The Justification by Faith Seminar

The Reformation, Sola Scriptura, and Justification by Faith Alone

Where we have certain freedoms. We have freedoms to worship. We have freedoms to carry this book in our hands without fear of reprisal, without fear of punishment. But it has not always been this way.

There have been times in the not-so-distant past when the Word of God was primarily unknown amongst the people. Only an elite group of people knew what the Bible said and even they did not have a great knowledge of it.

And then there came that time, about 460 years ago, of great upheaval in Western civilization, known as the Reformation. Now I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on the subject of the Reformation this evening, but I do want to mention to you that there were two primary principles that brought about the Reformation.

The first was the doctrine of sola scriptura. Sola scriptura. And what is that doctrine? It is the concept that the Scriptures, and the Scriptures only, are the sole rule of faith for the Church. That there is no authority over the Scriptures.

That human tradition, human teachings, cannot possibly be added to Scripture. That Scripture is not incomplete without the addition of human traditions and things like that. That if we are going to say that God has revealed that something is true, we must be able to demonstrate that from the words of the Bible.

This was one of the guiding principles of the Reformation. And it gave rise to what might be called the material principle of the Reformation, and that was justification by faith. Not justification by faith coupled with obedience to gospel rules and principles.

Not justification by faith coupled with various and sundry performances of sacramental duties, but justification by faith alone. Sola fide. Faith alone. Martin Luther, who was well known, obviously, in his role in the Reformation, described justification by faith as the article of the standing or falling church.

The article of the standing or falling church. And what he meant by that was that you can sort of take the pulse of the health of the church by listening to what she says about justification. You can understand the health of the church by listening to how she speaks about justification.

How often, in what terms, with what feeling of gratitude in her heart, does the church speak of her justification? For justification truly is that description of how a man who is not right with God can be made right with God.

And there can be few things that are more foundational or elemental than how it is that men who are sinful and are unjust can be made just and right in God's sight. And so if the church is not talking about these basic things any longer, or if the church has so overlaid that process that we call justification, that act of God that we call justification, with her traditions and with her ceremonies, that the people of God no longer speak of justification, then we know that not all is well in the church.

And if we apply this to our modern day, I am afraid that we can say with a fair amount of certainty that amongst those who claim the name of Christ, there is a problem. For we don't hear often of justification.

We don't hear people speaking of justification with love and thankfulness in their hearts. There seems to be other topics that are more important in our minds than how it is that God has taken us from being unjust to making us just and righteous in His sight.

Why don't we hear more about justification today? Why, when we turn on the radio and we listen to radio programs, why do we not hear a tremendous amount of discussion about this subject? Well, I would first suggest to you that it is a theological concept.

And we are in what must be described as an anti-theological age. It is a theological concept, but many today in the modern church feel that theology and doctrine are dry husks of a past age. I want something more.

Not recognizing that theology and doctrine is simply our knowledge of God. It is simply what the Scriptures teach us about who God is and what He's about in this world. And secondly, in regards to why we do not hear more about justification, I would quote the words of the great writer of this century, but a little while back, John Murray, who said, and we are all wrong with Him, that is with God, because we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Far too frequently we fail to entertain the gravity of this fact. Hence the reality of our sin and the reality of the wrath of God upon us for our sin do not come into our reckoning. This is the reason why the grand article of justification does not ring the bells of the innermost depth of our spirit.

And this is the reason why the gospel of justification is to such an extent a meaningless sound in the world and in the church of the 20th century. We are not imbued with the profound sense of the reality of God, of His majesty and holiness, and sin, if reckoned with at all, is little more than a misfortune or maladjustment.

It is true. To speak of justification, we must speak of who we really are as sinners under the wrath of God, where we were and where we now are by the grace of God. Furthermore, justification presents to us God the Father in His role as judge.

And we don't like to think of God the Father as judge. We like to think of God the Father primarily as provider, as Abba, as the one who comforts us, as the one who has given His Son for us. But we don't like to think of God the Father as judge, despite the fact that the New Testament clearly presents Him in that role to us.

And finally, justification emphasizes the sovereignty and control of God, because as we will see this evening, the Scriptures present justification as the action, the declaration of God. God is the one who declares us just.

We do not declare ourselves just. We do not bring about our own justification. God is the one based solely and completely on the work of another, that is, the person of Jesus Christ. God is the one who declares us righteous.

We are the passive object of God's action of justification, and we don't like that. We don't like that because we're not in control. We don't like that because it strikes at our own supposed sovereignty, and so there is rebellion against it.

However, justification, as an issue, as a doctrine, is vital. It is central to the Gospel itself any person who reads Romans or Galatians cannot help but be faced with the fact that in the Apostle Paul's mind, how one was justified was central to the Gospel so much so that as we will see when we examine the book of Galatians briefly this evening, Paul could, on the basis of a person's teaching on this subject, say that an entire group of teachers were under the anathema of God, the very curse of God, because they perverted the Gospel of Christ.

And how did they pervert the Gospel of Christ? They taught error or falsehood about how a person is justified. And so we are not talking here simply about a theological subject that is primarily for theologians to debate in a seminary class.

We are not talking about something that we can either take or leave. We are talking about something that is central and definitional to the Gospel of Jesus Christ itself. Now to help us to understand the various concepts, this evening what I would like to do first of all is to provide for you a definition of justification as held historically and at the time of the Reformation by the Roman Catholic Church.

So that you have a position against which the Reformers were reacting and it can be helpful to you in understanding what the Reformers themselves were saying. Now, I'm not going to read the entire section on justification from the Council of Trent because it is fairly long.

If you would like to read what has not changed in any way, shape, or form in regards to what the Roman Catholic Church teaches, then I would suggest that you would want to read the sixth session of the Canon of the Council of Trent, Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, available at any Roman Catholic bookstore.

But the best way to sort of hear some of these things is to read the anathemas that are leveled by the Council of Trent against various concepts that had been put forward. For example, just to give you some ideas, Canon 4 from the Council of Trent says, If anyone says that man's free will, moved and aroused by God, by assenting to God's call and action, in no way cooperates toward disposing and preparing itself to obtain the grace of justification, that it cannot refuse its assent if it wishes, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive, let him be anathema.

If anyone says that after the sin of Adam, man's free will was lost and destroyed, or that it is a thing only in name, indeed a name without a reality, a fiction introduced into church by Satan, let him be anathema.

Canon 9, If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.

Please note over and over again, obtaining the grace of justification, obtaining the grace of justification. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

If anyone says the grace of justification is shared by those only who are predestined to life, but that all others who are called are called indeed but receive not grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil, let him be anathema.

The Roman Catholic concept of justification is that justification is not by faith alone. One receives the grace of justification originally in baptism. When a person is baptized as a child, or if the person is a convert to the church, when they are baptized, all of their past sins are forgiven.

The original sin of Adam is washed away, and they receive what is called the grace of justification. This is a grace that is infused into them and changes them inwardly. Justification in Roman Catholicism is subjective in nature.

It changes a person on the inside. Justification in Roman Catholicism also includes within it what most of us Protestants would understand as sanctification. Sanctification and justification in Roman Catholic theology are connected in the sense that they are confounded.

They are not considered to be two different things. The grace of justification in Roman Catholic theology can be lost by committing a mortal sin. If you commit a mortal sin, the grace of justification that was given you in baptism is destroyed.

You are lost. You are no longer justified. The only way to again receive this infused grace is to go through the sacrament of confession. Perform penance, satisfaction, have contrition, all the things that are involved in confessing to the priest, and when this takes place, the grace of justification is again infused into you and you are considered to be right with God.

But there are some things you need to understand. When we talk about justification, as we are going to get to in a moment, when we talk of a person being just or righteous, we think of a person being in the proper standing with God.

All sins wiped away. All hindrances to fellowship gone. Every stain of sin removed from the soul. But this is not so in Roman Catholicism. For in Roman Catholicism, you can be justified. You can have the grace of justification and yet have the stain of sin upon your soul.

And in fact, every single person who in Roman Catholic theology is in purgatory today or who will end up in purgatory, the only way you can get into purgatory is if you are justified. If you have the grace of justification.

So why are you in purgatory? Why are you suffering in purgatory? Because you still have the stains of sin upon your soul. So a person can be justified, have the grace of justification in their life, but not be perfectly spotless and clean.

Now if you're thinking with me, if you're thinking about what that means, you may already be considering some of the problems. For we believe that a person is justified solely on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ.

And how then could the work of Jesus Christ possibly leave stains of sin upon the soul? In fact, the righteousness that is ours that we have before God, and we're going to discuss all this in a few moments, the righteousness that is ours is not our righteousness.

It's not the result of a change in us. Whose righteousness is it? It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That is the righteousness that a believer has. And how then can there possibly be the quote-unquote stain of sin upon the soul that I must suffer for, and that my sufferings bring about atonement for, which is what Roman Catholicism teaches in regards to purgatory, after I've died.

There is obviously a great difference between the two perspectives. So in Roman Catholicism, you have a subjective but not necessarily permanent change inside of a person that is based, according to Roman Catholicism, upon the grace that is made available through the work of Christ, but it is not actually the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us.

Now, those of you who are not Baptists will give me a little bit of slack, I hope, if I use the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith to present to you the Reformed understanding of justification, the Protestant understanding of justification.

But, in case you might be, for example, a Presbyterian or something like that, what you have in the Baptist Confession of Faith is identical, word for word, for what you have in the Westminster Confession of Faith to take itself from 1648, showing how closely those two perspectives once were.

And please forgive me if I read it fairly laboriously to you, but I want you to hear what is said. Justification. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone.

Not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing Christ's active obedience under the whole law and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness.

They receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God. Did you catch that? The Protestant perspective was that faith is the work of God in the heart of man.

It is the gift of God. We'll discuss that a little bit more later. Faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness is the alone instrument of justification, yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all of the saving graces and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.

What does that mean? According to the Baptist confession, according to the Westminster confession, saving faith is not simply tipping one's hat toward God. Saving faith, the faith that is the work of the Spirit of God in a person's heart, is not a faith that simply acknowledges that God exists, says, well, you know, I guess Jesus died for my sins, and it goes on from there.

It is the work of God, it is accompanied with all other aspects of the work of God in a person's heart. It is not a faith that is alone. In fact, this is probably where the saying came from, faith alone saves, but a saving faith is never alone.

Okay? Christ, by His obedience in death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified, and did by the sacrifice of Himself in the blood of His cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty due unto them, make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God's justice in their behalf.

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 of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

What are they saying? They are saying that Christ died in behalf of His people, that Christ's death is the full and sufficient payment for all of their sins. Nothing needs to be added to the work of Jesus Christ.

Nothing could possibly, anything we could ever do, could possibly be considered to be necessary to be added to the work of Christ. His work alone is sufficient. In fact, though they do not say it here, I'm sure they would have agreed with the statement that to say that there is anything that you could add to that is a blasphemous statement, a blasphemous statement, and certainly shows that you do not understand the richness of the work of Christ.

God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins and rise to their justification. Nevertheless, they are not justified personally until the Holy Spirit doth in due time actually apply Christ unto them.

Two more. God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified, and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may by their sins fall under God's fatherly displeasure, 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 in repentance.

Finally, the justification of believers under the Old Testament was in all these respects one and the same with justification of believers under the New Testament. And let me expand upon some of the things that are said here.

First of all, there is a direct denial that justification is an infusion of righteousness into us, a direct denial of that. Secondly, and this is extremely important, according to the Protestant perspective, justification is primarily, and I will use two names to describe it, a judicial or a more technical term, a forensic declaration on the part of God.

What do I mean by that? It is a legal, judicial, forensic declaration. It is a statement by God about the believer. God as judge says about you as sinner, when you have faith in Christ, because of what Christ has done on your behalf, because He has borne your sins, God makes a declaration.

You are just. You are in the proper relationship to the law. And as we get into the Scriptures and look how the word is used, you will see how this comes directly forth from the pages of the Bible that you are in the proper relationship with me.

It is not, the confession says, a subjective change in the heart of a person. In other words, clearly justification and sanctification are differentiated in Protestant theology. Justification is solely the work of God.

Man's actions are not a part of God's declaration. The sole ground of justification is the work of Jesus Christ. Notice the two things that were said, His passive and His active obedience. What does that mean?

Since it is not a biblical term, we need to make sure the Bible actually presents the concept. We understand His active obedience and His passive obedience in regards to what He did positively and negatively, is how I like to picture it.

Negatively, our sins, our debts to God, our transgressions, were laid upon Christ as the perfect and sinless Son of God, the Lamb of God who was slain in our place. So Christ has borne our transgressions, but that is not all He did.

That is not all He did. See, we frequently think of the work of Christ solely in the concept of His passively being obedient to the will of the Father in dying in our place. But is that all Christ did?

The righteousness that is given to us in Christ Jesus, is it solely just the forgiveness of our sins? Or is there something more? What the Confession talks about is the fact that Christ fulfilled the law in our place.

Do any one of us love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength every minute of every day, every second of every minute? Do we ever fail in the positive accomplishment of that commandment?

Personally, I don't believe that any heart that is enlightened by the Spirit of God could possibly fail to admit that we fail to love God perfectly. So how could you ever stand before Him? Christ has loved the Father perfectly every day, every minute, every hour, every second of every minute.

And it is His righteousness that you plead before God, not your own. So there is a positive aspect to the righteousness of Christ. It is the fact that He lived the perfect life in my place. He has given me His righteousness.

It is that that is given to us in our salvation. So it is the work of Christ. The instruments, and we will discuss this a little more closely, or some theologians use a more complicated term called the appropriating organ.

Theologians like coming up with words like that. The appropriating organ of justification is faith and faith alone. We are not justified because we have faith. Faith does not force God to justify us. Faith is the instrumentality through which God justifies us.

And we will get into that a little bit later. Justification is possible because Christ is our substitute, has borne our sins in His body on the tree. And finally, justification is a non-repeating once-for-all event.

One is either justified or one is not. One cannot be partially justified. Now, that is the Protestant perspective. We have talked a little bit about the Roman Catholic perspective. Obviously, especially I as a Protestant, believe that the only authority upon which this topic can be addressed is the authority of Scripture.

And so if we are going to substantiate the Protestant position, we must look to Scripture and be reformed by Scripture, be taught by Scripture. So let us do that. Let us turn our Scriptures to Exodus chapter 23.

And as you are turning there, I wish to ask you a question. I wish to ask a question of you. Those of you who have been in other seminars relevant to this issue, cannot answer. But I just wish you to think in your own mind, what is the difference between justification and righteousness?

What is the difference between justification and righteousness? Now, as you think about those two terms, let me give you some of the answers that have come up in past discussions about this. Normally, in the English language, when we think about these two terms, we think of righteousness in a moral or ethical sense.

When we think of someone who is righteous, we think of someone who is pure, who is holy. It's a moral concept, a spiritual concept. When we think of someone being justified, when we think of justification, normally we think of something more legal.

Something more legal. But in reality, biblically, the Bible itself, especially in the New Testament, where this topic is going to be discussed most fully, the Bible only uses one term, or one family of terms.

The noun that is used, dikayasune in the Greek, the verb dikayao, the adjective dikayas, to justify someone, to make someone righteous, is the same term in the New Testament. And different translations will render the same word in different ways, depending upon the context.

But we must understand that if we want to know what Paul taught about justification, we must look at the words that Paul used, not the words that we use, to translate Paul's words. And so we must go to the original meanings, we must go to the original terms.

In the Old Testament, the term that is normally translated as righteousness, and the whole family of terms, tzedek, is translated in the New Testament by the term dikayasune, or righteousness. Let's look at some passages in the Old Testament that address the word righteousness, or justification, and see how it is used.

Now first of all, I just say right off the top, obviously there are numerous passages, both in the Old and New Testament, where righteousness, or justification, is used primarily in a moral sense. Someone is described as being righteous.

Job, for example, is described as a righteous man. But Job offered sacrifices. So obviously he was not a perfect or sinless man, but he was a godly man. And it is used in that way. But it is also used in a way that we will see here in Exodus, and a number of other passages, in a solely forensic or legal way.

Let's look at Exodus 23 .7. Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not, and this translation uses the term, acquit the guilty. How about some other translations?

What does the King James say? Justify. That is the same term in Hebrew. God says that he will not justify the guilty. Now, you say, but in the New Testament, isn't that what he's doing? I mean, isn't that what the Gospel is all about, is how those who are guilty are going to be made righteous or justified?

Yes, that's true, but he's obviously not talking about that here. God will not acquit or justify the guilty. Notice the context. It's the law court. God is acting as judge, and he is pronouncing sentence in regards to guilt or innocence.

Right before that you had, do not kill the innocent or the righteous, for I will not acquit the guilty. See these terms that are being used? Innocent, guilty, they are statements about a person's relationship to the law.

If a person is innocent, that means there is no charge against them from the law. If they are guilty, that means they are condemned by the law. These are legal usages of the term here in the Old Testament.

You want to see another one? Look at Deuteronomy 25 .1. Deuteronomy 25 .1 If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, then it shall be, if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down, so on and so forth.

Listen to what is said. Do you hear those terms? Justify the righteous, condemn the wicked. Now let me ask you a question. When a judge justifies the righteous, is he subjectively changing that person?

Is he changing the person on the inside, making him a good person? No. The judge is making a declaration about that person and is saying, this person is righteous. What about the wicked? If the judge condemns the wicked man, is he changing the wicked man?

Is he making the man wicked? No. He's making a statement about the condition or the status of that man. He's not changing him. It turns me to Proverbs 17. Proverbs 17, verse 15. He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.

He who justifies the wicked or condemns the righteous. See how these same terms keep getting used over and over again? Justify, condemn. Those are the two terms. Those are the opposites. Now when I condemn someone, am I changing them on the inside?

No. I'm making a statement about them. I'm making a judgment about them. And so in the same way, here in verse 15 where it says, he who justifies the wicked, well, hey, if justification is changing a person on the inside, that would be great.

In fact, that's what God does with us, isn't it? He's changing us on the inside. But that's not what it's talking about. He who justifies the wicked, that's an abomination to God because it is a statement about someone who is wrong, someone who is out of harmony with the law of God saying, oh, they're in the right relationship to the law of God.

No, they're in the right relationship to God. No, that's not what it's about. One other very quickly, Isaiah chapter 5. Isaiah chapter 5 verse 23 discusses those who justify the wicked for a bribe and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right.

In each one of these passages, you clearly have an understanding of the word justify that cannot be taken as anything but a forensic legal declaration about the individual. And so when you come to that signal passage at the beginning of the New Testament, right off the bat in Genesis chapter 15 verse 6, a passage you should be familiar with if you know your New Testament very well, Genesis 15 verse 6, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Then we see the consistent usage of that through the Old Testament means that Abraham was not inwardly changed at that point. That's regeneration, that's sanctification, that's something else. His justification, as Paul is going to tell us, was a declaration on the part of God regarding Abraham's relationship to himself.

That Abraham was rightly related to him, that all the impedances to fellowship, all the sin was removed. Now yes, justification, regeneration, sanctification, forgiveness of sins, all these things are intimately connected.

You can never tear them apart. But we must differentiate them just as Scripture does. Is this legal sense carried on in the New Testament? You tell me. Romans chapter 8 verse 33. Romans 8 verse 33. Very quickly, because I see that the hands on the clock for some reason move so swiftly.

Romans 8 verse 33. Listen to this language. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died. Yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Do you hear the word justification there? God is the one who justifies. And what's the context? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? It's the law court again. Who will bring a charge under the condemnation of God's elect?

Well, no charge can be brought against them because God is the one, God as judge is the one who justifies. He is the one who declares them to be righteous. So who could possibly think that someone could come before the judge who has declared us righteous and bring a charge against us?

An impossibility. Now with that in mind, I would like you to turn with me to the book of Galatians. And we're going to slow down here for a second. And we're just going to look at scripture. We're going to follow Paul's argument.

Why Galatians? Why not Matthew? Or why not Mark? Well, I need to make a few comments about that very thing. If we are going to ask the question, what does the Bible teach about the doctrine of justification?

You may be able to glean some information about justification from other passages in scripture. But we must recognize the fact that there are certain passages of scripture that specifically and purposefully address this issue.

And we must go to those central passages first where the full discussion is given before we can then move from there to other passages where there's a brief mention made. But many people find one passage of scripture someplace that makes mention of something.

They build an entire theology on that and then import that theology into all of the book of Romans or all the book of Galatians where the subject is so very clearly discussed. That's not how we should do it.

We should go to the plain and clear passages first, understand them, and then move out from there. And so if you're going to ask the question, what does the New Testament teach about justification? There are two books that are going to immediately jump into your mind in regards to this subject.

Galatians and Romans. Now, does that mean it's not discussed someplace else? No, of course it is. But the main point of Paul's discussion in Galatians and in certain sections of Romans is justification.

In fact, he's engaged in argument. He's engaged in polemic. He's engaged in debate on this issue. And frequently, that's one of the things I like about debate. When you are in debate, you have to clearly state your position over against another position.

And that's what you have in Galatians. In Galatians, there are people, Judaizers we identify them, in the churches of Galatia that are teaching certain things. And Paul says that they are wrong. And in defining how they are wrong, we get very clear definitions about what is right.

What is right is his doctrine of justification. So turn with me please to chapter 2. In the very brief time we have together, we have to move through these things quickly. I hope that you will take the time to look at them much more slowly.

Some of you already have taken the time for doing that. But beginning at verse 11, just for a background statement. In verses 11 -15, we have the incredible encounter between Paul and Peter. And Peter has engaged in a certain activity that compromises the gospel of Christ.

What has he done? He has withdrawn table fellowship from the Gentiles. By his statement, he has said that simple faith in Christ alone is not sufficient. You have to do something else. You have to be circumcised.

You have to be part of the Jewish community. Faith alone is not sufficient to bring about the proper and full standing with God. And Paul recognizes how important this is. And he opposes Peter. And he begins to speak to him.

Beginning in verse 11, you can see where he opposes him. And in verse 14, he starts to speak to him. In verse 15, we who are Jews by nature and not sinners among Gentiles, nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Now, it almost sounds like Paul repeated himself unnecessarily over and over again, but he didn't. The point that he is making is this. You and I, Peter, we're Jews. Yes, we have possession of the law.

We know about the law. We've been instructed in the law from the very beginning. But you know something, Peter? You and I stand on the same level ground as the Gentile does. We're both condemned. Just simply possessing the law doesn't give us any advantage.

In fact, it condemns us all the more because we know the law. And the law convicts us. Even we who are Jews by nature, we have believed in Jesus Christ. Why? Because we know that a man is not justified by the works of the law.

Let me ask you a question. Could he possibly truly be saying that a man is not morally affected by keeping the law of God? No, of course. The Jewish person was morally superior, outwardly anyways, to the Gentile.

He didn't engage in many of the abominable practices that the Gentile did. So it wasn't... Paul's not talking about a subjective change here. Paul says we know that no man can be justified by works of the law in the sight of God.

Not that a man is not morally changed by the law. That's not what Paul's use of the term justification is. He is drawing from the same use of justification we saw in the Old Testament. No man is declared righteous.

No man is justified by works of the law. So how is a man justified? How can a man be made to stand before God correctly if it's not through the law? And the construction in the Greek language here in verse 16 makes it very clear that what Paul is saying, no man is justified by works of law.

The only way of justification is by faith in Christ Jesus. The only way. No other way except by faith in Christ. Not by following Buddha. Not by following Mohammed. Not by following all these supposed many roads that people have.

The one way is faith. But we may be justified how? By faith in Christ. Not by anything else. Not by my circumcision. Not by keeping rules and regulations and laws. I plead nothing else if I am going to be justified, if I am going to be made righteous, if I am going to stand before God without feeling His wrath.

The only way is by belief in Jesus Christ. Not by works of law since by works of law, how many will be justified? No flesh. Paul is saying there are two roads. This is the road of works righteousness and it goes that direction.