The Gospel Matters

The Gospel as Justification by Faith

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.". There are truly few more beautiful words found in all of Scripture, and especially to the person who clings to Jesus Christ, than these words from Romans 5 .1.

Therefore, having been justified. Not hoping someday, maybe through my works, through my deeds, if I somehow hold on I'll be justified, but having been justified by faith, I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

True peace. Not just a ceasefire, but true lasting shalom, peace, a wellness of relationship between myself and God, not because of anything I have done, but because literally of what God has done in me through Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit.

This is part of the Gospel itself, and today there are some who do not believe the Gospel has been revealed with enough clarity for us to even defend it. It is so sad to see men who claim to be Christians, and yet they are literally eating away at the very heart of the Christian faith, destroying people's confidence that God has spoken clearly in His Word.

Is it really important what we believe about this? Well, whether you have a real Gospel, a Gospel that brings peace, or a Gospel that does not, it's truly a dividing line between Biblical Christianity and all of man's religions.

It certainly is between Biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism. I'm going to play for you a clip from a debate. I would like to be able to show you this. I could, if Mr. Scott Butler, a Roman Catholic apologist, would allow the videos of this debate, which took place in January of 1991 in El Cajon, to be published.

We make the videos that we record of our debates to Roman Catholic apologists available to Roman Catholic apologists at no cost. Mr. Butler has sat on the videotapes of my debates, my two debates, with Mitch Pacwa from January of 1991, and has never made them available.

I would encourage Mr. Butler to do the right thing and make those debates available even today in video format. But, instead, I can only play for you the audio of a question and answer period, seven minutes, between myself and Mitch Pacwa on this very issue of what the Gospel is, the nature of peace, the nature of justification.

I hope it will help to illustrate why it is so very important that we stand for the truth of the Gospel even today.

Roman Catholic Merit and the Reward of Works

In my first question, Dr. Pacwa, I said a Dr. Ott statement that we cannot know with certainty that we have fulfilled all the conditions which are necessary for achieving justification. I am assuming that you agree with him on that.

According to Roman Catholicism, good works performed in the state of grace are meritorious in God's sight and form the basis of our receiving eternal life. But Paul is crystal clear in his statement in Romans 3 .24 that we are justified freely by his grace.

In Romans 4 .4 -5, the justification is by faith to those who are not working but believing in Christ. Now, given your knowledge of the Greek term charis, the term translated grace, how can you maintain that justification is a process that is based, even if only partially, on the works of man?

The reason that I have to believe it, and I have to believe that there is merit that we earn by our works, is because Christ our Lord told us so. In the Gospel of St. Matthew 6, he talks about having a reward, and he contrasts the reward that we get from him with the reward that we would get from trying to get approval of other people and what they try to say to us.

So he says, make sure that you do your righteousness, not so that other people can see you, or otherwise you will have no reward for your Father who is in heaven. And the same goes on in the rest of the passage, contrasting the reward you get from doing works in front of men versus doing it for the sake of the Father.

Now, does this contradict St. Paul? Impossible. And also the passage that I quoted earlier from Revelation 22, where Jesus says, I am waiting with my reward to reward you according to your works. Now that's Christ's word, speaking prophetically in the book of Revelation.

Therefore, because Christ teaches it and Scripture teaches it, I must believe it, that there is a reward and merit that I get by my works. But the reward is something that the Father has set up by his grace, that this is something that graciously God has given to us as a possibility.

And the ability to be able to fulfill that merit, the requirements that God sets by giving us a promise of reward, is also by God's grace. So that it doesn't contradict St. Paul at all. The Catholic doctrine has to keep those two things in tension.

And that's exactly what we're trying to do. Say, Paul is right, we do this by grace, and that it is a gift of God, and as a matter of fact, it's a gift of God himself, God being poured into us in the Holy Spirit.

And that that is the gift that I depend on, and yet so that I can fulfill the merit that God promises to give me as a gift also. So that word of God that Christ offers reward for our works is something I must accept, because it's in the Bible and it's the word of God, and the belief that this is a gift of grace that God gives me, because this is what God has said.

So along with Paul, I have to work out my salvation in fear and in trembling. Perhaps it gets back to your other statement, too. Perhaps that fear and trembling does not contradict St. Paul's peace, either.

We have a sense that if he can say that you can work this out in fear and trembling, that fear and trembling cannot be inconsistent with the peace that he promises in Romans. Certainly, Paul would not be contradicting himself in the inspired word of God that he himself wrote in two different epistles.

Salvation by Grace Alone and the Purpose of Election

First of all, the reward of which Jesus speaks in Matthew 6 and which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 is reward given to Christians. It has nothing to do with providing the foundation of our justification and salvation.

That is provided solely and completely in the work of Jesus Christ. Secondly, you describe it as a possibility that we might attain to this, but when Paul speaks in Romans 5 .1, he says we have been justified, indicative, not simply a possibility.

It may happen, it may not happen, I'm not sure. We have been justified and therefore we have peace. But I can definitely see that foundational, and I want to make sure that I made this in my opening statements, I want to make sure we understand it again here, foundational to the differences between us is the purpose of salvation itself.

Paul said in Ephesians chapter 1 that he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us to adoption as sons to Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will, for what?

To the praise of the glory of his grace which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. Grace is freely bestowed on us in the beloved. The purpose of our election and predestination is to bring glory and praise to God himself.

Now if it's possible for that whole process to be undone, for us to have to go back through the human works of contrition and confession and penance, if our works of righteousness is in any way part of our salvation, then it is clear that A, Paul didn't know what he was talking about in Ephesians 1 because it's not a certain thing that this is going to take place, we're going to be saved, and B, God is not the only one who is going to receive praise and glory.

For you and I have done works that are meritorious in God's sight, and by doing so we are adding to the finished work of Christ which the writer of Hebrews says perfects all those who are sanctified.