Pt. 15 LBCF Chapter 11: Of Justification

Chapter 11 of the London Baptist Confession of Faith

Chapter 11 of the London Baptist Confession of Faith. We've been going through the confession chapter by chapter and Chapter 11 is of justification. Now remember we're into the second part, those of you who haven't been here or haven't kept up with it.

We've broken the confession down into four parts. The first six chapters were the foundation, you know, laying the foundational framework, theological framework, for the rest of the confession. And then starting in Chapter 7, which was titled of God's covenant, we're looking now all the way through to Chapter, I think it's 20 or 21, somewhere that far out, of Part 2, which is explaining the covenant that we are in with God.

And remember, when we looked at the covenant, we found out that that's the only way that we have any type of relationship with God, is through the covenant. Okay, and so we looked at Chapter 7 of the covenant, and then we looked at various other things.

The last thing that we looked at was effectual call. That was last week, all right, how God effectually calls us. Chapter 11 of justification logically follows effectual call, and you'll see that, I think, as we go through.

This chapter has six paragraphs. It answers one of the most fundamental questions of life. How can man be right with God? I mean, this is what everybody wants to know, whether they admit it or not. Everybody wants to know, how can I be in a good relationship with God?

And the question must be asked in the context of two other questions. Who is God, and who is man? Because if you don't understand those questions, you'll never understand how can I be in a right relationship with God.

That is why Chapter 2 and Chapter 6. Chapter 2, who can tell me, what is Chapter 2? What's the title of Chapter 2? Of God and the Holy Trinity, right? And what's Chapter 6? Of the fall of man, of sin, and punishment thereof.

All right, so those two chapters have to precede this chapter, because Chapter 2 tells us who God is, what we can expect as we come before God, and Chapter 6 tells us what is our position as humans on this planet.

And that's why we saw the fall of man, what is the punishment thereof, etc. So that's why Chapters 2 and 6 must precede any study of justification. Now, this chapter is in the second part of the Confession, titled The Covenant, and so let's look at the outline of this Confession.

The Defined Nature and Basis of Justification

Paragraph 1, we've broken it down into... Paragraph 1 is the defined nature of justification, okay? So the first question that's asked is, who are the subjects of justification? And notice, I remember I started off by saying how this logically follows Chapter 10 of effectual calling.

Who are the subjects of justification? Those whom God effectually calls.

All right.

You cannot be justified unless God effectually calls you. Okay, so again, that's why I say it's very logical, all right? Remember, as we go through this, when we talk about logical order, we're not necessarily talking about separation of time and space, but a logical order.

It's not like you're called on Tuesday, and then by Thursday, you're justified. But there is a logic to the order, and you have to effectual calling has to precede justification, all right? What is the essence of justification?

Not by infusing righteousness into them. There's a very specific reason why that phrase is here. Who can tell me why that phrase is in there?

Ted?

Yeah, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that at baptism, of course, and we're talking about infant baptism, that righteousness is infused into you. But what happens to that infused righteousness as you grow in sin?

It leaks.

It's, for lack of a better way, it runs out. You run out of grace, and so that explains why sacraments and penance and a lot of other things. But that's specifically why the framers of our confession put that in there.

Not by infusing righteousness, right? But by pardoning their sins and accounting and accepting their persons as righteous. That's the essence of justification.

All right?

So notice something, and this is very important. It's not a moral transformation. What is it? It's a legal transaction. Okay? In other words, when you're justified, you don't instantly become a very moral person without sin.

It's a legal transaction where the sins that you have committed have been paid for by Christ, and His righteousness has been imputed to you. All right? And we'll see a little bit more about imputation in the subsequent paragraph.

All right? But that's the nature of justification. This is very specifically in direct opposition to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches. Okay? Still in paragraph one under the defined nature, we also have the basis of justification.

And again, not for anything wrought in them or done by them. All right? Again, I'm sure everybody here knows this, but it's good to see it spelled out in the confession. In other words, nothing that you have done has compelled God to save you.

All right?

Nor anything that He sees in you is motivating God to save you. Right? Why does He save you? For Christ's sake alone. So in other words, you have a negative side and a positive side. It's not from anything in you, or me.

All right? But solely for Christ's sake. All right? Follow? So we're still in paragraph one, the defined nature of justification. The method of justification is imputation. Okay? And this is important, too.

Negatively. Not by imputing faith itself.

All right?

The act of believing or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness. In other words, one of the biggest errors that you find today is.

In.

The Word of Faith movement. Okay? And that is that it is your faith that saves you. The mere act of having faith saves you. That goes against what the scripture teaches, and that's what the confession is saying here.

All right?

What is it that saves you? It's not your faith. Your faith is the vehicle that gets you there. And where does it bring you? To Christ. It's Christ's righteousness. His finished work on the cross alone.

Remember last Sunday. All right? Remember we examined those three important words in English, one in Greek, Tetelestai in Greek. It is finished. He finished it. When Christ uttered those words, if you're one of the elect, your salvation was secured.

Okay? And so, and this continues positively. It's not by imputing faith or anything else, even evangelical obedience. You can read all the scriptures you want. You can do all the good work you want. You can witness.

You can do anything you want. None of that is going to make you righteous.

But,.

By imputing Christ's active obedience unto the whole law. Now, this is important, too. I want you to constantly think back of how our theology, Reformed Theology, Covenant Theology, is as a whole. You can't pick up pieces of Reformed Theology and say, yes, I'm Reformed.

It all hangs together. All right? It begins with Calvinistic soteriology. Everybody here knows the five points of Calvin, you know, Tulip. All right, everybody, I'm not going to go through that. Everybody knows that.

You can't pick and choose one, you know, some of those. Well, I'm a four-point Calvinist. You'll find people saying that. There's no such thing. All right? In fact, previous pastor that I worked with, not here at Hope.

It was before we had Hope. And he used to proudly say, he knew I was a Calvinist, and he would say, well, I'm a four-point Calvinist. They said, no, you're not. And he said, yes, I am. And, you know, and I said, well, what is it that you don't believe?

And he didn't believe in limited atonement, particular redemption. So I said, well, let's talk about it. We sat down. In five minutes, I had him denying total depravity. Because it all hangs together.

You deny one thing, and then you're going to deny them all. So we see that Christ's active obedience unto the whole law. Why did Christ have to come as a babe? Why didn't God send him as a 30-year-old man?

Right? Why? Because he actively obeyed the entire law. Right? Had a whole life of obedience. Okay, and passive obedience in his death. I'm not a big fan of passive. I know that's a theological term, and I accept it, but only because of the connotation.

You know, the way the Confession is written, it's accurate. It's true. But his obedience on that cross was anything but passive. I mean, we saw how he went there, and remember, you know, what I said when we were talking about All right Where was it?

Passive obedience. Christ was not a victim on the cross. He was a victor on the cross. He went there intentionally. There was no way that the Romans and the leaders of the Jews could have avoided putting him on that cross.

Because it was decreed, and he actively obeyed his father putting himself on that cross. That's the only reason I don't like the term passive, but it's a good theological term, okay? For their whole and sole righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

Okay, that's just explaining the whole thing. Faith is a necessary element. You are saved through faith, all right, by grace, through faith. But what is the work that saves you? It is the work of Christ on the cross.

Without that work of Christ on the cross, you're going to have all the faith in him that you wanted, and it wouldn't have accomplished anything.

Okay?

All right, so that's the method of justification, is imputation. Paragraph two talks about the instrumental means of justification. By the way, these titles were not designed by me, they were designed by a theologian, you can tell, right?

The instrumental means of justification. Faith, receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification. That addresses the uniqueness of the justification. In other words, there is no other way that you can be saved.

It's not like there are many paths leading up the mountain. Okay? Well, there may be many paths leading up the mountain, only one leads to the top, the other leads to cliffs. Okay? And so that's the whole purpose of this paragraph.

Notice, faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness is the alone instrument of justification. You can't be saved any other way.

All right?

However, and this is where a lot of evangelicals really get sidetracked. It's not alone. There's an accompaniment to it. Yet, it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces and is no dead faith, but works by love.

In other words, if you are truly justified, all right, that faith that you exercise, all right, that faith that you exercise will not be alone. It is through faith in Christ alone that saves you, but it is not left alone.

If you have faith alone and no works, what does the Apostle James say? It's dead. Because there's no proof to it. If you truly have faith, it will accompany works and especially the work of love because that's how you were saved and that's what you were saved to.

Okay, does that make sense? Okay. Paragraph three, the regulating design of justification. All right, here's what we mean by that. This is kind of a long one, so we're going to break it down again. All right, Christ's death was full satisfaction.

All right, Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified.

Okay.

Follow? In other words, the work of Christ on the cross, if you're one of his elect, you have been saved, you've been justified, all of those sins, all of the debt of sin that you have, it's gone. It's wiped away.

That's one of the unique things about the justification we have in Christ. That's it? That's the only reaction to that? I mean, yeah, I mean, it's incredible, all right? So Christ's death was the full satisfaction.

We don't have to do anything else to be saved. Everything else we do are works of love, and out of obedience to what he has called us to do. Notice this ties right back to the sermon that we preached this past Sunday, all right?

That, you know, what do we do? Is there work left? Christ finished it all on the cross, but he left us a work to do, but having nothing to do with our salvation. We're justified by his work on the cross, but he's given us much to do.

Just look at the state of our nation right now. Don't tell me we don't have a lot of work to do, right? We've got a ton of work to do. Christ's death was full satisfaction and did, by the sacrifice of himself in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty, do them make a proper, real, and full satisfaction of God's justice in their behalf.

Now notice, grace,.

All right,.

Grace and faith are not in opposition to God's justice. They work together. God's justice must be satisfied, right? That's why the sacrifice, in the sacrifice, he pays the penalty. You know, you hear me say this a few times when I'm closing a sermon, all right, and I think it's something that's important and needs to be said.

Every sin that you commit, have committed, or will commit, is going to be paid for by somebody. If you're saved, if you've been justified, it was paid for by Christ. If not, guess who's going to pay for it?

You are.

The only alternatives, the only two choices, and that's what the confession is saying here, all right. Justification is of free grace only to the glory of God. Yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them, their justification is only a free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

Notice, there you see it side-by-side. Free grace. You can't earn your salvation. There's nothing you can do to prompt God to give it to you. It is his decision who was saved, and his alone, okay, by the death on the cross.

So it's free, yet it's completely just because those sins are paid for by Christ. Again, somebody's going to pay for the sin. Nobody, there's no, in God's court, there's no plea bargaining,.

All right.

There's no cutting deals, all right. One of the things in the years that I was a cop that used to aggravate me was to go to court, and you're ready to prosecute somebody, and you see the two attorneys go out into the court, out of the courtroom, into the hallway, and they cut a deal.

Sorry, no offense. And you get a couple of, and they cut a deal, and the next thing you know, the guy's going free with only half the penalty or whatnot, and that's just frustrating. Okay. All right. Should I start some lawyer jokes here?

No, no, never mind. Okay, everybody get this? This is paragraph three.

The Decree, the Atonement, and the Application of Justification

All right.

Paragraph four, the specified occasion of justification, and this is important, too. All right, look, from all eternity. God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect. Now remember, this gets back, remember the covenant that we looked at?

One of the things that I want to continue to strive to show you is the unity of this confession. This confession is really a masterpiece, okay? It's not an inspired document. I'm not saying that there's not errors in it or something.

It's a man-made document, but God really blessed those men as they put this together, the way they worked it out. From all eternity, He decreed to justify all the elect. That takes us right back to what?

The decree of God. All right, to effectual calling. All right, everything hangs together. When did God know your name? If you're here today, and you're a believer in Jesus Christ, when did He know your name?

When did He agree to save you? From all eternity, before the foundation, before this world was even in existence, He knew you by name and said, that person, you are going to be my child. Is that love?

I mean, that's amazing. That's why we sing, you know, amazing grace, amazing love, all right? From all eternity. However, Christ died at exactly the right time, and Christ did in the fullness of time die for the sins and rise again for their justification.

Even though it was decreed from all eternity, it had to occur in time. The atonement had to take place in time and in history.

Okay.

Everybody who was ever saved prior to the cross, was saved because they believed in the promise of its coming. All of us, we look back on the fulfillment of it in the past, but we're all saved in the same way.

In fact, I think there's another slide that explains that a little bit more. But justification occurs when the Holy Spirit applies Christ to them. In other words, if you're here today, and you're saved, your sins were forgiven.

The sin was paid for on the cross, which weren't justified until the Holy Spirit regenerated your heart. That too had to take place in time in history. That's why the Apostle Paul says that prior to salvation, we were all children of wrath.

So even though it was decreed, and it was going to come about, there's no way that you were not going to be saved. Remember, if he elected you from all eternity, you will be saved.

Okay.

But it still has to take place in time and in history. Paragraph five, the balancing reality of justification. Here's what we mean by that. Let's look at it. Firstly, justification cannot be lost. All right.

God does continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified, and although they can never fall from the state of justification. Remember, that's one of the key points. If you're one of God's, he will save you to the end.

There's no way that you can lose that salvation. Remember, there are some who appear to be saved, but are not. Remember the parable of the sower. Okay, some people appear to be growing, but they're choked out.

All right, so that explains how you see some people. You say, well, it looks like he lost his salvation. No, he never had it. Okay, so if you're not saved, if you appear to fall from grace, what does that mean?

You were never in a state of grace.

All right.

Little illustration. Three men are on a train. Fourth guy is found to have left the train in some fashion and dies. Police come and investigate. First guy, he interviews, says, what happened? Guy says, well, the guy fell off the train.

It was a Wesleyan. Second one was a charismatic. He says, no, somebody pushed him off the train. Third guy is a Calvinist. He says, he was never on the train. Little Calvinistic humor there. I know very little.

All right, yet persistent sin can bring discipline. All right, yet they may by their sins fall under God's fatherly displeasure. Remember, if your sins have been paid for, that's full satisfaction. So, anything that comes upon you for sin, consequences of sin, is not you paying the price for that sin.

It's God's discipline to bring you back to where you belong. There's a big difference. All right. Discipline is that of God's fatherly love. All right. Satisfaction, well, we know what that is from. Okay, so persistent sin can bring, and then confession, however, is continual.

Okay, and in that condition, they have not usually the light of his countenance restored unto them until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance. That means if you start living in persistent sin, God's going to, he's going to pull his hand of protection, open you up to all kinds of temptations and sin, and you will not be experiencing the full favor of God.

All right. During that time, all right, what do you must do? Confess sins. That's why every Sunday during the opening prayer, the prayer of invocation, what do the elders say? Take a few moments and confess any sin, and then what do we finish it up with?

Thank you for the promise. If we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's the ongoing sin. But again, not from the satisfaction, but from the discipline of that you come under.

Okay.

The Unity of Justification in Old and New Testament Believers

Paragraph six, the unchanging uniformity of justification. Here's what we mean by that. The justification of believers under the Old Testament was, in all these respects, one in the same with the justification of believers under the New Testament.

All right. There's only one way that anybody's ever saved, and that's through the atonement of Jesus Christ. So in the Old Testament, what were they saved by? Believing the promise. As they believed the promise.

Remember, when was the promise first revealed? Genesis 3 15. See to the woman. Gonna crush the serpent's head. Okay. As long as they believed, and again, all they had to believe was what was revealed.

And as long as they believed that God was faithful and was going to save his people, they were saved. All right. So the same with the justification of believers in the New Testament. There's no difference.

There's no two. Dispensational theology gets very convoluted. Some believe it one way or another, but they believe that there's two ways of being saved for the Old Testament saints and the New Testament saints.

Our confession shows that scripturally that is just absolutely not true.

Okay.

Questions. Questions on chapter 11. Well, yeah. Infusion would be a moral thing. In other words, what they're saying is when a person is baptized, original sin is removed, and they have righteousness, but that righteousness is depleted as the person commits sin.

All right. So it's a moral thing. Imputation is a legal thing. All right. In other words, it's a legal transaction. No matter what things are in reality. So for example, I can stand before you and say I'm a righteous man, but I sin.

How am I righteous? Because it's declared that way. Let me give you a better example. A person goes into court, all right, and somebody comes up and says, I'm going to pay the fine for this man. All right.

The fine is paid. He's let go. What has he done there? Was he not guilty of the crime? He's just not legally responsible for it because the fine was paid by somebody else. That's a legal transaction as opposed to a moral transaction.

Now, sanctification, which we'll get to in a couple weeks, is the process in which we are supposed to become in reality what we are legally. Okay, we ought to become like Christ. We were saved for good work.

In fact, I love the way our brother prays. He always talks about being saved and sanctified because the two go together. You can't be saved without being sanctified. If you are, well, you can't be. Any other questions?

Yes. Yes, yes. You're familiar with the Treasury of Merit? Okay. What does the Treasury of Merit say? There are some people who are so moral that they have more morality than they need to get into heaven.

No, I'm not kidding. And whatever they don't need goes into the Treasury of Merit, and that's what they do when they pay indulgences and penance. They're tapping into that Treasury of Merit to apply to their departed loved one.

Yes. That's exactly right. Okay.