because Abraham lived before those things. In fact, he's the one who received that covenant of circumcision, but was the covenant of circumcision given to an unrighteous man?

Was Abraham made righteous by receiving that? Well, no, and he focuses upon Genesis 15, 6, which he quotes from the

Greek Septuagint in verse 3 of chapter 4. What do the scriptures say? Abraham believed

God and it was reckoned to him, it was imputed to him as righteousness.

That term reckoned, counted, imputed. It was given to his account as righteousness.

What was? His belief in God. And of course he's going to argue, beginning in verse 9, this blessedness, this imputation of righteousness took place before Abraham received the sign of circumcision.

And so Abraham, he's going to argue, was justified without all of the actions that the

Jewish people of his day, of Paul's day, were saying you had to do to become righteous before God.

Even those Judaizers who were saying, oh yes, Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus rose from the dead, but faith in Jesus alone is not enough.

You need to have something more. And Paul is cutting the grounds out from underneath that very kind of assertion.

It is an assertion that is repeated all the time today and yet that is the very thing he is arguing against.

But in the process of, in essence, giving us the inspired apostolic interpretation of Genesis 15, 6,

Paul reveals some truths that not only are vital for us in an apologetic sense, in responding to the accusations against justification that come from Rome or from Salt Lake or whatever, but I'd like to suggest that on an everyday level, for any

Christian who, you may never run into a Mormon missionary and maybe in God's providence you're not going to encounter anyone who is presenting material from This Rock magazine or something in regards to Roman Catholicism, but just on an everyday basis,

I want to remind you that after this argument that Paul presents in Romans 4, he then says in Romans 5, 1, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. I suggest to you that that peace, the peace that we sing about when we sing that beautiful hymn, when peace like a river attendeth my way, when you consider the peace that we talk about in having with God, when we go in prayer to God recognizing that we have a relationship with Him, that His wrath is not going to break forth on us.

His wrath has been fulfilled in Christ, has fallen upon our sins in Christ. We now have shalom.

We have peace with God. That peace is based, as Paul says right there, upon justification by faith.

Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace. The person who has not been justified, the person who has not had that declaration on the part of God the

Father, you are just, you are righteous based upon what Christ has done in your place. That person cannot have peace with God.

That person may desire some kind of peace. That person may actually do religious things that salve the conscience and give a temporary peace but true peace which becomes the basis of prayer.

It becomes the basis of the entire Christian life. How can we even begin to understand what it is to live as Christians if we don't realize that first and foremost we must have peace with our

Creator? We look into our own hearts and we know the depth of the depravity and the sin that lurks there in those shadows and we recognize how easy it is for us to love self more than God in all the decisions that we make during the course of the day and we go, how could

I possibly have a relationship with a holy God? Justification becomes the very basis of how we can have that relationship and hence even live the

Christian life. And so the comments that I share with you briefly this morning in regards to verses 4 through 8 and the blessedness of the non -imputation of our sin, you might listen to a word like that and go, oh it sounds so theological or it sounds so dry but in reality it's the very basis of life itself.

The idea of dividing up the truth of God from then the experience of the

Christian life is simply nothing that can be done, the basis of the scripture itself. Paul links them together intimately and so we must see these truths, understand these truths so that we can revel in the peace that has been provided for us in Jesus Christ.

And so in verses 4 and 5 and just on a very practical level I would suggest to you that if you're ever in a situation where you encounter a person who is specifically opposing the proclamation of justification by grace through faith alone, that this would be the first place

I go to if I was limited to only one passage of scripture to attempt to defend these things.

This is where I would go. Commit these words to memory. You might be able to utilize them in many situations in sharing with someone that maybe you've discovered they understand the necessity of a

Savior but they don't understand the sufficiency of the Saviorhood of Jesus Christ and so they're striving for worthiness, they're trying to add something to what

Christ has done. This is where I would go to show them the futility of that kind of activity.

Specifically verses 4 and 5 you need to understand them and we don't just want to read a verse to someone.

We want to be able to present it within a particular context and to be able to explain to the person exactly what the text is saying.

And so in verses 4 and 5 you have a direct contrast. In fact it is very striking.

I have a PowerPoint presentation on this but I'm always uncomfortable doing those during worship services where I lay out these two verses and Paul could not make it any clearer that he is drawing a 180 degree contrast between the attitudes and actions of the one working in verse 4 and the one not working in verse 5.

In fact the first words of each verse in the original language are identical to one another except that in verse 5 you just simply put not in the middle of it so that the verse 4 refers to the one working and verse 5 to the opposite of that, the one not working but rather believing.

And so here we have a definition given to us of what real saving faith is and the relationship between saving faith and the concept of working so as to gain something.

Notice verse 4, now to the one working, the reward or literally it's the wage, it's the technical term used for if you go to work on Friday and you've put in your 40 hours that week and you receive a paycheck, your wage, your paycheck, this is the term that's being used here, to the one working the wage, the reward is not counted or imputed or given to that individual on the basis of grace or as a gift but rather according to what is owed, it is a debt.

Now this is a simple statement, it is a very easily understood statement on the part of the

Apostle Paul that when you work, when you go to work, your wage is not a gift, it is what is owed to you.

In all the cultures of men when you agree to be in the employ of another, whether it's in the simplest culture where you're just going to pick things out of a field for someone or if it's in a high tech culture such as our own where you're going to be engaged in some of the work that some of you do in doing computer programming and troubleshooting and things like that, whatever it might be, if you put in a certain amount of time doing a certain kind of work, your employer owes you something and it's called pay.

The fact that you show up to work even when you don't feel like it and maybe don't want to be there and would like to be anywhere else but there, the fact that you show up and you do your job results in a debt or obligation being placed upon the one for whom you're doing the work.

Now unless you're a volunteer, unless you are working for maybe a non -profit organization as a volunteer, when you go to work you expect that at some point in the future, hopefully not the too distant future, you will in fact receive your paycheck.

That's why you're there. You're not there for free. You went through the interview process and a wage was agreed upon and certain maybe health benefits and things like that.

You signed a contract and it's now understood that when I show up I'm going to receive something for my showing up.

Now most of us probably believe it's not nearly as much as we actually deserve but we're still going to show up for it anyways no matter what the case.

That means that the person who is working in verse 4 is working with the expectation of receiving something back for the work that is done.

That is the very attitude that Paul then contrasts with the saving faith that brings about righteousness in verse 5.

He says to the not working one but instead the one believing upon the one who justifies the ungodly.

Now you need to see every word here because it's very important. First of all as I said he uses the not working one and that doesn't flow real nice.

That's not exactly an NIV translation but that's literally what it says. The not working one, the opposite of the one who goes in expecting to receive reward.

What's the opposite attitude of doing things with the understanding that there's going to be a result of that?

Paul says the opposite attitude is believing on the one who justifies the ungodly.

There is nothing in this act of faith, there is nothing in this believing upon the

God who justifies the ungodly that in any way shape or form creates a relationship of debt and debtor.

There is nothing in what we do when we believe in God, we believe in the one who justifies the ungodly that places

God in a position of saying okay you've done something meritorious, now since you've done something meritorious

I will respond to that by doing X, Y, or Z. That is the very kind of attitude, the very kind of thinking that Paul is arguing against and that marks truly the religions of men.

There is an abandonment of all self -righteousness, there is an abandonment of all thought that there's something that I can do to somehow gain some righteousness to God in these words.

To the one not working but believing upon the one who justifies the ungodly.

The faith looks away from myself, it doesn't look in at myself and say well I think I can do this, this, and this.

And maybe if the gospel plan is simple enough, maybe it's only a three step plan or a four step plan, maybe

I can do that, maybe I can hold on long enough. It is so sad when

I remember I was very young and I had a relative who was in the

Marines and I remember he was over in Vietnam, that gives you some idea of how old I am. I remember

I wanted all the little G .I. Joes that had the Marine stuff on it because my relative was in the

Marines and it was sort of sad. He survived Vietnam and very shortly after coming back from Vietnam was driving across a bridge and it was iced up and he lost control of the vehicle and died on the bridge.

He survived the Viet Cong but couldn't survive the bridge he was driving on. And one of my parents,

I forget which one it was, went to the funeral and when they came back, and I was only about seven or eight at this time,

I remember, and it really stuck with me, the family did not believe in justification by grace through faith.

They were involved in a work salvation system and I believe it was my mother who reported that his mother was just so frightened and so scared that her son didn't make it to heaven because maybe in those last few moments he had had a bad thought, an evil thought.

He hadn't done what he needed to do. Maybe he had sinned that morning and had lost his salvation and now he was in hell.

There was no hope. There was nothing there at all. And that's the kind of thinking that says, well you've got to do this.

Because they talk about Jesus. They talk about the cross. But there was no real hope because the focus was not upon the

God who justifies, but have I done what I need to do to allow

Him to justify. There's nothing here about allowing Him to justify. There's nothing here about empowering

God. That's a good fourth generation management term that's used all over the United States now. We empower

God. No, we don't empower God. Our faith, that empty hand of faith that brings nothing in.

There's no bribes. It's not like when the little kids come up to mommy and daddy and bring you some little something so maybe to butter you up a little bit.

You know, it's an empty candy wrapper or something like that. But you know, they think, yeah, that might help. There's nothing. There's no bribes in the hand.

It's an empty hand of faith that reaches out not expecting to receive anything because of any merit, but looking solely upon someone else.

It looks away from us. It is focused upon the God who justifies who?

The ungodly. Not the self -righteous. Not the ones who say,

I'm godly. That's not the one who hears this. Remember the publican and the sinner? The publican and the

Pharisee, I'm sorry. The Pharisee stands there and Luke and I thank you God I'm not like that publican back there and I tithe and I do this and I do that.

And then the publican stands afar off and beats upon his breast and says be merciful to me, the sinner.

And Jesus taught very clearly the one who asked for mercy went down to his house justified, not the one who was so proud of his righteousness.

So against the natural thinking of man is this proclamation that when

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism decided to come up with a new translation of the Bible, he couldn't let this verse stand.

And so he puts the negative into this sentence. The God who does not justify the ungodly.

He undid the gospel because he could not understand its freedom. He undid the gospel because he thought that you could be godly, that you could make yourself godly.

Indeed, Moroni chapter 10 verse 32 in the Book of Mormon says that if you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and if you will rid yourself of all ungodliness, then is the grace of Christ sufficient for you.

Love God perfectly and rid yourself of all ungodliness. Why do you need the grace of Christ at that point?

If you can love God perfectly and rid yourself of all ungodliness, what does it matter? Obviously we all know that without the grace of God, without the grace of Christ, one could never love

God or rid oneself of ungodliness in the first place. But such is the heart of the religions of man that when we hear of the

God who justifies the ungodly, we hear we go, well, wait a minute, shouldn't

I just sort of clean myself up first a little bit? Maybe I can get rid of a few habits here before I come to Christ and do this, that, and the other thing.

No. God is the one who justifies the ungodly. And Paul concludes by saying in this verse that it's that faith, his faith, the faith that does not bring anything with it that pleads no merit except the merit of Christ.

That is the faith that is reckoned as righteousness. That is the faith that Abraham had.

Abraham brought nothing in his hand. He did not try to bribe God into considering him a righteous person.

And hence, just sort of in passing almost, but it's so beautiful, he includes these words, verse 6, just as David also speaks of the blessedness upon the man to whom

God reckons righteousness apart from works. There's the inspired interpretation of Genesis 15, 6 and of Psalm chapter 32 in the

English translation, Psalm 31, the Greek Septuagint, which is quoted in verses 7 through 8. What's the inspired apostolic interpretation?

God imputes or reckons righteousness apart from works, without works, outside of the realm of works.

Notice it doesn't say works of law. So many try to get around this, oh, this is just the Mosaic law. This is just the

Mosaic law. New book just came out from James Aiken of Catholic Answers, interestingly enough called the

Salvation Controversy. I don't think I copyrighted the term controversy anyways, but I wonder where that came from.

The Salvation Controversy, and that's the whole way around it in there, is this is just the

Mosaic law, this is just the ceremonial law, has nothing to do with other kinds of works. But notice it doesn't say works of law.

It says apart from works. What kind of works? Meritorious works, whatever those works might be.

God reckons righteousness apart from works. And then it's fascinating.

Paul says he's going to prove that David was speaking about the imputation of righteousness apart from works.

But notice what David actually says in the quotation. He speaks of the blessedness, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, whose sins have been covered over.

Blessed is the man whose sins the Lord's will not account against him, or literally, whose sins the

Lord will not take into account or will not impute. Now, first he says in verse six,

I'm going to talk about the imputation of righteousness, the reckoning of righteousness to a person.

God takes righteousness and He imputes it to our account. We have none of our own.

We've abandoned all efforts at self -righteousness. We need a perfect righteousness, and it can only come from God.

But then when Paul gives the quotation, the quotation is all in the context of the forgiveness of lawless deeds, the forgiveness of sins, and the non -imputation of our sins to us.

This is the basis of what theologians have for a long time referred to as the double imputation of Christ's righteousness.

And here we have the imputation of our sins to Christ and then the imputation of His righteousness to us.

He bears our sins in His body upon the cross. The wrath of God falls upon Him in our place.

And yet, if all we had was merely the removal of sin, that would just take us back to a neutral point.

There are positive commands in the law. Love God perfectly. Love your neighbor as yourself. We haven't done those things.

How then can we enter into His presence in fullness? Well, we need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

And so we have in verse 8 this beautiful passage, and I love to ask people when they are involved in work salvation systems, who is the blessed man of Romans 4 .8?

Who is the blessed man of Romans 4 .8? I submit to you that Roman Catholicism has no answer to that question.

I have asked many a Roman Catholic, cleric, priest, apologist. Some of the answers

I've been given, well, the blessed man is the adult convert who has just been baptized before he walks out of the church.

I actually had someone tell me that. You see, because if you're an adult convert, you get baptized, all your sins are washed away.

And before you walk out of the church and have an opportunity to sin, you're the blessed man. Yeah, that fits Paul's argument just perfectly, doesn't it?

I had a Roman Catholic priest in a debate in May of this year. I think he'd like to take this answer back, but when

I asked him, who is the blessed man? He said, Christ, whose sins will not be counted against Him.

I think not everyone's exactly built for debates, and sometimes you say silly things in the midst of one of them, and that was one of the silly things.

And so I pushed him on that particular subject. Are you the blessed man? I hope to be.

I hope to be. But there really isn't any answer within Roman Catholicism, because if you're a former

Catholic, you know that if you commit a venial sin, it is imputed to you, you bear the punishment of it.

If you commit a mortal sin, it's imputed to you, you bear the punishment. There is no such thing as non -imputation of sin in Roman Catholic theology.

Why can there be non -imputation of sin for us? Because it's already been imputed to Christ. But you see, we have a perfect sin bearer.

They have the Mass. And since the Mass is never complete, since the Mass never accomplishes the perfect redemption of those for whom it's made, then they have no basis for non -imputation of sin.

The same is true with Mormons or anybody else. Well, I hope, I hope. But you see, the whole message of Romans chapter 4 is this isn't something you hope to somehow gain.

This is the description of every Christian. If you're a believer, you're the blessed man.

If you have peace with God, you're the blessed man, the blessed woman, because your sins are not imputed to you.

They've been imputed to your sin bearer in your place. That is the message of the

Gospel. That is what it means to be justified. You hear that proclamation come forth from the lips of the sovereign of the universe, the judge who does all things well.

He says, righteous, just, not because of anything we've done, but because of the perfection of the work of His Son in behalf of His people.

And that's why in Romans chapter 8, that golden chain of redemption, foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified, they're all past tense, they're all actions of God.

Every single one who is justified will be glorified. How can that be if justification is actually an act that we bring about and that we have to remain worthy of?

It makes no sense, obviously. It is a divine act, and hence it is certain in its accomplishment.

What is at stake in these truths? Well, obviously the Apostle Paul felt it was vital enough to emphasize in his writing to the church at Rome.

Think about it. You're writing to the greatest city, the church in the greatest city in the ancient world, and what did

Paul want to make sure that people understood? How it is that a man is made right before God.

Have these truths been twisted and turned in every possible way and shape? Yes, they have. But as long as God preserves

His Word, as long as God is faithful to His promises to build His church, as long as the

Holy Spirit dwells within the hearts of men and women, that Spirit is going to drive those men and women to His Word and going to give understanding and enlightenment, and there will be those who recognize,

I'm the blessed man, not because of anything of worth within me, but because God in His infinite grace raised me to spiritual life, gave me the gifts of faith and repentance, and I stand before God not because of anything

I have done, but solely and completely because of what my Savior has done in my place.