The 5 Causes of Justification

So, when we say that faith is more than assenting, we're not saying that you don't assent.

There is doctrine to believe, and you need to believe that doctrine. There are essentials that must be believed, and those essentials ultimately lead to a person.

Certainly, and that reminds me of a statement that Spurgeon made. Spurgeon talked about the fact that we are never called upon to embrace or to believe a plan of salvation.

We are called upon to embrace the Savior. And if you think about that, that really does rescue us from so many of the pitfalls that people find themselves in.

If you're embracing a plan of salvation, that's one thing, but if you're embracing the whole Savior, then you have the lordship of Christ.

I've embraced a king, so my life is ruled by him. You have the righteousness of Christ.

I've embraced one who has kept the law for me. You have the free forgiveness that comes from Christ. I embrace the one who actually became the sacrifice whose blood washes me.

In taking the whole Jesus, and with mind and heart and will, embracing, turning to him, away from the things we used to hope in, that's the biblical picture of faith and its object.

One of the things so beautiful about the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ alone is that it is perfectly suited to every aspect of our spiritual need.

I mean, there just isn't anything that you or I need as sinners that doesn't come from Christ.

He's the great treasurer of heaven and isn't received through this faith, this dependence.

But the other thing that makes it so beautiful is that it gives us this perfect rescue in a way that most exalts the king that we now love.

I mean, would we really love a salvation that got us out of hell, so to speak, and then we turn to the one that got us out of hell, and we realize that this way of salvation dishonored him, made him look less than he is, and that would grieve us now that we love him.

So it's a double delight for us to study the doctrines of salvation because we do see in this that God has given us the clearest displays of his perfections.

So we know that every knee will bow and confess that he's Lord, and we'll see in some fashion that he is better than we can describe him to be.

One thing I think that it would be helpful for us to look at before we close it up is that the

Bible does describe justification from some different angles, and it can be confusing if a person doesn't understand that we're looking at the same thing, but we're looking at it from different aspects.

And so, for example, the Bible talks about justification by grace, the unmerited love of God.

It also talks about justification by faith. It also talks about justification through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, but it also talks about justification in works.

So, how can we get the right picture of all of those, weave those together in a way that keeps us from pulling them out of context and getting a wrong idea?

Because obviously, we have whole denominations under the banner of Christianity that would say, well,

I believe in justification by faith plus my good works, and the reason is because of this single verse here.

And we say, well, actually, you've misunderstood that verse. And then another man says, I believe in justification through the grace of Christ alone, and faith is optional.

And we say, well, you've misunderstood that passage. So how do we get the whole picture? One answer is hermeneutics.

Yeah. Reading context. But there are logical categories that these various verses or phrases fit into that help paint a full picture of justification by faith, but do not take away the fact that the way we receive it is faith.

So there are a number of those categories, right? Yeah. If we use logical categories,

I mean, some of the old writers used Aristotelian language, and this might seem a little weird to you, but hang with us.

It'll seem clear at the end, I hope. When we think of the causes of justification, there are five different causes that we can kind of say.

The Scripture talks about it from five different angles, and we'll kind of move it from the foundation to the fruit.

The originating cause, and there's different ways we could say that, but what is the originating cause of your justification?

Why is Chuck Bagot right with God? And the originating cause is grace.

An undeserved divine affection was directed toward you in eternity past.

We can call it election. We can call it foreknowledge, predestination.

There are many wonderful words. They each carry different flavors. I think foreknowledge is the sweetest because it's a relational term.

So it's not just a term of a decree, a royal decree, which is wonderful. It's powerful.

It will be accomplished, but it's a sweet thing to think that the decree was actually at the heart of it.

Is God initiating a relationship with a rebel before the rebel was even created in a way that guarantees the rebel will be made a friend?

So that's the originating, or that's the ultimate cause of justification.

Another category, though, is the meritorious cause. What would you say the meritorious cause of justification is?

The work of Christ. Christ's mediatorial work. Yeah, and in two ways.

We have a perfect life, which not only satisfies the law but is attributed to us.

We'll talk about that in a minute. But then you have the death, which pays the penalty and removes the offense between us and our

God. So yeah, the meritorious cause is the death of Christ. Then we have the instrumental cause.

What is the instrument? What is the tool? What is the mechanism by which this happens?

That is faith. Faith does not earn it. Faith doesn't start it.

So there wasn't a day in Chuck Baggett's life where he got up and said, you know, I would really like to be right with my

Creator, so I'm going to go ahead and trust Him. And then God looked at you and said, I will respond to that. So it's not the originating cause.

It's not the meritorious cause. It's the instrumental cause. It's the way God has provided. It's the empty hand that God provides.

Now, strangely, I think we could say that Roman Catholics and Protestants would have been agreed up to that point.

God's love is what provided this. Jesus' death, life and death, is what earned it. Faith is, you know, how we turn to Him.

Here's where the great divide comes, the fourth category. Now this is a strange name, but it's an

Aristotelian phrase. The formal cause. What gives us the quality that we're talking about?

So, simple definition. The formal cause of something. It's a logical way of saying, this is the category that describes what creates the quality.

So if we say, I have boiling water. I have a pot of boiling water here. And if I were to say to Chuck, what's the formal cause of this?

And Chuck would say, well, the formal cause is heating creates boiling water. When we talk about being right with God, this may sound like, well, this isn't really important.

This is very important. Even though we're not using a biblical phrase, we're using a logical phrase. The formal cause, what makes me actually right in the eyes of God, is the imputation of someone else's righteousness.

The legal declaration that this man has the righteousness of Christ applied to him.

This man is united to my son. So it is that great legal declaration.

We call it a forensic transaction. God, the judge, looks at Chuck Baggett and doesn't say,

I'm going to make you right with me by slowly transforming you. In a sense, that would be kind of the Roman Catholic view.

That an infused grace, that something God's doing inside of you justifies you. But instead, we believe, the scripture says, it's what

God did for you. The judge looks at the work of Christ, finished, attributes it to your account, and declares you as righteous as his son.

So that's the formal cause. That's what's actually making me right with God. Final category.

Some call it the declarative cause or the evidential cause. What would that be?

What's the declarative or evidential cause of justification? Good works. Yeah.

Well, why would we say that that's in that category, though? It's the fruit of the faith.

It's the fruit of justification. It is the evidence that it has occurred. Yeah, it's

Book of James. A man says he believes in Christ. Well, in a sense, you could say it this way, use a play on words.

You need to justify your profession of faith. I mean, there are a lot of people that say they follow Jesus Christ, where we live.

How does someone justify that kind of claim? Well, by your works. You demonstrate the internal reality of faith by an external change of life.

It hasn't earned it. It didn't start the process. And it's not what makes me right with God that I obeyed this morning.

It's what demonstrates to a watching world. And at the end of time, it will be there that there was a real change in me that gave evidence to my profession to be united to Christ by faith.