The Perfections Of God - His Justice

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We have talked, you know, there are many things we could say about our God. He is omnipresent He is omniscient.
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He is omnipotent. He is omnicompetent and on and on and on we could go I wish We had about a dozen different opportunities
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To talk to you about his attributes We've only talked about two so far.
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We'll turn now to talk about a Moral attribute in God God's Righteousness or God's justice.
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I Remind you that our little shorter catechism to our children tells us that God is spirit infinite eternal and Unchangeable in his being wisdom power holiness
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Justice there it is justice Goodness Truth, let us pray by our attendance upon your word this morning.
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Oh Lord Enable us to know you more perfectly To love and to adore you more fully and To determine to serve you more single -mindedly
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Blesses as we think this morning about Your Righteousness your justice and We pray this in Christ's name.
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Amen. What does the Bible mean when it talks about?
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God being infinitely eternally and unchangeably just What comes to your mind when you reflect upon the justice or the righteousness of God Does God's justice frighten you?
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Does his righteousness? console you Well, we shall see that it may and can do both depending upon your standing before him
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Let me begin by making a distinction That I can tell you right now
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Now, let me give you a few little Facts there are about there are about six and a half
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Billion of us folk running around on this earth about at this time about six and a half billion human beings about a
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Billion and a half of those Maybe two billion of them profess to be believers or Christians Now you have to understand when
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I say That about two billion people in the world profess to be Christians.
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That's including all kinds of Christians Many of which we would not regard as Christians.
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I mean that includes I mean the one when I'm talking about these two billion
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Christians that's including Roman Catholics Greek Orthodox Russian Orthodox Anglican Lutheran all kinds of Protestants that includes
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Jehovah's Witnesses Mooney's Christian scientists every
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Body under the Sun of whatever kind who would claim to be? Christian About two billion of us
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Although you and I would quickly say that we just can't believe in the light of God's Word that that many of those two billion really
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Have a clue About what it really means to be
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Christian so with that distinction there are about four and a half a billion people outside of the church
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There are about four and a half billion people who don't know anything about the distinction that I'm getting ready to tell you about and Sadly, I have to tell you that Most of the people within Christendom don't know anything about this distinction
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Which I'm getting ready to tell you about the
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Bible speaks of God's Righteousness or justice
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In two ways the Bible talks about God's righteousness as a
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Retributive righteousness a Retributive righteousness
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And as a Distributive righteousness Retributive Distributive you've got it.
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That's the distinction that I'm going to be working with this morning and Most Most of the people of this world
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Don't know anything about this distinction, and that's too bad because as a result
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If they think there's only One kind of righteousness namely God's retributive righteousness
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They're going to try to please him by their works And we'll have to develop that for you to begin our exposition
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God's Justice or righteousness means that he is necessarily righteous
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In all his judicial judgments. He always rewards his rational creatures
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Directly and accurately Proportional to their works showing partiality to none in Always acquitting the righteous and always condemning the guilty
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The Bible describes God as the judge of all the earth Moses declares that the
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Lord is the rock his works are perfect and all his ways are just a
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Faithful God who does no wrong Upright Just and upright is he but whereas human judges are righteous judges if and when they adhere to the righteous law above them
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God is the righteous judge of all the earth knows no standard of law above him in conformity to which he must render his judicial his judicial decisions the criterion of justice to which he conforms is every judgment is
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Innate and Intrinsic to him namely his own holy perfect and righteous knowledge of the truth
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Accordingly the creature need have no fear that he will be judged someday by the arbitrary fiat of an unjust divine tyrant he may rest assured that God's justice is grounded in his infinite wisdom and Knowledge his commitment to truth and the demand for just judgments that his own holy nature imposes upon him
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His decisions at the great white throne judgment will be so just and righteous That no one will be able to question them not once in the billions and billions of times that human beings will appear before him
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This is the reason I would suggest that Paul says that every mouth will be silenced at the judgment bar of God Does God pervert justice
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Does the Almighty pervert what is right Job asks never Will not the judge of all the earth do right?
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Yes always His judgments are and will ever be unquestionably
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Incontrovertibly and unassailably right and just What we have been describing thus far highlights the fact that God's justice is
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Retributive or punitive in nature
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Acting retributively God reacts to human conduct both good and evil with absolute propriety
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He condones nothing and he overlooks no mitigating or extenuating factor
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Since dishonoring the infinite God by sinning against him is Worse than destroying countless worlds even the impenitent smallest sin
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Has infinite disvalue for which no created good can compensate God By way of satisfaction so God in retributive justice or righteousness judges the impenitent as wicked and The Bible teaches this very plainly so now for some
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Retributive justice text you're going to want these afterwards son. I'm just going to read the text retributive justice
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God punishing Wickedness and evil and sin here it is.
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God is a righteous judge a God who expresses his wrath every day.
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He will judge the world in righteousness He will govern the peoples with justice you will
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Lord surely You will reward each person according to what he has done
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The Lord the God who avenges the God who avenges shines forth rise up Oh judge of the earth pay back to the proud what they deserve
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How long will the wicked O Lord? How long will the wicked triumph say among the nations the
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Lord reigns? He will judge the peoples with equity. He will judge the world in righteousness
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The Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice and the Holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness
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The Lord our God is righteous and everything he does You were storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed
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God will give to every person according to what he has done. What shall we say?
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That God is unjust and bringing his wrath upon us certainly not For if that were so, how could
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John God judge the world and Finally God's judgment is right.
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God is just he will pay back Trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you
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Who are troubled? Those are what we call retributive justice texts retributive justice
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God Retributing or showing retribution In kind to the sinner perhaps someone is asking
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Do you really expect me to believe that God will judge in retributive righteousness?
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the impenitent sinner for his sin I Will only say here that it is all too clear from Holy Scripture that he will indeed do so For according to Scripture he has already demonstrated that he will
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God cast the angels who sinned against him out of heaven and delivered them into everlasting chains of darkness to be reserved
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Until the great judgment day when he will consign them to the lake of fire forever
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He destroyed the entire Antediluvian antediluvian before the flood meaning before the flood
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He destroyed the entire antediluvian world of mankind with the exception of Noah and his family because the wickedness of mankind against him then
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Became great in the earth With every inclination of the thoughts of every person being only evil continually he rained down fire and brimstone upon Sodom because the sodomites were wicked and exceedingly evil before the
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Lord and someday we're told he will turn all the nations who have forgotten him and spurned his law and Rejected his overtures of grace into hell
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You see my beloved friends we must face it our sin
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Infuriates God That's the only word for it our sin infuriates him and one day so say the prophets
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God will take vengeance on his adversaries and Pour out his wrath upon his enemies.
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The mountains will quake at him The hills will melt The earth will burn in his presence the world and all that dwell therein
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Who will stand before his indignation? Who will abide the fierceness of his anger for he will pursue his enemies into darkness
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Behold the day will come That will burn as an oven and all the proud and those who do wickedly will become stubble and that day will burn them up says the
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Lord of hosts But just as clearly as these examples of God's retributive justice now, please hear me my beloved friends
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Just as clearly as all these Old Testament examples that God will judge the sinner in retributive justice for his sin
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Jesus cry of dereliction from the cross My God my
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God Why have you forsaken me and his agonizing death on the tree of Calvary show this age?
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I say as clearly if not more so That God will indeed judge impenitent sinners for their sin
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I Say if not more so because if ever there were a time
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When one might expect that God would have withheld his retributive justice and Not punished by death
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It would have been against his own beloved son Because there was no one anywhere in all existences so dear to God as his own beloved son and Because his son had no sin of his own
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But when God made his son the sin bearer for his elect It pleased the
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Lord to bruise him We're told that is why
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I say that if any single event demonstrates to our age That God will indeed
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Retributively judge the lawbreaker. It is the crucifixion of His own beloved son at Calvary When he stood in the stead of sinners
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Bearing their sin Dying their death the curse of God If anything in all the world is an exhibition to our age of Retributive justice on earth against sin that is of the sinners damnation under the curse of Almighty God It is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ God's own beloved son
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Thomas Kelly the hymn writer understood this Tell me we sing
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Ye who hear him groaning Was there ever grief like his?
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Friends through fear his cause disowning foes insulting his distress
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Many hands were raised to wound him None would interpose to save But the deepest stroke that pierced him
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Was the stroke that justice capital J was the stroke the justice gave
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Jonathan Edwards understood better than most preachers today the terror of God's retributive righteousness
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In his sermon sinners in the hands of an angry God which he preached to a
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Congregation not far from here at Enfield, Connecticut. He told that congregation the
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God that holds you over the pit of hell Much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire
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Abhors you he abhors you and Is dreadfully provoked his wrath towards you burns like fire
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He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire He is a purer eyes and to bear to have you in his sight
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You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes and the most hateful venomous serpent is in yours you have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his
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Prince and Yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you. Here's now the grace
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It's nothing but his hand that holds you From falling into the fire every moment.
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It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell last night That you were allowed to awake again in this world after you closed your eyes to sleep and There is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning
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But that God's hand has held you up There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell since you have sat here in the house of God Provoking his pure eyes this morning by your sinful manner of attending his solemn worship
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Yea, there is nothing else. It is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell
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Oh Sinner Consider the fearful danger you're in It is a great furnace of wrath a wide and bottomless pit full of the wrath and fire of full of the fire of wrath
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That you're held over in the hand of that God whose wrath is for whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against any of the damned in hell you hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it and Ready every morning moment to singe it and burn it asunder and you have no interest
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In any mediator and nothing to lay hold to save yourself nothing to keep off the flames of wrath nothing of your own
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Nothing that you've ever done nothing that you can do to induce God to spare you one moment.
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That's your plight your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell and If God should let you go you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf and Your healthy constitution and your own care and prudence and your best contrivances and all your righteousness
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Would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock
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Dreadful indeed is Edwards description of the sinners plight before those righteous judge of all the earth
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But it is also very true So mankind should and must take
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God's retributive justice or righteousness very seriously What most of mankind?
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Even most professing Christians, however are not aware of is that far and away throughout scripture
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God's justice is represented as Distributive That is as a salvific saving righteousness
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In fact while the scripture certainly cast God's justice in a retributive sense as we've seen
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John Calvin notes that the divine righteousness is that by which the faithful are preserved and most benignantly cherished
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Herman Boving properly notes that the punishment of the wicked is usually derived from God's wrath with God's justice being usually represented as the principle of the salvation of his people
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Burkhoff affirms that God's distributive justice as Both an expression of the divine love and reflection of his gracious covenant
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Deals out its bounties according to its promises and Gearheart as Voss speaks of God's distributive justice as a righteousness of vindication and a righteousness of salvation rising from the fact
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That the adjudged righteous look to him for protection and redress and expect their judge to be their
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Savior in multitudes of Old and New Testament passages
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The Lord's righteousness does not stand in contrast With his loving -kindness as does his wrath
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But is placed synonymously with his loving -kindness But how can the righteous judge of all the earth in righteousness forgive and in righteousness show compassion
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Have you ever thought about that phrase that you've memorized? I'm sure what does
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John mean in his statement if we confess our sins if we remember you've memorized that verse first printing
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First John 1 9 if we confess our sins. He is faithful and what? He's just he is faithful and just Righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so there's an example of a text where there is a a
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There is a Distributive righteousness being discussed, but how can the righteous judge of all the earth in righteousness forgive?
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and In righteousness show compassion toward undeserving sinners His distributive righteousness must be traced to the fact that he is governed by his eternal covenant with his elect people
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Particularly as that covenant came to expression in the terms of the Abrahamic Covenant You see the gods of the other nations around about Israel the gods of the other nations were capricious and unpredictable and Their devotees lived in constant dread of their malevolent and in rational intrusion into their daily lives
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But this was not true of Israel's God Israel's God was reliable and predictable and stood in a stable relationship
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Both in the world and with his people and this was very largely the resultant that all that all
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God's dealings with men occur within the framework of covenant
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God makes covenant and he keeps covenant with people with whom he makes covenant therefore because of his covenant fidelity
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God does not turn destructively on his elect Who have placed their confidence in him?
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Because the covenant threat would and ultimately did exhaust itself in Christ's suffering at Calvary God's people are immune to his wrath and His rectitude or righteousness in covenant -keeping leads him to save and to vindicate them in Christ's obedience and suffering
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They we elect have met all the demands of God's justice and their forgiveness is a matter of covenant, right?
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So while his children are guilty of all manner of iniquity They and faith are those with whom he has entered into covenant and are therefore safe now
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Let me make some application of this basic distinction It takes no daring on my part to say that not only mankind in general
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But also even most Christians most professing Christians to their own hurt have never grasped the distinction that I just made for you between God's retributive righteousness and his distributive or salvific righteousness mankind in general and Even most professing
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Christians understand God's righteousness only in its retributive sense But not in its distributive sense and as a result they believe that in order to escape his retributive justice and finally to achieve heaven
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They must gain God's approval By performing righteous deeds which is just to say
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Neither mankind in general Nor do most professing
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Christians understand get it. They do not understand the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone the heart and core of the one true law -free gospel as a result they hold a
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Pelagian or Semi -Pelagian plan of salvation that is another gospel that cannot save The Roman Catholic the
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Roman Catholic Church claiming over half of those who profess to be Christians as its adherents has repudiated the one true law -free gospel of Jesus Christ in favor of the decrees and canons of the
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Council of Trent that confuse justification and sanctification thereby bringing human works as Part of the ground into and as part of the ground of their final acceptance before God That is a tragic tragic mistake to do so The Apostle Paul warns that those who intermingle to any degree, please hear me now.
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This is serious stuff I'm not just I'm not just playing. This is not just a hobby.
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I'm writing Writing when I say this, this is just not a hobby with me This is important.
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It is eternally important the Apostle Paul warns That those who intermingle to any degree their obedience with Christ's obedience as the ground of their final justification before God First stand under apostolic condemnation
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Second have made Christ cross work of no value to them third
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Have alienated themselves from Christ fourth Have set themselves once again have placed themselves once again under the law as the way of salvation and Have abolished the offense of the cross because they are trusting in a different gospel.
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That is no gospel at all And now to make this distinction clear
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I'm warning this is one thing if I leave anything with you this weekend my beloved brothers and sisters
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It's this to make this distinction clear. I Want to take you into a brief excursion in the church history
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Stephen I understand somebody told me you're a history buff I'm going to take you into I hope you're all history buffs for a little while.
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I Want to begin with a citation From Martin Luther on his spiritual struggles as an
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Augustinian monk in the early 16th century quote He writes in that year 1519 in that year
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I Had begun to lecture on the Psalms believing that with my classroom experience and lecturing on the letters of Paul to the
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Romans to the Galatians and on the letter to the Hebrews I Was now better prepared
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All the while I was aglow with the desire to understand Paul in his letter to the
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Romans But up until then it was that single expression in chapter 1 17 concerning the righteousness of God Remember how he uses it
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Romans 1 16 says I am NOT ashamed of the gospel Romans 1 17 says for therein is
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The righteousness of righteousness of God revealed from faith unto faiths he said there that expression in Romans 1 17
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I Couldn't understand what he said it blocked the way for me for I hated he writes.
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I hated that expression righteousness of God Since I had been instructed by the custom of all the teachers to understand it as The formal and active righteousness by which
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God proves himself righteous By punishing sinners and the unjust what was he saying?
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He's saying when I read Romans 1 17 and read about the righteousness of God I was thinking of the retributive righteousness of God, and I hated that expression why?
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He says although I was a holy and blameless monk. I Did not love indeed.
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I hated that righteous God, and I was angry with God And I said to him as if indeed.
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It's not enough that miserable sinners Eternally lost through original sin are crushed
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By the law of the Decalogue without you having adding pain to pain by the gospel also threatening us
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With righteousness and right and wrath Thus I raged with a fierce and stubborn conscience
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Nevertheless I beat importunately upon Paul at that place Ardently desiring to know what
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Paul wanted Having been frightened almost to death
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During his law school days by a terrifying thunderstorm During which he vowed to st.
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Anne that he would become a monk and to prepare himself for that awful meeting someday with God Luther then 21 years old in 1505 suddenly left the
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University of Erfurt and Entered the Augustinian cloister there
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Not so much. He says to study theology as to save his own soul
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And he gave himself immediately with rigor and with unflagging zeal
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To the monastic life he fasted and he prayed he tortured himself and devoted himself to the most menial of tasks
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He adhered to the medieval church's sacrament of penance confessing even the most trivial of perceived faults for hours on end to his superiors
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Until his superiors wearied of his soul -searching exercises and Ordered him to cease confessing until he had committed some sin worth talking about Luther would write later to the
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Duke of Savoy I was a pious monk and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express if ever a monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works
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I Should certainly have been entitled to it Still Luther found no peace of heart or mind
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When the monkish wisdom advised him to satisfy God's righteous demands by meritorious works
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He thought but what works can come from a heart like mine? Here, you know polluted that they as they are at their very source
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During this period of spiritual agonizing God gave to Martin Luther a wise spiritual father in the person of John Stauppitz The vicar general of the
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Augustinian order for all Germany. Why are you so sad brother
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Martin? Stauppitz asked him one day I Replied Luther.
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I don't know what will become of me It is vain that I make promises to God Sin is sin within me as ever the stronger and to this
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Stauppitz rejoined dear Martin More than a thousand times did
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I swear to our Holy God to live piously and I have never kept that promise
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Now I swear no longer For I know that I cannot keep my solemn promises
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If God he got it he got it if God will not be merciful towards me for the love of Christ and Grant me a happy departure when
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I must quit this world. I shall never With the aid of all my vows
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Now get it and all my good works Stand before him.
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I will perish Why dear Martin do you torment yourself?
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Look at the wounds of Christ look to the blood that he shed for you It is there that the grace of God will appear to you instead of torturing yourself on account of your sins
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Throw yourself into the Redeemer's arms trust in him in the righteousness of his life in the atonement of his death
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Don't shrink back. Listen to the Son of God He became a man to give you the divine favor
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But how Luther asked could he hear the Son of God where could he hear his voice in the church's traditions
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In the Bible said the vicar -general Let the study of the scriptures
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Be your favorite occupation and it was thus that Luther who had only first seen a
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Bible is in his law school days Shortly before entering the cloister began to study the scriptures, especially the letters of Paul But the divine work begun by Stoffitz was not finished
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The conscience of the young Augustinian monk in spite of all of his efforts and self -denial
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Had still not yet found peace with God In 1510 five years after he had become a monk and two years after he had upon Stoffitz its recommendation
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Begun to teach the Bible at Elector Frederick of Saxony's new little University at Wittenberg Luther was sent to Rome on church business by his order
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Going not only as an emissary for his order, but also as a pilgrim When Luther caught sight of Rome in the distance the site to which
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Paul's letter to the church at Rome was written The very capital city of Catholicism he tells us that he fell to his knees and he raised his hands exclaiming
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I greet you Holy Rome thrice holy from the blood of the martyrs and No sooner did he arrive than he began as time and official business permitted to make the rounds of the churches and shrines and relics
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Believing all the superstitions that were told to him at each site Even regretting he says that his parents were not already dead
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Because he could then have assured them against purgatory by all of his acts of penance that was
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Luther in Rome In Rome occurred the famous incident told many years later by Luther's son.
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Dr. Paul Luther and it's preserved in a manuscript in the library at Rudolph's dot in the church of the in the church of st.
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John Lateran in Rome There is a set of medieval stone stairs said to have been the stairs leading up to Pilate's house in Jerusalem And by the way, there are so many pilgrims that still
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Make their way up that staircase That Rome has built another identical set beside it
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Now there are two sets and Rome says it doesn't matter Which set of stairs you climb you get the same amount of penance?
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Regardless of which set of stairs you climb so In this church, there's this set of stairs
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That is said that it was once trod upon by the Lord which stairs
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Luther was told had been miraculously Transported to Rome it was customary for pilgrims to ascend these steps on their knees
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Praying as they ascended in kissing the bloodstains of Christ had reputedly appeared at certain intervals
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Remission of years of punishment and purgatory was promised to all who who performed this arduous exercise
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His father Paul Luther writes began to crawl up those stairs as many others had done before him
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But as he ascended the staircase the words of Romans 1 17 The righteous by faith will live
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Suddenly came forcefully to his mind they seemed to echo over and over again the righteous by faith will live the righteous by faith will live the old superstitions and The new biblical theology began to wrestle within him.
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Oh by fear argued Luther By faith said
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Paul By meritorious works the scholastic fathers had taught him by faith said the
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Apostle by agonizing suffering Argued Luther and those on the steps beside him by their actions by faith
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Whispered God the Holy Spirit to his heart Luther rose and wonder from the steps up which he had been dragging himself
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Shuddering at the superstition and folly in which he had been engaged and now he began to realize that God justifies sinners
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By faith alone in Christ's perfect work Slowly he turned on pilot staircase and returned to the bottom of that staircase
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Experience J. H. Merle d 'Aubigné the great 19th century historian of the Reformation writes this powerful text
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Romans 1 17 Had a mysterious influence on the life of Luther It was a creative sentence both for the
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Reformer and for the Reformation It was in these words that God then said let there be light and there was light
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This was the real beginning of the 16th century Reformation for Luther's personal
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Reformation necessarily had to precede his effort to reform medieval
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Christendom's false theology the latter began seven years later in 1517 when he posted his 95 theses on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg Which act eventually led to his excommunication from the church?
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by Pope Leo the 10th in January of 1521 in Which brought him finally before Emperor Charles a fifth at the
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Diet of Worms in April of that same year at which assembly in response to the two questions
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Are these your writings and will you or will you not recant them? After an all -night vigil in prayer he put both the world's and the church's mighty ones to flight with his immortal declaration quote since your most serene
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Majesty speaking to Charles a fifth and your high mightinesses require from me a clear simple and precise answer
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I will give you one With neither horns nor teeth that is with neither of them
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I'm not trying to be offensive or biting will get I will give you one with neither horns nor teeth and it is this
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I Cannot submit my faith either to the Pope or to the councils
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Because it is clear as the day that they have frequently heard and contradicted each other Unless therefore
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I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture There so la scriptura
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Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture Unless they thus render my conscience bound by the
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Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract For it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience
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Here I stand I can do no other may God help me
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Amen, do you remember how I began this application of God's attribute of justice citing
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Luther's ragings? Against God because he thought not only the righteousness of God in the law
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But also the righteousness of God in the gospel condemned him. Well, let me complete his remarks at last by the mercy of God Meditating day and night
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I gave heed to the context of the words He who by faith is righteous shall live
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There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by the gift of God namely by faith
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That the righteousness of God revealed by the gospel is the righteousness with which the merciful
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God Justifies us by faith here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates and As previously
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I had detested with all my heart these words the righteousness of God. I Began from that hour to value and to love them as the sweetest and most consoling words in the
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Bible in Very truth Romans 1 17 became for me truly the gate to paradise
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Dear friends the burning question for Martin Luther in the 16th century You know
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German V Krieger. He kind and not again goat How can I find a gracious God or as Joe puts it?
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How can a mortal be righteous before God? Or as build ads ancient question phrases and how can a man achieve right standing before God?
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And the Church of the Middle Ages had taught for centuries That right standing before God was achieved through the spirits inward work of grace in the human heart that is to say through the sacrament of baptism
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Which takes care of original sin? in a renewal in the works of penance which address post baptismal sins and the grace of Sanctification that is never complete in this life and thus
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Christians must finally go to purgatory Where when they die?
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At which time they begin their expiation of their own expiation of the sins that still need to be dealt with candor requires
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That I tell you that that church is still with us today No change for the better is in its false soteriology
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Luther had struggled for an answer to build ads question and And that first had tried to find the answer in his own works of penance that never brought peace and they never will
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Finally he came to a true and proper understanding of Romans and found the very gates of heaven open wide to him in 117
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Through his struggles and careful study Luther now, please understand. Please listen to me now
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Luther came to understand That the only man with whom the infinitely
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Holy God can have direct fellowship is the perfect God man
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The only mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus This is the so loose
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Christus Christ alone of the magisterial
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Reformation and That it is only as sinful people place their trust in Christ saving work
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And are thereby regarded by God as in Christ O in Christ That the triune
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God can have any fellowship with them. I'm sorry my beloved God can have no direct fellowship with you in Adam God can have fellowship only with you if you are in Christ O in Christ But in Christ he can have fellowship with you
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He came to understand that He came to understand that the only way to protect this so loose
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Christus of salvation is to persist upon the soul of a day the faith alone of justification and the only way to protect the soul of a day of Justification is to insist upon the so loose
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Christus of salvation He came to understand that saving faith is to be directed
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To the doing and dying of Christ alone and not to the good works or inner experience of the believer
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He came to understand that the Christians righteousness before God today is not on earth now
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Let me ask you where is your righteousness today? Where is your righteousness today? Where is your righteousness before God today?
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It is not on earth Your righteousness is seated
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At the right hand of God in heaven, that's where your righteousness is
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He came to understand That his righteousness before God is not on earth within the believer
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But in heaven at the right hand of God in Jesus Christ He came to understand that the ground of our justification is
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The vicarious work of Christ for us and not the gracious work of the
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Spirit in us He came to understand that the faith righteousness of justification is not retributive but distributive not personal but vicarious not infused but imputed not experiential but forensic
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Not a psychological but legal not our own But a righteousness which is alien to us that is which belongs to another
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And not earned but graciously given through faith in Christ Which faith itself is a gift of grace?
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All which means it reduces to this The justification by faith is not to be set off over against Justification by works per se
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But justification by faith is to be set off over against justification by our works
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For justification is indeed grounded in Christ preceptive and penal obedience in our stead
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That we receive by faith alone while I trust that all of you here are genuinely converted.
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I Must urge you to examine yourself to make sure Please now my beloved make sure
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That you are trusting solely in the preceptive and penal obedience of Jesus Christ what he did
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For God's forgiveness and imputed distributive righteousness for make no mistake about it the day will come when you and I will stand naked before God and And in that day the issue if in whom or in what we trusted here for our salvation will be all -important and Though we may wish to dispute with him as Job states.
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We will be unable to answer him one time out of a thousand For you and I in that great day will be stripped of All the things in which we may have placed our confidence in this world
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We will stand before the throne of the judge of all the earth in that day without earthly title
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Without money Without property without earthly reputation without personal prestige in utter poverty in ourselves and unless we have been forgiven of our sins and enrobed in the glorious dress of the distributive righteousness of Jesus Christ God will consign us to eternal perdition for our sin
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Beloved friends if you've never completely repudiated Your own self -help efforts at self -salvation
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If you have never totally trusted the Savior's righteous life and sacrificial death alone
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For your salvation I beg of you do both right now. You need a righteous advocate
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You need an advocate who can legitimately say to the father on your behalf
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Like Paul said to Philemon on Onesimus behalf
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If you consider me a partner welcome him as you welcome me that is reckoned to him my merit
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If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything Charge it to me that is reckoned to me his demerit
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I will pay it back. Oh My beloved wouldn't you want in that hour?
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And wouldn't you need an advocate like that when you appear before God Christ alone is such an advocate and You need him more than you need anything else in this world
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For not by works of righteousness that you will ever do will you be saved Christ bearing your imputed sin on the tree and The father's reckoning
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Christ imputed righteousness to you through faith in him is your only hope of heaven You're only acceptable righteousness with God So trust him now and for it's only by faith alone in Christ righteous doing and sacrificial dying
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That you will receive forgiveness and the imputed distributive righteousness of God And only then can you truly sing from the heart?
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Jesus Thy blood and righteousness my beauty are my glorious dress midst flaming worlds in these arrayed with joy
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Shall I lift up my head? You must be enrobed in the distributed righteousness of God in Jesus Christ I hope you understand the distinction and I hope you're not trusting in your efforts to overcome
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Overwhelm the retributive justice of God. I hope you have fled To the distributive righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.
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Let us pray Our Heavenly Father this noontime hour we bless you for your
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Righteousness exhibited against your beloved son In whose death for our sin you vicariously punished him who paid our debt
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He paid a debt he didn't owe Because we had a debt we couldn't pay
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He bore our curse he died our death and he delivered us forever from the sufferings of hell and Eternity will be too short to praise you sufficiently for your son's
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Distributive righteousness of that righteousness that you freely give to all who entrust themselves to him
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We thank you that when we confess our sins to you. You are faithful and you are distributively just To forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
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And I pray if anyone here in this place has not cast himself by faith solely wholly and only upon your righteousness revealed in Jesus Christ that your
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Holy Spirit will quicken in that person a genuine fear of your retributive justice and move him or her to trust your son's justifying death and Distributive righteousness for Jesus glory and cause we pray this.