Doug Wilson’s Response to Riley, Taylor Marshall and Justification

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line, it's a Friday afternoon, we did Tuesday and Wednesday, so here we are on a

Friday, lots of folks probably already getting ready for weekend stuff, it's a hot one here in Phoenix, it's finally going to cool down next weekend, but we're percolating along right around 100 degrees today, but 100 degrees and dry

I think is about 8 % humidity, something like that, eh, you know, that's the way it is. We've had 103 for Reformation Day, so I see 70s next week, which means

I'm breaking out the coogies, I'm ready to go. Two things on the program today, as I had wished on the program on Wednesday, Doug Wilson responded to the article on G3, someone

I think, a few people pointed it out to me on Twitter, and a number of people contacted me, the author contacted me on Twitter, and all sorts of neat stuff like that, so we got to get to know folks a little bit better.

Where'd all my messages go? I don't know where my messages went on Twitter, it sort of disappeared on me there, oh well.

Anyway, and so my hope for reality took place, so I want to look at what

Doug said, because I'm not sure if I got mentioned in this or not. If so, it was sort of in a backhanded way, so we'll see.

But it's today's blog and Mayblog is the response that was provided, and somehow it scrolled way past where I wanted to be.

And so this is titled When Everything Starts to Converge on the Point, Wednesday, October 18th.

October 18th? Oh, that was the same day I was saying I hope this would happen. Okay, so he got to it pretty quick, but it's the first time

I saw it was today, actually. So this is in response to the

G3 article by Michael Riley, who evidently I have met, he contacted me later on, and he said that he picked me up and took me to dinner years and years ago in Minneapolis.

And I'll be pretty honest, I don't remember that. I do remember a couple trips to Minneapolis. One of them my daughter was with me,

I don't know if it was that trip or not. But basically, the only reason I went to Minneapolis was when

I was meeting with folks at Bethany House. And that was primarily in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s at the at the latest.

So it's been a long time, long time. And a number of people have contacted me let me know that Michael Riley's a good guy.

Okay, super. I'm glad there are lots of good guys out there. I always know that there have been. Okay, so it's interesting.

Doug describes himself, his article can be found here, as a fellow Vantillian, albeit not a purist

Vantillian and somewhat smudgy on natural law. I agreed with pretty much everything

Riley said until right near the end of his article. I wonder what he means by somewhat smudgy on natural law.

We know what Vantill's view of those things were. So I'm not really sure.

But then he talks a little bit about what they've been doing up in Moscow.

And he says, I would suggest these critiques are being raised now because in a world gone mad, these three positions, once considered beyond weird and scary, are now mighty appealing.

Clown world made them so. The three positions are post -millennialism, theonomy, and the serrated edge.

The post -millennialism means we believe ourselves to be in a battle that we are going to win. The theonomy means we have a standard that does not shift or slide and is not dependent upon the whims of man.

The serrated edge means we are more interested in being biblical than we are being fastidious, Victorian, or polite.

Obviously there are ranges within each term that could be discussed and how to make application and so on and so forth.

But that's interesting. So then he talks about Lorraine Bettner as the sole post -millennialist for around for a while.

But he does say this is not some heterodox thing out on the perimeter. We are talking about the view held by Edwards and Livingston, Warfield, Hodge, Owen, and the

Savoy Declaration. Okay. He says this represents a systematic worldview and it extends from Genesis to Revelation, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, and from the river to the ends of the earth.

Okay. So then there's this interesting paragraph here. But at the same time, it is also important to note that we in the post -millennial camp do not believe that we are in an adversary relationship with our pre -mill

Baptistic brethren. That wouldn't be me. I'm not pre -mill. We are standing on different parts of the walls of old

Jerusalem, watching Rabshakeh ride around the city, demanding that all of us surrender.

When he gets to the G3 part of the wall, he taunts them and says that they must lay down their arms.

They reply stoutly and bravely that they have conferred with the committee and having spent some time in a season of incessant prayer.

Our reply is, with all due respect, a flat no. This is healthy, wise, and good.

We are all for it. But when Rabshakeh gets to our part of the wall, somebody yells, we don't think so,

Scooter. There are some stylistic differences to be sure.

If you just knew all the stuff going in the background, you would know why it's best to just laugh.

But yes, that is pretty much what you'd get as you went by the cannon press part of the wall.

Don't think so, Scooter. That's good. I wonder how long it took him to think that one up. Okay, so he says, then this is,

I don't know if this is about me. Doug, is this about me? You've got my cell number.

I've got yours. Give me a text. Before getting to Riley's point, which

I will eventually do, I need to make another side observation. Taking one thing with another, many

Baptists who are aware of their history with Christian states are pretty hyper about what a

Christian prince might do to them. And I don't mind them having objections to what some zealot of Anglican bishop time traveling from the 17th century might do.

I don't know. I don't know. It's just an Anglican bishop in the 17th century.

I mean, we've got Rome, obviously. They're all confused. Don't know what they believe anymore.

But anyway, he says, I dare say it would be objectionable, and I would object right alongside the

Baptists. Well, I would really, really, really like to think that that would be the case.

And in history, there were those who did speak up against the persecution of Baptists.

But remember, some of the worst persecution of Baptists was performed by rock -ribbed

Calvinists in northern European countries, and nobody really raised much of a objection at all.

And I don't remember any major protests outside the

Vartburg castle when Fritz Erba was chucked in that hole.

And the reason was that the Christian men and women of that sacral society viewed the actions of the

Baptists as being traitorous and treasonous. There is a scene or a couple scenes in the movie

The Radicals, which some people don't like, which some friends of mine don't like, but it accurately portrays the reality that part of the detestation of some of the

Anabaptists, hardly, well, yes I do, but if I had time, it would take multiple programs.

But unfortunately, the term Anabaptist especially is used for the many groups that sprang up after the beginning of the

Reformation, most of which claimed some kind of precursors before them, but pretty much came into existence because of the freedom that started to promise itself.

Didn't really materialize fully, but you had men like Bützer that seemed to, you know,

Strasbourg seemed to be a place where maybe there would be some level of freedom, and they're still wandering nomads without a homeland, most of them were, but there were a lot of differences amongst these

Anabaptists, and the things that bound them together were not necessarily any more definitional than the things which divided them, which is a strange fact of history.

But those groups, you know, putting

Jan of Leiden off the side and putting

Münster someplace else, still well into the,

I think the last Baptist martyrs in Calvinist countries were in the 18th century, the 1700s.

And by that point, the reason for the persecution has evolved some, but initially, like I was saying, the idea was, well, these

Anabaptists, they won't fight. They're pacifists. And if you don't baptize your children, they're not going to be on the tax rolls.

So it's very much a complete wiping out of the sphere sovereignty that is supposed to exist and must exist to avoid sacralism 2 .0.

But there were lots of good rock -ribbed Calvinists that had no problem whatsoever with Anabaptists being imprisoned or being executed.

And so I would like to think that Doug would be objecting and leading his troops to free us from the

Wartburg Castle. But the problem is, he already got to know us.

And, you know, I've commented a number of times, you can't really, you've got to realize

Calvin didn't know any Anabaptists in the sense of a respectful communion and fellowship with.

I mean, his wife was the widow of an Anabaptist.

So he would have had some knowledge there, but there wasn't any fellowship.

There wasn't any knowledge. You know, I've spoken in Moscow and, you know, done things with the guys up there and in different places, not just up there, but other places as well.

And so it's totally different. But what if it was back the way that it was back then?

Would there really be a foundation for objecting and seeking our protection?

He says, I dare say it would be objectionable and I would object right alongside the Baptists. What I don't understand is how many

Baptists can have such a rigid paradigm about this that they absolutely refuse to let me agree with them.

That's why I can't believe this is me, because we've agreed on all sorts of stuff.

I sometimes feel like Jordan Peterson staring, oh, it was supposed to be staring at that lady reporter, but it says starting.

You want to fix that, Doug? Staring at that lady reporter who was saying, so what you are saying. But think this through, people.

You know, when you use people, that normally reminds you of R .C. Sproul. What's wrong with you, people? So if we did get to a point where we had a

Christian state that was persecuting fellow Christians, would this be happening because the state was obeying

Christ or disobeying Christ? Well, let me stop. We've had this happen in the past.

Luther did it. Zwingli did it. Calvin did it. Their successors did it for a long time.

So were they obeying Christ or disobeying Christ? And who was objecting?

If the latter is what they are doing, and it would be, then it is hardly to the point for the Baptists to protect themselves by arguing that we must not require the state to obey the law of Christ, unless what the

Baptists are saying is, sphere sovereignty must be observed, and therefore there is no basis for the state to be doing these things in the first place.

Let me get this straight. You think that such persecutions would be disobedience, and you're going to fix this by never ever requiring obedience?

No. What scares us is that Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli thought they were obeying

Christ, and so did the magistrates under their sway. Even when, even in the

Cervetus Affair, when Calvin and the ministers requested a more merciful death, when you burn somebody at the stake, you could also, for example, strangle them, stab them, do something that would kill them before the burning, because unfortunately, burning can take a long time.

You could literally get roasted before you died. I mean, literally having flesh falling off like a well -done turkey.

It could get that bad before you're dead. The pain and agony would be astonishing, and so the ministers had said, no, strangle him first, break his neck, strangle him first, whatever, before you burn the body, and a little council said, nope, he's getting the greenwood treatment, the long -term burning.

So there was a, the proper spheres of sovereignty, family, church, state, under sacralism are imbalanced at best, and very frequently there's crossing over.

And that's what we are concerned about, especially when we talk about forms of, quote -unquote,

Christian nationalism that do not have, as their originating point, what you say in here and what we agreed on when we talked, and that is that this, for example, it says, where is it here?

What if we do get to a point where we had a Christian state? Well, the only way to get there is through the fulfillment of those promises, hence massive regeneration, and then this won't be an issue because we'll all be

Baptists anyways. All those human traditions will have gone by the wayside.

So anyway, and now finally to my engagement with Riley's point.

He says that he agrees with me on the standard that differs with me on the means. And I said two days ago, probably around the same time

Doug was writing this, I said that I think this is where Doug would disagree, and that Doug wouldn't view his position as being, as requiring this.

So, quote, I do not disagree with Wilson. The final answer to by what standard is the law of God, but I do not believe that the force of the government is the means by which this standard is to be established.

And so this was where the change took place. There was a footnote that was added in because it initially said, established in the hearts of the people, and he said the phrase in the hearts of people is not a fair summary of the

CM position and has been removed. Okay, good. But Wilson says, but even with the correction, as heartening as it is, this is the place where I believe we are still not communicating clearly.

I do not believe the government is the means by which the standard is established. Politics is no savior.

To say that politics is included among those things which need to be saved is not to maintain that politics is the entity doing the saving.

There is a radical difference between savior and savee. The establishment of the standard will come to include the government at some point, obviously.

But the government is not the means by which this will happen. How will it happen? Preaching the gospel, church planning, bible studies, reformation, revival in the churches.

And if all this were to happen on the scale that it needs to happen, and that I would say would be the fulfillment of the promises that a post -millennialist is pointing to as the ordering promises, the coastlands seeking after Yahweh's Torah.

And if all this were to happen on the scale that needs to happen, it will come to have an impact on the government as it has done numerous times in the past.

So yeah, the government then reflects the character and priorities of the people.

The government is not the means by which the people's character is changed or their priorities are established.

I think most everybody agrees with that. Well, except for the Christian Franco people, I guess.

This is the fruit of the Great Commission being pursued by hot gospel preachers. This will happen, but it will not happen by law.

Right. Law will reflect. The movement of the spirit comes first.

The regeneration comes first. The law then reflects that as you see this change in society.

Romans 4 .13 is quoted. So law has no power to save, but can the law be saved and abandoned as pretended prerogative of chopping up babies?

The answer to that is yes. Well, I'm not sure the law is being saved. It's simply the laws of the culture of death being replaced by the laws of the culture of life, which has to happen because the culture of death continues making the laws that society and the world are doomed.

There won't be anything to be saved. While we are here, and this is interesting, while we are here, a common objection is that the

Great Commission does not target the modern nation state.

The direct object there is ethnoi, all the tribes, all the people groups, not modern governments. This is like saying that Christ commanded us to disciple all the eggs, but said nothing about omelets.

If we were to obey him and we discipled all the people groups of the world such that the earth was as full the knowledge of the

Lord as the waters cover the sea, what would happen to our modern nation states? Some of them would disappear and good riddance, and the rest of them would bring their honor and glory into the

New Jerusalem. Again, that's a post -mill position. That's what we've agreed on from the start.

That's the only thing that can bring all of this about, and that's not happening five years from now.

We can hope and pray that we begin to see that kind of revival taking place all across the world, but you know what that's going to show up in first?

A crash in the behavior that brings about the need, the need, the market for abortion, which nobody's talking about now worldwide.

I mean, seriously, when's the last time you heard any politician talking about, well, you know, what we really need to do is to stop fornicating so much.

When you start hearing that, and then you can start going, hey, something's going on here, something's going on here.

And then there's a discussion of the satire stuff, which

I didn't, I really didn't think was a part of the

Riley article at all. So that was the response, and it pretty much,

I pretty much anticipated it in that my response is to default back to what do we mean by post -millennialism.

Now, what do you do then with a non -post -millennial Christian nationalist like Stephen Wolf?

Maybe there'll be a, hey, maybe I could suggest this because I have a feeling everybody's listening.

Maybe Michael Riley would write something specifically, and maybe he has, and I just don't know about it.

That's another option. But maybe do something specifically on a non -post -millennial, non -theonomic, non -Ventilian formulation of Christian nationalism.

Because I assume the objections from Brother Riley's perspective there would be even sharper.

As much light as was produced by this discussion, which I thought was really good, maybe even more could come from that.

I certainly would like to see that happen. This hit my feed this morning, even though it was a couple days before it hit.

I wanted to mention that because of the fact that we had talked about it on the last program.

So while it was fresh in your memory, I'm sure everybody was just sitting around thinking about the last dividing line ever since, and yeah, probably not.

That's okay. All right, what do I want to do with the rest of the time we have? Really dry today.

I could be using my Alpha Omega coffee mug, which

I did link to on Twitter. The roadshow tour, band tour t -shirt, and this.

And my wife loves that big, huge, insulated water bottle thingamabob.

It's too big for me, but she took it with us in the truck on the way up to Greer last weekend, and the bottom is small enough to fit in the regular things.

So you can get a lot of stuff in there. So does mine.

You mean fits? Yes. Okay. So does mine.

Yeah. Oh, your wife likes it.

Oh, she loves it. Yeah. Yeah. Kelly loves it. Rich's wife loves it. So you can get yours as well.

But I don't have one because no one gave me one, but that's okay.

It's actually a little larger than I would normally use. And I like to put my stuff in the door.

I've got two spots in the door. I wouldn't fit there. It'd have to be up there.

Anyhow. All right. Here it is.

Dr. Taylor Marshall is an old -style Roman Catholic.

Really, he seems to me almost pre -Tridentine. He seems to be borderline set a vacantist.

You know, he tweeted today, God will never bless sin.

Really? That's what the Vatican said in 2021, and now the

Pope has opened up possibilities of the blessings of same -sex relationships, which is a clear contradiction, obviously, as there are so many in Roman Catholic history, which makes all this, well, we have the

Pope and all you have is anarchy stuff, just so obviously fraudulent. But anyway, he likes to throw stuff out there.

And it's the, like I said, it's old -style. It's 1950s, in -your -face

Roman Catholicism, you know, stuff that's been answered over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

You know, the Protestants took 2 Maccabees out of the

Bible because they didn't like purgatory. Silliness. It is silly. I mean, no one really takes that seriously who's ever done any serious reading.

Anyone who's even listened to the debates we've done on the subject. I debated Gerry Matitix on this subject.

I debated Gary Machuda on that subject. You listen to those debates and you know that kind of rhetoric is, you just can't take it seriously.

So he says some silly stuff. And again, I've been told that Dr.

Marshall is a flat earther. Now, you know, Bobson Jenis is a geocentrist.

And so there's some interesting perspectives amongst the

Catholics that are more Catholic than the Pope these days. That's a fair number of Catholics. But who knows?

Who knows? I'm just looking at what was posted today. And normally what I do when

I see this stuff crossing my timeline is I'll just jump onto YouTube real quick, grab a

URL to one of the many debates. Most of these subjects we've debated at some point or another over the past since 1990.

And I'll just throw it in there. And who knows? I can't tell you how many people over the years have met that I ran into your stuff on YouTube.

And man, at first I just hated you. But then I kept watching and I couldn't answer what was being said.

And one thing led to another. And you know, so let the

Lord use it. And I normally don't spend much time looking at the nasty responses and stuff like that because there are a lot of them.

You just put it out there. And anyway, the subject of justification came up today.

And let me just tell you something. Given the number of conferences over the past 20 years,

I wonder, I'll bet you there's some geek out there that could find this out. I wonder how many conferences have been held over the past 20 years in the

Reformed community that had the term Sola somewhere.

Or some Latin that someone assumed had to do with the Reformation. There's a conference going on in Texas right now, the

Semper Reformanda conference. Now I believe in Semper Reformanda. And I have mentioned

Semper Reformanda in my debates with Roman Catholics because I believe it's very important to emphasize that the church is always reforming.

And that means that she's always under the ultimate authority of scripture and not her own.

I think that's very important. But I've been told by Reformed Baptists, in the past two years, that Semper Reformanda is not only not a properly

Reformed phrase, that actually was coined by Karl Barth as an excuse to change whatever he didn't like about what was believed before his time.

I've been told that. And I'm like, I think it's absolutely vital.

If you don't hold Semper Reformanda, then you will never be able to hold the

Sola Scriptura, not consistently for any length period of time. So I would think that given how often we've all attended conferences where Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, I've lost track.

I have lost track on how many sermons and talks and presentations I've done on all five

Solas over and over and over again for decades.

Don't you think we should be the people who know the doctrine of justification so well that not only can we present it from scripture, know right where to go, but that we know what the objections are and know how to respond to the objections as well?

Shouldn't we be the people doing that? Otherwise, what were we wasting our time all that time doing? Was it just a chance to get together and have some cigars and drink some hard liquor afterwards or something along those lines?

Set up our book tables and do our webcasts and the stuff we do?

Here's Dr. Taylor Marshall. Here's what he said. Justification by faith alone through forensic imputation of righteousness is not found in the

Bible. God doesn't keep false books or honor dishonest scales. Justification by imputation is a legal fiction.

It's nominalistic at best or Islamic at worst.

Be Catholic, James 2 .24. Okay.

Now, my hope is, my desire is, that everybody who has listened to this program for any period of time at all would be able to tear that to shreds because it's utterly false.

It's completely self -deceived. It is what most Roman Catholics believe.

Well, believing Roman Catholics, again,

Francis messes all this up because Francis tells a kid that his dad's gone to heaven because he had his kid baptized even though he didn't believe in God.

So, what a mess they've got over there. I get it. But we should be able to respond to that.

You should be able to respond to that. We've been talking about this for a long time.

One of the first debates that I did was with Mitch Pacwa on justification in San Diego in January of 1991.

I wrote a little teeny tiny book. I remember writing this. Real interesting cover.

I think I had something to do with it. Justification by Faith, Crown Publications.

This would have been 1990. Yeah, 1990. A short little discussion of biblical definition of justification.

Nice quotes here, actually. Boy, I've got to put on the

Jimmy Kirk's. He is said to be justified in God's sight, who is both reckoned righteous in God's judgment and has been accepted on account of his righteousness.

John Calvin. Justification is still the article of the Standing or Falling Church.

John Murray. I remember pulling these out years and years and years ago.

What then is the ground, the Bible, and the people of God with one voice answer the righteousness of Christ? The believer relies for his acceptance with God, not on himself but on Christ, not on what he is or has done but on what

Christ is and has done for him. Charles Hodge. The saving power of faith resides thus not in itself but in the

Almighty Savior on whom it rests. It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ it saves, but Christ it saves through faith.

B .B. Warfield. Oops, I skipped one there.

Oh, that's just Romans 5 .1. One of the earliest, I think this was the 1, 2, 3, 4.

I think there's a fourth book that I wrote. Justification by Faith. Have we kindled?

Oh, looked over? That is on Kindle. I was about to ask that question. Is that on Kindle?

Why, yes, it is on Kindle. And then, of course, we couldn't leave it as a small little book.

The God Who Justifies. And interestingly enough, for example, when he quotes

James 2 .24, I still think one of the more valuable contributions that I've made over the course of my ministry is the 30 -some -odd -page chapter that is in this book on James 2.

I've preached on it many times. I remember doing a presentation on it in London, for example.

If you're going to be dealing with Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, anybody who has a very strongly man -centered, works -heavy concept of salvation, you need to know

James 2. You really do. That's not all I dealt with in here, obviously. But diving into the meaning of the

Dikaiosune word group in Greek, Old Testament backgrounds,

James 2, Galatians, Romans. That's what we did in The God Who Justifies.

And that is still in print and available. And I'm thankful that it is available.

Ah, someone says Taylor denies flat earth. Okay, well,

I'm getting conflicting information on that. And so if someone says to you what

Taylor Marshall said in this tweet, where are you going to go? Let me remind you.

Justification by faith alone through forensic imputation of righteousness is not found in the Bible. God doesn't keep false books or honor dishonest scales.

Justification by imputation is a legal fiction. Now, legal fiction is hundreds of years old.

And it was the basis of the rejection by Roman Catholics of Luther's story, if he actually told it, of the

Dunghill, remember? The first snowfall covers over the offense of the Dung. It doesn't change the

Dung. And so justification takes away the offense. It's sanctification that changes the

Dung into something else. But that's not the ground of why we're accepted by Christ. And of course, then I point out that the reverse scenario of that is that in the

Roman Catholic system, you're a Dunghill. And once you're baptized, you're turned into a pile of gold.

And the reason you go to heaven is because gold is nice. And God likes gold. And God takes gold to heaven because you have been internally changed.

You've been infused with grace. The problem is, as you live in this world, you commit venial sins.

And so flecks of Dung start to appear on the surface of the gold. And that's why you have to go to confession.

You have to do penances. And if you don't do them perfectly, then at the end of your life, you have all this Dung that you have to have worked off in purgatory, which seemingly, given the stories from the past, will take a very long time.

But if you commit a mortal sin in the Roman Catholic system, your pile of gold is instantly turned back into a pile of Dung.

And you don't really know one way or the other in this life. In fact, if you claim to know, then it's the sin of presumption.

And of course, if you turn back into a pile of Dung, then you have to go, you have to be rejustified and turn back into a pile of gold and go back and forth and back and forth.

And all this because you don't have a finished work of Christ. Since the

Mass is a perpetuatory sacrifice, then you have this ongoing imperfection.

You can approach the Mass 30 ,000 times in your life and still die impure. So, there's where legal fiction comes from.

So, how would you respond to that? Hopefully, a number of texts came across your mind, but you need to have something more than just a list of texts.

You need to be able to follow an argument through an entire section of scripture.

Simply quoting one text, one proof text, just isn't enough. So, let's look at Romans, starting

Romans chapter 3, and let's think about how would, if you were talking with someone who read the

Roman Catholic, who read Taylor Marshall's tweet, and you started talking over coffee, if you turned in your

Bible to Romans chapter 3 and you wanted to walk through some key texts, how would you do it?

Well, I would suggest doing something like this.

Let's look at Romans 3 .28, where Paul says, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

And then, having said, okay, here's the text, what you want to do is you then want to back up and you want to provide the previous context.

Not necessarily by reading all of it, but by demonstrating that you know what it is.

And so, you might go, now remember, Paul had spent the last half of Romans chapter 1 establishing universal sinfulness, so that everyone is condemned because the sins they've committed.

Then in chapter 2, in case the Jews are going, yeah, go get them, Paul. That's what those

Gentiles are like. He says, hey, you may have the law, but simply possessing the law doesn't make you right with God. You may know the law says do not steal, but do you rob temples?

And so, in chapter 3, he then brings everybody together, and his goal is for Jews and Gentiles together to stand silent before the bar of God.

And that's what's happened just before this. Every mouth stopped, every tongue quieted.

The only person ready to hear the good news of what the gospel is, is the person who has stopped yapping about their self -righteousness.

So, when the criminal stands with the head down and no more excuses being made, that's the person who's ready to hear, to hear about the provision

God has made in Christ Jesus. And that's what he starts to do in chapter 3.

And he has just immediately, before I said where then is boasting, it is excluded.

But what kind of law? Of works? No, by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed

God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, is one. So, there's only one way.

And in fact, the point had been earlier on, in fact, it's a text that we quote all the time. We quote

Romans 3 .23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But in the context, what's being said is, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.

For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. His whole point, which is rarely included in our

Sunday school use of this text, or even in the tracts that we use, is when it says, for all have sinned, the point there is

Jew and Gentile. That's his whole point. Because you'll notice, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all of those who believe, everybody's under the same condemnation.

Everyone's mouth is stopped. Everyone's guilty for God. So, everybody's now in the same place.

And so, God provides one way of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.

For there is no distinction, Jew, Gentile, male, female, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace, the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus, whom

God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith for a demonstration of his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who, what, has faith in Jesus.

The justifier. The God who justifies. That's why I named the book the way I did. So, that he might be dikaion, kai dikaiunta.

He might be just himself because the work of Christ allows him to be merciful to those who are in Christ.

And the justifier of the ones who are the faith of Jesus. There is obviously a bunch of discussion we could have about Pista Ossiasu and objective and subjective genders.

We won't get into that today. So, the point is, it's by faith, the one who has faith in Jesus, not the one who works, not the one who accomplishes anything.

And that's why he can then say where then is boasting. It's excluded. By what kind of law?

A law of works? No. By a law of faith. It's the empty hand of faith.

And there's no boasting in this. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law.

Or is God the God of the Jews only? If the Jews had the only way of salvation. But they don't.

It's faith. Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed

God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that faith, is one.

One God. It's one way of justification. It's one way of salvation. Do we then abolish the law through faith?

May it never be. On the contrary, we establish the law. That is not saying, obviously, that we establish the law as the means of justification.

But that the law was the mechanism by which Christ dies on the cross. He gives his perfect life for us.

The demands of that perfect law are fulfilled in Christ Jesus. And so the law and its perfect reflection of God's just character is demonstrated and verified in that Christ bears the punishment of that law in his own body upon the tree.

So, having made that assertion, we go into Romans chapter 4. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh is found?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? Then we have citation of one of the texts that is repeated so often in the

New Testament, Genesis 15 .6. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

So, Abraham believes and it is lagizimai, here, elagiste, reckoned to him as righteousness.

And then we have two verses, really, we have a series of about four verses here that I think are absolutely central to proclaiming the gospel to Roman Catholics, to reasoning with them.

Now, to the one, verse 4, and please notice over here, today ergod zemeno ha misthos.

And then look at verse 5, today may ergod zemeno.

So, they both are starting in the exact same way, to the working one, but verse 5, to the not working one.

They're meant to be put in parallel. To the working one, the misthos, the wage, is not lagizitai, imputed, reckoned, kata karin, according to grace, as a gift, but kata ophilema.

So, the wage is not reckoned in the category of grace, but in the category of debt, what is owed.

So, if someone works, whatever they receive is not grace.

When you receive your paycheck, that's not grace, you earned it. Under God's moral law, you are owed the pay for the work that you do.

So, the one working, the one thinking that by doing something, I'm going to receive something back from God.

I'm adding, I'm working the system, and you can say God has graciously made this possible, but the point is, you're the one having to do this.

The one working, the wage, is not credited or imputed kata karin, the category of grace, ala kata ophilema, but what is owed.

But then in contrast to that verse 5, but to the not working, but believing upon the one justifying the ungodly, so there's your contrast, to the not working one, but in contrast to the working one, the one believing upon the one justifying the ungodly.

His faith, that faith that does not include within it the idea of debt or what is due, working to gain something, his faith is lagidzatai, imputed aistikai as righteousness.

So, you have a very purposeful contrast between verses 4 and 5, and what comes out in that is the empty hand of faith.

There is something in the term ergadzo, working, doing, performing, accomplishing, and for saving faith to be saving faith, it is a not working, not performing, not accomplishing, because the work and the performance and the accomplishment has already been done by Christ.

It's an acceptance of the perfection and finished nature of his sacrifice. That one believes upon the one justifying.

God justifies who? Well, seemingly, according to Dr. Marshall, the obedient.

This is the one justifying the ungodly. I don't bring my obedience.

I don't bring my willingness. I have nothing in my hand.

All I can do is cast myself upon the one who justifies the ungodly. This is so scandalous to the person who thinks they can earn something from God because they do it every day, right?

This is the verse that Joseph Smith changed in the inspired version of the Bible, where the

Mormon prophet just couldn't understand how God could justify the ungodly, and so he changed it and put in the word not.

His God does not justify the ungodly, hence leaving his followers, the

Mormons, with a mission impossible salvation system. So here is saving faith is an empty hand of faith.

It does not bring anything with it. It doesn't try to say, you know, I know

I really can't pay you for the whole thing, but let me at least give you something. No. It's an empty hand of faith.

And then verses 6 -8, very, very, very important. Verses 6 -8.

And again, here's what I'm saying to you. This needs to be, this text needs to be so familiar to you that you're not looking at cards.

You're not looking at something you've written in the back of your Bible. For now, if you need to write it down that way, fine, but make it your goal to be able to explain this to a

Roman Catholic or to a six -year -old. Because if you can teach this stuff to the young kids, then you can explain it to almost anybody.

I'm not saying that Catholics are six -year -olds. What I'm saying is when you know a subject well enough to teach the young people, you probably know it well enough to handle objections to it in a different context.

Because what's interesting is, just as David also speaks, so in Paul's assertion here, what we're going to read from Psalm 32, what we're going to read is backing up, is substantiating, is a foundation for what he just said in verses 4 and 5.

But notice how Paul understands it. Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom

God reckons righteousness without, without works.

God imputes righteousness apart from works.

According to the Apostle, David spoke of a special blessedness upon the man who receives righteousness from him apart from works.

Well, Paul, where do you get that in the Old Testament? I can just hear, I can hear

Taylor Marshall making that kind of a statement. Well, let's look.

Here's the citation, and again, set out in reality. So clearly in the

LSB over here, in the English, you'll notice in the Greek it's in italic, so it's not quite as clunky.

But here's our Old Testament citation coming from the Greek Septuagint. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered over.

Blessed is the man who, umme, umme, there's a strong denial, to whom the

Lord will never impute sin. Blessed is the man whose sin the

Lord will not, umme, lagesetai, reckon or take into account.

And then he goes on to make the argument, is this blessing on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also?

If we say faith is counted to Abraham as righteousness, how then was it counted? Well, he was circumcised or uncircumcised.

Not well -circumcised, but well -uncircumcised. By the way, I wouldn't necessarily get into this unless they brought it up, but one of the favorite ways around this from Roman Catholic apologists,

Bob St. Genes did this in our debate long ago back on, what was that, 2000, I think, somewhere around there, is to try to say that Abraham was justified multiple times.

I guess he kept committing mortal sins or something, but he was justified multiple times. He was justified in Genesis 15, he was justified again in Genesis 22 when he offers

Abraham, Abraham, Isaac on the altar. Problem is, that is an argument against Paul, because what you have in verses 9 and following is you have a temporal element of the argument.

He's asking, was this righteousness given to Abraham when he was circumcised or uncircumcised?

And his argument is, Genesis 15, 6 is before receiving the sign of circumcision, therefore it was uncircumcised.

So the Jews can't do what they do in making circumcision a part of how you receive righteousness from God. That makes the point that this is when

Abraham was justified. If there was a repetitive justification,

Paul's argument is destroyed. Not that there aren't people that don't care about that, there are, but just wanted to bring that up.

But I want to, again, focus on 7 and 8, because here's the thing, and then we'll wrap up.

Who is the blessed man? Who is the blessed man? I'll never remember it, but I'll see if I can remember to link to the

YouTube video from 22 years ago in debating

Peter Stravinskis and asking him, are you the blessed man in Romans 4, 8?

And if you recall, his initial response was, the blessed man is Jesus. So blessed is the man whose sin the

Lord will not take into account. So Jesus is blessed because his sin won't be taken into account?

Obviously not. He realized that didn't work. Sad thing is, here's a guy with two

PhDs from Ivy League schools who'd ever been asked this question before. Not so much sad for him as it is the fact that probably a whole lot of believing

Christians had crossed his path and never bothered to try to communicate something to him.

But then his second response is, well, I hope to be. I hope to be the blessed man.

Why is this so hard for Roman Catholics? Because Roman Catholicism does not have any non -imputation of sin.

In fact, Taylor Marshall describes it as, forensic imputation of righteousness is not found in the

Bible. God doesn't keep false books or honor on a scale. Justification of imputation is a legal fiction.

They have no non -imputation of sin, but Romans 4, 8 is dependent upon it.

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. So every Roman Catholic knows that if they commit a venial sin, it is imputed to them.

They are held accountable. They have to go to confession. They have to do penance.

And if they do it imperfectly, that's what purgatory is for. It's a place of purging, cleansing, for that temporal punishment of those venial sins.

And they also know if they commit a mortal sin, and of course there is no cut and dry definition of what these are, but if they commit a mortal sin, then they lose the grace of justification.

If they die in that state, they will go to hell. So if they commit a mortal sin, it is imputed to them.

And they have to be re -justified, there's temporal punishments, there's penances, so on and so forth.

There is no blessed man in Roman Catholicism.

Because of their unbiblical doctrine of sin, because their unbiblical doctrine of the mass and the death of Christ, because their unbiblical doctrine of justification, there is no blessed man.

The point is that if you just read Romans 4, his whole point is, this is the blessing for all believers.

This is the foundation of why you're going to get to the end of chapter 4, and Romans 5 -1 says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. Not, therefore, having been justified by baptism and continued sacramental activities and re -justifications and indulgences and everything else that Rome has added, down to the centuries that the apostles never dreamed of, you have to believe in sola scriptura, but if you want to have the peace of Romans 5 -1, this is where the foundation is laid.

This is where the foundation is laid. Now, isn't it interesting?

Remember what I said earlier? Paul said in verse 6,

David spoke of the blessing of the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

But then you read Psalm 32, and what's it saying?

It's all in reference to the covering over of sin.

So you see, from the apostles' perspective, the righteousness apart from works comes from the forgiveness of sin in Jesus Christ.

This is what every single believer is in view in verses 7 and 8.

And this is what it means. This is the blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

And who is that? Every believer. If you're a Christian, this is about you.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the conclusion. That's Paul's own interpretation. It is amazing to me to listen to Roman Catholics literally arguing against Paul, because he's not their final authority.

Not by a long shot. Certainly not for Taylor Marshall. He's not their final authority.

In fact, right now, I'm not sure who the final authority is. I always got to say that the

Pope is, but not this Pope. Tough day.

Tough day to be a Catholic apologist trying to argue against biblical teaching. But so when you see a post like that, my hope is immediately that not only are you not troubled by it in the sense of, oh,

I know exactly where you went wrong there. But my hope would be, and oh

Lord, I would love to have the opportunity to get to explain that to someone today. To show someone the blessing upon the man to whom

God imputes righteousness apart from works. And that involves the forgiveness of sins. The non -imputation of sin, because it's been imputed to my sin bearer.

He made him who knew no sin to be righteous in our behalf, to be sin on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

That's the great exchange. That's the beauty of the gospel. And all of that is connected to the finishedness of the work of Christ, which is fundamentally destroyed in the repetition of the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, which is a whole other area.

Which, of course, we've certainly dealt with many times before. Debated Mitch Pacwa on that.

Again, as I've said many times, the videos were produced, but were never made available to anybody by the people who produced those videos.

So the audio is there, but no one will ever get to see it. Which is a shame, but that's how that went.

Anyway, okay. I hope that is useful to you.

I hope that you will use that information, study that text, make sure you know it.

Because the reality is, people can tell when you're giving them sort of a pre -memorized spiel, or when this is coming from your own real experience, your own real knowledge of the text and your own thankfulness, that you are that blessed man.

Does it make you better than anybody else? It means you have to admit that you were the sinner that needed to have those sins covered and forgiven and placed upon another.

That one being Jesus Christ. So present the gospel, present it boldly, present it graciously, and let the

Lord do the work. All right, thanks for listening to everything we've done this week on The Dividing Line. We've covered a lot of different topics, and Lord willing, we will see you next week right here.