Justification and Sanctification

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. I�m going to talk in my radio voice today. How about you, Steve?

I�m going to do everything I can to speak in my radio voice. Thank you very much for reminding me.

I thought you were going to say, �I�m going to do everything I can to speak in tongues. Did you ever speak in tongues as a Mormon? Nine. Did they encourage such a thing?

Nicht. How many years of German did you take? One. Oh, yeah. All right. And it was a blast because I took it with my daughter, so that was a lot of fun. Well, that worked out pretty well. How do you say, like� Are you going to ask me to say something in German?

Well, like daughter.

What�s daughter? I don�t even� I mean, my woman, I know mein Frau or something like that.

We took that, I�m going to say, like 15, 16 years ago, and so I don�t really remember. Okay. Reading anything good these days? Well, let�s see. I�m still in the Sinclair Ferguson book, the �In the Year of Our Lord� thing.

I haven�t finished that. I don�t have that. Is it good? Yeah. You know, I�m enjoying it. It�s kind of like an overview of church history. It�s a little different because, you know, he brings in some theological issues, and sometimes I�m like, �I wish he�d clarify that that guy is Roman Catholic, you know

So, you know, it�s interesting because he�s kind of demythologizing some myths about history that we hear and stuff like that, but yeah, I find it pretty good.

I have his �Pastors and Teachers� preacher�s book or whatever, the big thick one, and I�m slowly trying to work through that. But I have these problems in my life, and one of my problems is I just get sidetracked with, you know, 40 different books that I�m trying to read.

Probably literally 40 different ones started in some different.

May I suggest that 40 is probably too many.

But you see, there�s books here, there�s books there. Oh, there�s my wife�s ukulele. What�s that doing here? There�s a ukulele over by the Hudson Taylor commentary.

Now, we don�t believe in ADD, but look at that ukulele. It�s like some dog, you know?

Look at that car pulling in the parking lot. Yeah, see that? Look at that rain out there. I didn�t think it rained this much in Burbank. Did you? No, it doesn�t. Hey, I wanted to ask you, because Inquiring Minds want to know, I think the ShepherdsConference .org site, it doesn�t have the speakers listed anymore.

What do you think is going to happen with the speakers? My guess is MacArthur and Phil Johnson are still speaking.

Well, I�ve been asked not to speak about that just yet. Oh, they asked you to speak. It�s not a public issue yet. Okay, all right. I can�t really say. I can neither confirm nor connive.

Neither confirm nor connive? Yeah. How about odds over-unders for Mohler speaking?

I�m not taking any action on that. My guess is, I don�t think he is. Really? That�s just, you know. I think he is. Okay. Devereux? I think he is.

H .P. Charles? Is he supposed to be speaking? Yeah, he probably isn�t. Really? I don�t know. Is he? Okay, I was going to say no to the first two and yes to him.

Okay. Oh, well, it�s a four-day or two, isn�t it? Yeah. Okay.

Yes, he is. All right. If they asked you to speak, what would you talk about? Humility. Humility. Well, today on the show, instead of talking about humility, I want to talk a little bit about this whole kind of modern issue that�s going on that is not so modern.

It just rears its head up all the time, and that is the two different categories of justification and sanctification. And I think the maxim is true, that you�re saved by faith alone, but that faith isn�t alone.

What do we mean when we say that?

I was thinking of all kinds of funny things to say. That faith�well, let me put it�let me just take a step back and say it this way, that when the God of the universe invades your life and changes you, transforms you, causes you to be born again, he doesn�t leave you exactly the same way as you were before.

A change comes about. Well, how do I know that? Because he changed your attitude about him. He changed your attitude about himself. So your actions, therefore, are going to change. You know, a Christian, somebody who says that they�re a Christian, well, when did you get saved?

Last week, you know. Well, why are you still going to strip clubs and bars and, you know, all those kind of things? Well, because I like it. Okay. Well, I don�t know what to tell you, except for maybe you weren�t saved.

I like it.

Okay, so that�s the second part, that faith isn�t alone, because God regenerates you and you are a new creature in Christ Jesus, and you�ll respond to God�s work in your life and the change of your nature, and you will do godly things, and they�ll be the fruit of the Spirit, et cetera.

That�s the second half. Yes, yes, absolutely. Your actions are going to follow your nature, right? You choose different things.

The first half, you�re saved by faith alone. This requires us to think through it a little bit more, because since God is holy and righteous and just, He requires holy, righteous, just people, and because of the fall, we�re not.

Therefore, we have to trust in the holy and just and righteous Jesus and trust in His work for us as one who is obedient and one who died on the cross. And, therefore, it says in Romans 4, 5, �One who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

So, faith alone essentially says, I offer nothing but sin, but I�m trusting in the one, faith in Jesus alone is really the long hand for that short hand of Scripture. So, you have to trust alone for your legal standing in Christ Jesus, and then, of course, once you�re justified, sanctification will happen, but we don�t want to jam the two together and put them in the same category like a certain institution has always done.

What would that institution�s name be?

That institution would be the Roman Catholic Church.

And I�ve noticed, Steve, the last five years or so that I�ve been studying the doctrine of justification and trying to read different books. I really like the Buchanan book on justification. I appreciated the Fesco book on justification.

Anyway, Calvin, I think Nate Pickowitz is redoing Calvin�s justification as a stand-alone book.

Nate Pickowitz is like, I don�t want to say he�s stealing from everybody, but, you know, he�s basically plundering the archives of church history, isn�t he?

Well, I think so, and I think I might have to have a talk with him about that.

He�s probably making a mint on it. I think Nate�s just up there stacking his cash. Probably like cordwood. Oh, yeah. That cash is just stacked up. He probably has to, like, he�s putting it in the freezer.

The bank is just like, �Please don�t bring us any more money, Mr. Pickowitz. We can�t handle it.

If you have to stand before God based on your works, i .e. sanctification, those works aren�t perfect. They�re tainted with sin. You�re going to be in big trouble, but the Roman Catholic Church does that, and some modern evangelicals do that.

I don�t have to name the names today. I�ve named them other times, but that is a problem, is conflating or equating or jamming into the same category, justification, sanctification.

They are completely different issues. I mean, we are declared righteous, and then the process of sanctification begins.

Correct, and was it, I think it was Olivianus, he talked about a two-fold gracious gift of God. There�s a Latin term, I can�t remember it at the moment, but it�s justification and sanctification. You know, this is what Christ does for His people.

He justifies them and He sanctifies them. And I think you�re right, Steve, if people looked at their lives and saw no fruit and no evidence, and they said, �I don�t really believe, except intellectually they ought to ask themselves the question, �How can I call myself a Christian

Yeah. I mean, they should be concerned, right? And if you think that your sanctification contributes to your justification, in a different way, Steve, I think you should ask the question, �Then how can I call myself a Christian

Because if my standing legally before God is based on anything I�ve done, I think those people overestimate their own righteousness and underestimate God�s righteous standards. It�s kind of like what Luther said.

He just posted that the other day. And I think it�s true, right? Because in our minds, I�m going to put it this way, to some extent, I think we come out of the spiritual womb, as it were, Roman Catholics, because we think that we get saved and like, I�ll just talk about me, you know, as soon as I get saved, what do I do?

Well, I start looking at the sinful, not just the sin in my life, but things I perceive to be sinful influences, right? And so I want to radically get rid of everything in my life. And so, you know, I get rid of all my albums and I get, whether, you know, some of them probably needed to be gotten rid of, but, you know, other ones, maybe not so much.

But I just, I want to chop off everything, you know, I want radical amputation. And you know, maybe I go a little crazy, you know, but again, it�s this idea that somehow what I�m doing is pleasing to the Lord and ultimately His ultimate pleasure, the Father�s ultimate pleasure is in His Son, not in me.

Now I don�t want to sin, but I need to not overestimate, as you were saying, you know, my own actions.

The other day I was listening to Jesse Johnson do a Sunday night service on a biographical character. And I thought, �Oh, well, at least it�s not Sunday morning. Mark Twain. And he did it on Lady Jane Grey, and I had just been to London not that long ago with my family.

And, you know, you go to Tower of London and this is where she was beheaded and all these kind of things. And he was quoting, Jesse was quoting from the Fox�s Book of Martyrs, the account of Lady Jane Grey.

And I made you a copy of that today. And she was very Protestant, she was very studious, and she would study her Greek text and would love to know these doctrines. So if you work your way down, halfway, there�s an account of this man named Fecnum, alias Hauman, and he was sent by the queen to convince Lady Jane Grey to become a Roman Catholic.

Actually the queen, she didn�t really want to kill Lady Jane Grey, but she knew she had to, unless we could get Lady Jane Grey to take the Mass and, you know, say Protestantism was wrong. And so they send this big shot, you know, this is the big shot debater and the young girl with her Greek New Testament.

You know, this is, you pay money to see this, by the way.

So today this would be the professional Roman Catholic apologist versus, you know, a new convert.

Yeah, a homeschool girl or something, you know, she�s 15. I don�t know how old Lady Jane Grey was here, I know she was old enough to have been married and stuff like that, but anyway, she�s young. Now here�s the fascinating thing that I see, Steve.

In this debate of justification and sanctification, where of course one follows the other, but of course you can�t blend the two, they�re separate. Lady Jane Grey nails it. I was so happy looking through this account.

So halfway through, he says to Jane, �What is then required of a Christian man �Jane, that he should believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons and one God. Kind of nice Trinitarian answer there.

What? Is there nothing else to be required or looked for in a Christian but to believe in Him? Notice what he�s doing now. Duties of a Christian, law, you know, she gives the gospel, well, yeah, what about the law for a Christian?

�Jane, we must love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourself. Why? �Then faith justifieth not, or saveth not �Yes, verily faith, as Paul sayeth, only justifies.

Why? St. Paul said, �If I have all faith without love, it is nothing. Do you see what he�s trying to do to her?

Yeah. He�s trying to put her back under the lock. Come on, woman.

So, you know, this is like somebody from, I don�t know, the people that teach doctoral-level classes at Notre Dame, right? You got the fifth grade, you know, not fifth grade, let�s not make it that. You just got the 20-year-old young lady, she�s saved.

�Jane said, �True it is. For how can I love Him whom I trust not, or how can I trust Him whom I love not? Faith and love go both together, and yet love is comprehended in faith. How shall we love our neighbor Fecham said.

�To love our neighbor is to feed the hungry, etc Now, Fecham, �Why then is it necessary unto salvation to do good works also, and it is not sufficient only to believe.

Now, I�ll let you answer the rest because it�s perfect, this last answer.

She says, you want me to read what she�s going to say? I deny that. �And I affirm that faith only saveth, but it is meet for a Christian in token that he followeth his master Christ to do good works. Yet may we not say that they profit to our salvation, for when we have done all, yet we be unprofitable servants, and faith only in Christ�s blood saveth us.

It was so classic.

He's trying to get her to confuse law and gospel, because I think essentially that's what the problem is with justification and sanctification, and she will not do it. Of course I have a duty to love, but that's in response to what God has done for me, and I'm trusting in the Lord Jesus, and the overflow, the expected response is going to be I'm going to love other people, and now I actually have the ability to love God and to love my neighbor as myself.

I like, I'll rephrase it, but when she says, you know, even when we've done everything that we can possibly do, we're still unprofitable servants, and it's only Christ's blood that avails for us. That's our only plea.

I have nothing else to offer other than Jesus Christ, life and death. Steve, great insight.

Therefore, why would we try to say that our sanctified life can contribute anything to our legal standing, except maybe to affirm that, in fact, that legal standing is good? Right. In other words, the ground of your salvation is Christ's life and death.

And we like to say, because it's true, confirmed by the resurrection. But the evidences, the fruits, are these other things, and let's not confuse the two. The ground of your standing with God isn't your fruit, because if it was, how are you feeling today?

Not so good. I know. When you just did that, I played for my kids the other day, speaking of ADD, the Frito Bandito commercial. Aye, aye, aye, aye. And I did not know something, Steve. It was stunned by Mel Blanc, the voice.

Well, that doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me, but I didn't know it. He's pretty awesome. I love Frito's corn chips. I love them, I do. I like Frito's corn chips. I take them from you. I get them for you, yeah.

Aye, aye, aye, aye. I think that probably would be considered an inappropriate commercial these days. That's cultural appropriation. I think that is. Party foul. Now, when you were growing up, I mean, it's a completely different era.

I mean, we said things like Indian giver. I think that's probably way off the table now.

I mean, it's funny to me because, you know, we grew up, I mean, the kids I was closest to, we had a variety of ethnicities. And all we did was make fun of each other's ethnicity and religion and all the, I mean, that's all we did.

We were friends, but that's what we did.

There's a Catholic church across the street. And of course, we Protestant boys, the Lutheran boys, we would always make fun of them and they'd make fun of us. And how many Polack jokes can you hear, right, growing up?

A ton. You know, how many, I mean, and I remember my best friend was Catholic and I didn't really know much about it. But, you know, I drew up little cartoons of him selling cookies, you know, as Sister, his name was Troy.

Sister Troy. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, it was just, this is just what we did. I mean, I won't even tell you some of the things we did, but everything, it was just all about making fun of each other and size and weight and everything was, you know, on the, that's all we did.

And Steve, I know I probably said things as a kid and even as an adult that, you know, are not appropriate. And that's just because they weren't appropriate. But now we've gone so far with our speech rules and regulations and how we can say things about people or not say them.

I hate it when in the back of my mind, I have to think, am I allowed to say that? Am I going to come across as a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a something else-ist? I don't like that.

And it's also crazy. I mean, I went to a bar mitzvah when I was 13. One of my good friends had his bar mitzvah and I went to that and I gave him a present and I love the food and, you know, I used to go hang out at his house and play games and I mean, all these, you know, all these, we all joked around, but we didn't, we didn't get into fights.

We didn't hate each other, you know, and maybe we were just spared this, that there was no social media, you know, because that just seems to, you and I talk about email, but all this stuff, it just turns everything up to 11 because people impute the worst possible motives to you and they say nasty things.

And I think the, you know, if email was bad, social media is worse because there's that veil of anonymity that just makes people think that they can just be as vicious as they want to be. I mean, you probably, you get that because you're on Twitter a lot, you probably get a lot of that.

And I'm just like, I don't even understand that. I always want to be, you know, act like I'm talking to a real person instead of, you know, just some picture of a person that I can spit on or, you know, whatever.

Steve, it's interesting with email, at least you can have, you know, thanks, Mike Ebendorff, right? You know, it's already programmed in, I know, but still it says thanks and it's got my name there. And, but you know, texting or IMing or some of these other things, you don't even have to put your name down.

You have to say thanks. You don't have to say, you know, emoji, smiley face or whatever. Anyway, today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about a lot of things, but the most important thing is that your justification has to be a perfect justification, and therefore you have to look outside of yourself.

It has to be Christ who was born of a woman, born under law, then He perfectly keeps the law and earns righteousness so that He might bestow it to you. He just doesn't take God the Father's righteousness and somehow transfer it over.

No, Christ earns righteousness by keeping the law. He gives that to us as a representative, dies for our sins as a sacrifice. We trust in Him. Jesus is raised from the dead. He's vindicated and He is raised for our justification.

And then, new category, there will be a sanctification in your life because the same God who justified you based on the Son's life, you will begin to be sanctified because in Him we have sanctification, 1 Corinthians 1.

You're going to be conformed to the image of His Son. This is what the Spirit does. One day we'll be like He is, and that doesn't just happen instantly, for most of us anyway, at death. It's a process that takes place in this life and then is finished after we die.

And we don't mind saying process when we talk about sanctification, but we do mind when you say process when it comes to justification.

Yeah, because again, what does that say? That says that in some way, it depends on you. And boy, if it depends on the man who runs or the man who wills, that man is in a lot of trouble. Forget you.

Now, Lady Jane Grey is then asked about sacraments. And so you can see where Fakim is going, and he says at the very bottom, we don't have much time for anything else. But he said, why doth not Christ speak these words, take, eat, this is my body, require you any plainer words?

Doth he not say, it is his body? Now, Jane responds, go ahead. I grant he said so.

And he said, I am the vine, I am the door, but he is never the more for that door or the vine, does St. Paul say. He calls things that are not as though they were. God forbid that I should say that I eat the very natural body and blood of Christ.

For then either I should pluck away my redemption, or else there were two bodies or two Christ's. One body was tormented on the cross. And if they did eat, turn the page, another body, then had he two bodies.

Or if his body were eaten, then it was not broken upon the cross. Or if it was broken upon the cross, it was not eaten of his disciples.

She is so smart. You go to the upper room, we're taking the Passover meal and turning it into the first supper, i .e., the Lord's Supper, communion. And this is my body when Jesus said that. And how many bodies does he have?

And he wasn't inviting his disciples to be cannibals, right? I mean, let's just, you know, he wasn't saying here, you know, have a little bit of my ankle, you know, or something. That is not what he was saying.

So I mean, if you want to take crass literalism to its most literal literalism, you have a number of problems, as she points out. You know, he said that on a couple of different occasions. So when was it that they were to consume his body?

I think Jesus also said that he was the bread of life. And what does he mean when he says that? I'm the bread, I'm the door, I'm the vine, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life, I'm the resurrection and the life.

And I think there, you know, we want to read the Bible in a normal, plain way, but if you go hyper-literalistic, you run into a lot of problems, i .e., the Roman Catholic Church. Yes. Yeah. So I'd encourage you to read, you can pull it up online, just type in Lady Jane Grey, Fox's Book of Martyrs, and you get the 12-page account of Lady Jane Grey in front of the queen and in front of her interrogators.

And then she goes and she, you know, puts the blindfold on and she can't find the block and, you know, her hands aren't tied, she can't find it, somebody help me, the executioner doesn't want to touch her, and finally somebody jumps up and helps her and puts her head down and it's crazy.

All she would have to do is say, I believe in Mary, I believe in Roman Catholic Church, I'll take the Mass.

I'm not for putting anybody to death because of their religious views, I just want to go on, you know, on the record of saying that. Because I think there are some, you know, sins that people commit where they probably ought to be put to death, but that is not one.

Because I would hope that they would repent, and I would love to reason with them from the Scriptures, hoping that they would.

Absolutely. And we want them long, to be alive long enough to then repent. Right, exactly. I mean, if you kill somebody else, I think you should be killed, but if you just believe something that's going to kill you eternally, I want you to be alive long enough to repent.

Well, my name is Mike Abendroth, this is Steve Cooley, you can write us, info at nocompromiseradio .com. And we are starting to ramp up new shows, it is now November here in New England.

Man, let's get that Christmas theme music going, right?

I know, there's going to be a lot of country Christmas songs coming. Awesome.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.