The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 13

lead us in our instruction, help us, Lord, to see the truth of your word, and help us, Lord, also to, Father, not just to fill our heads with knowledge, but,

Father, give us a right heart in response to love Roman Catholics enough to share the truth of Jesus with them, and,

Lord, we pray, God, that you would put individuals in our paths so that this information could be of benefit, not just for us to, again, fill ourselves with knowledge, but,

Lord, to put these things into practice for the glory of your Son's name. Amen. All right. Now, a question

I have for you is, where have we left off? I don't know where you guys last went. Last time I was here, we were in Chapter 8.

Did we do Chapter 8? So, we're on Chapter 9? Oh, we did 9.

So, we are... Yeah. So, you guys are all the way in Chapter 10.

That's good. So, I hope you guys have been doing the reading. You know, it's interesting. This is actually... I did this book maybe 10 years ago.

This book has been out since, like, the 90s, I think. And I did this book 10 years ago at a previous church where we had a lot of Roman Catholics.

And out of just curiosity, how many of you guys have either Roman Catholic friends or family that you maybe semi or regularly speak to?

Raise your hand. Yeah. A lot of us do. I mean, you know, Roman Catholicism is the largest religion in the world by just sheer numbers.

It's the largest religion in America. It's the largest in the world. The only thing that rivals it is, you know,

Islam. And so, Islam isn't quite as popular here but it's getting ground. The reason why this is so important, guys, is because we all know

Roman Catholics. Many of us, especially if you come from a Hispanic background or an

Asian background, maybe you have Roman Catholics in your family. The two largest religious groups in my family from both sides would be

Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics. You almost can't get any more different than that.

You have kind of this natural inclination of people who are

Roman Catholics converting than Jehovah's Witnesses in a lot of the communities that I've been a part of.

Because Roman Catholicism doesn't do a very good job of explaining or defending their beliefs.

And if you ever meet a Roman Catholic, you'll probably know that they don't really know the Bible awfully well.

But I've noticed this trend that things are actually starting to change. There are more Roman Catholics who are now embracing apologetics on their end of the spectrum.

Christians in the evangelical world have embraced apologetics for many years now. So we're kind of used to, you know, kind of interfaith dialogues and understanding other religious backgrounds a little bit more.

You know, the one who popularized modern apologetics was Dr. Walter Martin. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of Dr.

Walter Martin before. Anyone here? Excellent apologist. I would say he was the apologist of the 20th century.

He died in 1989 and he wrote a series of books, his most famous one being The Kingdom of the Cults, where he obviously writes kind of an expose on many of the religious groups' movements at the time.

He was one of the first people to sound the alarm within the evangelical church about groups such as Mormonism, Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, others, and bring into the forefront

Christian apologetics into the mainstream. In the 1950s, when he began his ministry, people wouldn't even publish him.

He had a hard time getting published because it was seen as a non -issue. At that time,

Jehovah's Witnesses only had about 200 ,000 members. By the time that he died in 1989, there was over 5 million, right?

And so people were asleep at the wheel within the evangelical church. And so, but now we kind of have this mindset of, okay, apologetics is good.

For a long time, pastors and people within the evangelical community kind of looked at apologetics kind of with suspicion.

But now, we've mostly embraced it. The same transition is happening in Roman Catholicism.

Roman Catholics have never been that great at apologetics because their go -to is usually, if you disagree with them, we'll just anathematize you, right?

Anyone know what that word means, to anathemize? To damn, to curse.

You know, essentially, it's just, yeah, it's their way of saying, we don't like what you're saying.

We don't, you know, you're wrong, you're contradicting the Roman church. So, we're just going to label you.

Yeah. Great question. So, apologetics comes from the

Greek word apologia, which means to make a defense is where we get the English word apology. When we think of apology in the

English language, we usually think of something that's like, okay, I did something wrong, so I have to apologize, right?

That's not quite the connotation of the English word in its original use or, of course, of the

Greek where we get the Greek derivative of an apologia. It really means to make a defense, right?

So, if we're going to apologize, it's the act of defending.

So, we use it a little bit differently now in modern English where we would say to make an apology is to admit to something and try rectifying it in that way.

And so, there is a sense in which that's still true in apologetics where we are rectifying something, but it's not because of a fault, it's because of it's a defense of a truth, right?

And so, apologetics is just the act of defending the Christian faith.

Is that what Peter said when he said the original? Yeah, so 2

Peter 3 .15, Peter says he uses the Greek word apologia to make a defense.

Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready to make a defense for the hope that lies within you, in doing so with gentleness and humility, right?

So, we want to approach apologetics with a sense of humility, respect, and reverence.

So, we are to make a defense, an apology for the Christian faith. We're seeing that even now with the

Roman Catholicism. And one of the biggest areas in which I'm seeing this in Roman Catholicism today is their attack on the doctrine of justification, okay?

This is an area in which lots of great debates have happened. But that's gonna be also the topic of today's lesson is, again, chapter 10, is the issue of justification.

Now, it's important that we realize how great of a difference there is between the

Roman understanding of justification and the Christian understanding of justification.

And there are actually three major views of justification. Anyone aware of that?

Anyone can maybe spell that out for us? Doesn't Rome make it synonymous,

I mean, a synonym of sanctification? Isn't that their - I wish

I had a whiteboard right now. So, justification in the

Christian sense, let's define that first, okay? So, in our understanding as reformed

Christians, what is justification? I love that you used that term, imputation.

Anyone know what that word means? It's a fancy word. Reckoning as righteous. I love that.

So, it's to be, it's really, think of it like a credit, right? So, when we talk about imputed righteousness, or we talk about justification, what we're really saying is that you have a deficit.

You're bad. You've done bad. You've charged up that credit card, you've run a deficit.

And you can't pay it back. It's such a large deficit, there's no way you can pay it back. And so, the only thing that you can do is, in that case, is declare bankruptcy, right?

And that's essentially the doctrine of carnal man, that we are fallen, broken humans, and we're bankrupt spiritually.

Imputed righteousness says, Christ has paid the debt. So, your account now can be reckoned as clean, as free, as paid up, paid in full.

And so, it's not that you did anything, it's not that you paid it, that's not that you mustered up the credit to pay that back.

But it's rather, it was a gift that was given to you, it was imputed to you, it was reckoned to you, so that now your account is clean.

So, I like using that analogy of credit, because really, it's what the biblical language indicates.

There's a deficit in your credit, it's being imputed to you, it's getting reckoned to you, it's being applied to you, and it's not of you, it is external, okay?

So, the Christian doctrine of justification says, you have a spiritual deficit that you cannot pay back,

Christ imputes his righteousness, his credit, okay? In this case being his perfect substitutionary life, death, and resurrection, okay?

And that's the gospel, right? It's the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So, that is applied to you, so that you are now credited as righteous, but you are not necessarily completely righteous in every sense of the word.

Whereas, other views of justification would say, not only is it credited to you, but you are actually now righteous.

That's a big difference, that's a big distinguishing marker between our understanding of justification and other views of justification, including what we see in Rome, what we see in Eastern orthodoxism, is that other views say, not only is it imputed to you, not only is it credited to you, but now you are actually righteous.

So, the word justification, another translation for it, could be declared righteous. And so, you are declared righteous because it's credited to you, but other views of justification say, not only are you declared righteous, but you are made righteous, okay?

Is that that thing when they talk about the dunghill covered by snow, was what Martin Luther said, because we're covered, but it doesn't mean necessarily that we're not still, you know,

I mean, he was trying to make the difference between, you know. That's right.

Yeah, Martin Luther always had some good ways of putting things. We're talking about imputed versus imparted, right?

That's right. There you go.

That's right. Yeah, infusion.

Yeah. We'll get more into that in a minute. Someone else had a hand up? Yeah. This is like...

Well, you know, that's an interesting thing, where we've seen a lot of evangelicals, especially more so in the holiness movement, embrace a form of justification that's very similar to that, whereas they think, and you really find this in Wesleyanism.

And so, in Wesleyanism, which is the roots of the modern day holiness movement or Pentecostalism, you have this view in which you are, it's more in line with their view of sanctification, so they don't quite lump it together with justification.

They understand there's a distinction, and this is where we would come in as evangelicals and as Baptists and say, well, there is a difference.

We believe in ultimately we will be made righteous completely, but that's the process of sanctification, not what we find in justification.

And so, the holiness movement, they would attribute that more so to sanctification, but that obviously would start with justification, as we would agree on that front.

But they more align that with sanctification, rightfully so, even though they come to the wrong conclusion in thinking that in this side of eternity, we can be completely perfect or sinless, where 1

John 2, verse one makes that abundantly clear that we still sin, and because we still sin, we have an advocate with the

Father, the righteous one, Jesus Christ. Any other thoughts or questions so far?

Okay, so here we have some pretty substantial differences. And again, it's not that the

Christian, not that we deny that we can be righteous.

I mean, that's the call of Christ is to be righteous. It's the call of the disciple of a Christian is to live a holy and righteous life.

And so, we don't deny that aspect. Rather, where do we attribute that to? We attribute that to the work of the

Holy Spirit in the work of sanctification, which begins after, or, you know, yeah, technically after the work of justification.

You're declared righteous as a result of being declared righteous. You know, you see that in Romans 5, verse one.

Let's turn there for a moment. Notice what it says in verse one of Romans 5.

Therefore, since we have been justified, that word justified, again, is the act of being declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. Justification brings forth a right standing before God, not because of any works that you've done in righteousness,

Titus 3, 5 says, but because of the washing and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. So, it's totally an act of God.

So, justification is by what act? Justification is by what act?

By faith, it's by faith. Since we have been justified by faith, not works.

So, again, the idea of credit here is really important. You didn't work for it.

You cannot dig yourself out of that hole. It has been imputed to you. It's been given to you.

And it's by faith, by virtue of our faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Through him, we have also obtained access by faith. Again, it's by faith, not works, into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Not only that, but we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So, the Holy Spirit being the one of whom we receive that stream of endurance that leads to sanctification.

So, you kind of see that groundwork there. Justification is by faith. The fruit of that is the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit which brings forth, of course, sanctification. Although the word sanctification isn't used in this text, clearly the idea is there that we are being sanctified, that we are being, something is being produced in us so that we can continue to endure even under suffering, under hardship.

Yes, Pastor? You know what's interesting is

I studied this in seminary and when you look at the three major views of justification, a lot of it has to do with looking at that Greek word for being declared righteous, for justification.

And there is a sense in which, in the Greek, there is a sense in which it is more than just the word sanctification.

At times, being made right or being justified by, how do

I put this? There's a connotation that it is far more encompassing at times because there is only one word to describe this legal act, right?

So, if you're in a court and you're declared righteous, it means you didn't do anything wrong.

So, there's that connotation, okay, you didn't do anything wrong, therefore, you're righteous. It's a legal term.

And so, there is a sense in which, at times, the word can give you the connotation that you did something, which is why

Paul's very intentional with how he phrases it, because he understands that this word could be understood in that way. That's why he says, you've been justified by faith, okay?

So, the act of justification isn't because you did something even though that connotation is in the word, which is where a lot of the brothers, or not brothers, but people in Rome and orthodoxism kind of extrapolate and say, well, no, if you look at the word, it meant a little bit more, it was more encompassing than just being declared righteous in a sense of it's being imputed to you, but rather that you are actually righteous.

So, that's where they come at it from. They come at it from a perspective saying, no, the word being declared righteous means that you are actually righteous, and they're not totally wrong when you just look at the word, but the surrounding words provide the context, doesn't it?

And so, you can't look at a word devoid of it's context. For instance,

TV, television. Anyone know what that word means?

Like, what does that word television mean? Anyone know? Far -seeing, right?

Television, it means far -seeing. And so, if you bring up, in 400 years, you probably won't have

TVs anymore. It'll all be in your brain, okay? And if you brought up that word 400 years from now, people would be debating, what did they mean by that word, right?

Because the root word means far -seeing, right? And so, what were they seeing, and what was, okay.

It's real simple for us here to, okay, a TV's just a device you screen, you watch something on it, it's broadcast, easy.

But you could see how, in a couple hundred years, people might be debating, okay, what do they actually mean by that?

That's just the evolutionary word. That's just the way that words, and context, and cultures develop. And so, context is so important.

That's why Paul, in being under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, doesn't just give us these kind of ambiguous words that can be hard to understand in the future, but he provides us the context by grounding it in these theological terms.

You're justified by faith. We have peace with God, through our

Lord Jesus Christ, and we have obtained access by faith into this grace. So, again, not of you, he keeps hearkening that point.

It's not of you, you can't earn this. One thing I've been noticing the whole, as we're saying this, the more it's all of God, even the faith, it's all done by God.

And it's just, it's so obviously, it's all done by God, and that's what Rome is saying, you have to do just that.

That is, it's so apparent as we're studying this. That's right. And part of the challenge here is that, when you speak to a

Roman Catholic, we'll use a similar language. It's very similar to the cults. Again, the cults, and other groups, and Catholics will use a lot of the same terminology, but we usually mean something totally different.

So, for instance, if we're looking in chapter 10, on page 142, we differ on the meaning and extent of the term justification.

So, we're using the same terms, but we mean something different by it. We differ on the meaning of the term imputation.

We also differ on the means by which justification takes place.

Is it faith alone, or faith plus works? And finally, we also differ on the grounds or basis upon which sinful people can be justified.

That's so important, like, I think that last point is probably one of the most important points that could be made, is the basis by which we can be justified.

And this is where I've had interesting conversations, and I think it's not this time around, but I think in October, when we have the

Iriakos Forum, we're gonna have a Muslim come in, and we're gonna be essentially debating on what grounds can

God offer forgiveness, because that's the question of every religion.

Every religion has a concept of sin, that there's something that is wrong with the human experience, something has gone terribly wrong, and that we can hurt people, we can sin, we can do bad things.

But the basis by which we can be made right differs in every religion, except for Christianity.

Christianity's the only one that offers a true basis for forgiveness, and it's the shed blood of God's Son, Jesus Christ, right?

That's the basis. Whereas every other religion has a prescribed set of rituals or works that can appease divine wrath and make you right with God.

Every religion offers some form of works -based salvation, and that's the difference between true religion and false religion.

True religion says you can't do it, it is done only by Jesus, it's accomplished by His finished work.

Every other religion says, no, you can, there's a way in which you can do it if you follow these steps, right?

How does Roman Catholicism fit into that? We look at it, and we say that they're saying that Jesus' work wasn't enough.

That's right. They're saying, no, no, no, He made it possible, but you're the one that has to, because once you sin after baptism,

I mean, they get into all this penance and stuff, but not even the New Testament ever talks about that.

Anyone else? Yes, Gary? It's kind of like Roman Catholicism, your justification is not based solely on the work of Christ and your faith in Him as well.

It's like faith plus work, because all of God's work is in the state of grace. Let's look at what our catechism has to say, not our catechism, our confession has to say on this issue.

In page 142, it actually quotes the Second Lenten Baptist Confession, and on the issue of justification, this is what the confession says.

Those whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them.

This is an important distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or anything 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 onto the whole law and passive obedience in His death for their whole and soul righteousness, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves, it is a gift of God.

Huge difference. The confession is going to great lengths just to make this point clear that justification, like there is no part in which you did something to earn it.

Again, it's that spiritual deficit that we talked about earlier. You've racked up such a high cost, such a high debt, there's no way you can pay it back.

The only options are to declare bankruptcy, which spiritually speaking, biblically speaking, would be hell, or receive the finished work of Christ.

Christ completely pays it. He's the God -man who alone can satisfy the divine wrath of the

Father, and that is then imputed to you, not infused. What's the difference between imputed versus infusion?

Imputed is changes you. Correct. And so we ultimately would not disagree with an act of infusion.

We just say where that act of infusion kind of happens. And so infusion in terms of being declared, of being made righteous, not just declared righteous.

That's the difference between our concepts here. On one end, we believe we're declared righteous. Roman Catholic says we are made righteous.

And we would agree that there is a time which we will be made righteous, but at what point in salvation does that happen?

Sometimes as evangelicals, we make the mistake to think of salvation as a one -time act, whereas Catholics and those in the

Orthodox Church believe it's a process. And the truth is that salvation is a process. It's not just a one -act -in -time deal.

What I mean by that is that it's very popular in evangelicalism today for people to confess

Jesus as Lord one time, maybe raise their hand at a church service, walk down an aisle, and now they accepted

Jesus into their hearts, so now they're saved, right? And that's not always the case.

In fact, we have a lot of false converts in the church because of such easy believism.

But what is salvation, actually? Salvation is God, through the finished work of Christ, not just applying a righteousness to you, but now making you righteous.

That's now the process of, you have justification, you have sanctification. That's gonna lead us ultimately to glorification.

So you are saved at the moment of belief, confessing Jesus as Lord, confessing you're a sinner, repenting of sins, trusting in Jesus.

You're saved at that moment. But Paul puts it this way, you're saved and you're being saved, okay?

So you're saved at that moment, you're heaven -bound. But you're also being saved in that you're being transformed now by the renewal of your mind through the act of the

Holy Spirit's indwelling in you, okay? And that is ultimately gonna lead you to the finished product of our salvation, which is what?

Glorification. Glorification, which is what exactly? Is it when we die and go to heaven?

That's right, that's right. I have a question. You know how we say in our

Baptist camp, that we don't even have enough good in us to choose

Christ. That's a work that conversion actually happens to us by the

Holy Spirit. That's right. But what about those people that raise their hands? What's happening in them that they're not converted?

What is that? What does it mean to come to Christ? I think the problem with invitations is that it provides an opportunity for carnal man to feel absolved of their sins with a simple act, right?

And so if all it takes is for me to raise my hand in the service, walk down an aisle, and that means

I can go to heaven, great, I'll do it. It's easy. And they think that, oh, you know, and they confuse it where there's other religions like the

Jehovah Witnesses and Catholics where you have to do a lot of works to get saved. But if this religion is only asking one work of you, hey,

I'll take that over 100 works. But it still works, it still works. Whether it's one or 100, it still works.

And so conversion, true conversion. Now, what I like about invitations is that I think it is the preacher's job to press people to a decision, right, because if a preacher doesn't press someone in their heart and their conscience to that decision point of acknowledging

Christ as Lord and following him, then I think the preacher's missing an opportunity. So I believe there's a balance somewhere in there of a preacher offering an opportunity for people to respond to the message versus making it so easy that we can help carnal man continue in their path to destruction.

And I think there needs to be a balance there. So we don't wanna just say, hey, here's an altar call and you can just raise your hand and now you're in the club, right?

And I was a Southern Baptist for many years and I started two Southern Baptist churches. Like Southern Baptists love altar calls, like we love it.

And then what we'll do, and I'm guilty of this as well, is that what we'll do is we'll say, you know, oh, we had eight people raise their hands and gave their lives to the

Lord today. I have no idea whether they actually gave their life. And then I started to realize it's always the same two or three people in the service raising their hand.

It's like, didn't you get saved last week? And so, so it becomes a challenge and you see the challenge right away there.

And again, true salvation is evidence through not just justification, which is the act of God imputing righteousness, but now sanctification, your desire to wanna learn these things, your desire to wanna be part of a local church, your desire to wanna be a disciple of Jesus and grow in holiness, that's the evidence of a true convert, of a true believer.

And so I think sometimes altar calls in the way that's done in the modern context is absolutely detrimental, but it doesn't mean that we do not provide an opportunity for people to respond to the message of salvation.

So it's one of those things that there's a tension there. And I think we wanna find that biblical middle ground, so to speak.

It wasn't that easy, and they expected that, you know, they talk about the weeds and the tears growing up together.

And so, I mean, that was something that the Lord saw when he talked about that, right? That's right. And the important of the, one of the important discussions here is, again, when we talk about justification, we have to remember what we're talking about exactly.

It's being declared righteous. Righteous is the key word that we wanna focus on.

Who has righteousness? Think about this for a moment.

Who has righteousness? Is there any righteousness in carnal man?

Not true righteousness, not objective righteousness. There is no righteousness in man.

So then who can give it? You can't give something you don't have. So who can give righteousness?

If only one has it, God, the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, there's only the one true

God who has true, objective righteousness, then only one can actually, objectively give it.

Which is, again, why we take the stance that's in our confession and in our catechism.

Notice what our, the catechism, this is not the Baptist catechism or the Orchish's catechism, it's the

Westminster's Shorter Catechism, which is in full agreement with the confession and with our catechism as well.

When asked the question, what is justification? The answer is, justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he, pardon of all our sins, he accepteth us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.

So again, only God has righteousness. Only God can then give impute righteousness to us.

Yes? Also, I just don't struggle with that.

I don't struggle with that, personally, but I get where that struggle can come, because, of course, when we do sin, like, let's be honest, we're sinners still.

When we do sin, our response, at times, can be no different than when we were completely carnal, when we were completely lost.

Which is to shy our face from God. And so we wanna find a covering.

It's like Adam and Eve in the garden. The first thing, the first inclination when they heard God walking in the breeze of the garden was to do what?

Hide and cover themselves, to cover their nakedness. And sometimes, even as Christians, when we sin, we have that same response.

We wanna hide and cover ourselves. We don't wanna go to church. We don't wanna talk to the pastors. We just wanna hide underneath our desks because we wanna hide the shame.

We wanna cover ourselves. And what we have to understand is that justification is the doctrine of Christ covering us with his perfected work.

So that's the beauty of justification, is that when we sin, it's not if we sin, it's when we sin, we have that covering.

We don't have to shy from the Father. We've been covered by the blood of Jesus. And so we run to that, to that perfect work that's already been done, not to other things that cannot truly hide our nakedness and our shame.

So I hold on to what it says in scripture. He who puts faith in him should not be put to shame. When we believe on Christ, we're not put to shame.

We have a perfect covering before God for our sins in Jesus Christ. Isn't that great?

Like, that's so good. Like, that is good news. Man, I want Roman Catholics to know this.

I want other people to know this. I want sinners to know this, that there's a perfect covering for sins in Jesus.

And so that's why, you know, I don't struggle with it in that way, because I know what the solution is, and I run to the solution, and it's justification.

It's that perfect work that's been done, past, present, future. All my sins are covered in Jesus. Not an excuse for me to run to sin, but from it because of Christ's perfect work, and appreciation for it.

They always assume, I always hear this, and I don't know anybody that really says it, that does this, but everybody says, oh, well, then you're just gonna sin all you want.

If you're truly converted, it feels horrible, so you don't. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And again, life is complicated. Life is messy.

We're sinners. We're broken. We're fallen, and we are in constant need to be reminded of justification, which is why

I love that we're focusing on this subject as heavily as we are because we need to constantly run to it. This is not just to win a theological debate with Roman Catholics.

This is a life -changing doctrine, life -changing understanding of who we are, what our standing before God is.

I mean, this is at the heart of the good news here is that there's a covering for us.

We can be declared righteous. We can be made free from the condemnation.

That's why Paul can say so passionately and powerfully in Romans 8, one, therefore, so therefore, what precedes all that?

It's two chapters of talking about, it's three chapters of talking about justification, okay? Three chapters focus on the heart of justification, and so he says, therefore, as a result of everything

I just said, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, right?

That's so good. Like, don't you just wanna rest in that? Don't you just wanna, like, bathe in that for a moment?

It's just so good. And so, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. We've been set free from the condemnation that comes from the law, and we can walk in the power of the

Spirit, which is what Romans 8 continues to talk about. So, any other thoughts or questions so far?

You got something cooking, Pastor? Well, that's the -

You're talking about righteousness, right? You can't see that it's perfect. And this is where works come in, right?

Because now, okay, if you sin, here's the penance. Here's the works you have to do to show that you're righteous, to get back on that path of righteousness.

And so, it's all workspace, right? So, if it depends on you to be righteous, because it's now, not only has it been imputed, but it's been infused in you, so you have the ability now to be righteous, so that is now innate in you in some way.

And here's the prescriptions, here's the penance, here's the things that you have to do to demonstrate righteousness.

So, again, that being the case, I'm not really objectively right.

They say it's infused, it's a directive, it's a part of it.

That's right, and there is, and that's the error. Yeah, Emmanuel?

And again, so what's brought up in page 143,

I think it's really important. It says, justification is said to be an act of God as judge, therein he declares the believer righteous.

It is therefore a legal forensic declaration on the part of God concerning the believer.

The term forensic, this is, you know, we think forensics, we maybe think of some type of show, like what are those shows that have?

CS, what? CIS, or something like that, right? And we think of like a, you know, undercover and finding fingerprints and forensic evidence.

But in the term that's used here for theological purposes, you know, forensic takes on a completely different connotation.

Forensic means, you know, it means, in this sense, to essentially, forensic as in, it thinks small.

So when you think of forensics, it's like looking for the small details, right? And so God is able to forensically declare you righteous by looking at the most minute things, the smallest of details, in the person of Jesus, right?

So Jesus done every single thing right, every single thing, never sinned, never erred in any way, all the way to the most smallest of details, that is able to be now applied to you through faith in Jesus.

And so this term here helps us understand that there's, again, nothing that you can do on your own to earn this.

At the smallest of details, it's not you, it's Jesus. From big to small and everything in between, it's all about Jesus here.

And so he goes on to say in the next part, it says justification is an act undertaken by God, it's not based on anything done by us as believers, it is an act of sovereign grace, because it's something

God does, not something we do. So again, the difference between a God -centered and a man -centered theology here says, man, other views of justification says, man has a process in being made righteous.

Whereas we would say, no, that is, man's role is passive, God's work and role here is all -encompassing.

From start to finish. The Rome says that we can basically undo that by sinning.

I mean, we can, but they're saying, no, you know, we can't affect. Correct. And it's done by God.

Amen. Mario? At claims, though, it seems like it's more.

So bankruptcy, you are paying the penalty. And part of that penalty is that you won't be able to borrow credit, you won't be able to buy a house.

I mean, there's consequences to declaring bankruptcy. Yeah, you're alleviated of a responsibility of paying that back, in a sense.

So it's not a perfect comparison. And so for the believer, and as the scripture teaches, what is the penalty of our sins?

The wages of sin is death, death being eternal separation from God and hell. There's a second death that comes in Revelation 20, which is the lake of fire.

This is eternal separation from God. And so, in a sense, you know, it's sometimes been used, hell's sometimes used as a place where you're paying back your, you know, your sins, in a sense.

That's not true. There is no payment. There's only penalty, right?

And so you're not paying, in hell, we're not paying back, and this is actually a Roman Catholic dogma, their view of hell, and their view also of purgatory, is that there's a sense in which you are paying back.

But there's no payment large enough. And so it's, you know, hell for the

Christian is a penalty. It's not a place in which you're making payments, in a sense.

And so it is a wage due to you, it's your penalty. So again, the comparisons are not perfect, but certainly

I just use that as a small analogy to bring forth the forensic evidence that this is a legal and almost economic term that's used in scripture to describe our condition before God.

Yeah? There's a distinction in the way the

Catholics do salvation. That's right.

But it's like it's turning salvation inward, and away from Jesus. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Let's turn to Romans chapter eight for a moment. And let's look at, obviously, this great text that we, many of us are aware of.

Starting in verse 28. So again, justification is the act of God crediting to us righteousness, that righteousness coming from the perfect work of Christ.

That work is imputed to you, which means it is credit to you. It is as if, so when

I taught you guys, if you were here for our evangelism training that we did when

I first came, we went over how to have gospel conversations with people at the door.

And one of the things we want to help them do is look at the Ten Commandments and see that they're sinners, and see their need for salvation, and see their need for a savior.

And in that, we want to also help the person understand that they are desperately hopeless, in a sense, right?

Like, okay, here's the penalty. Okay, you have accumulated this debt. What can you do? And the solution is always pointing them to Jesus and saying,

Jesus is the answer. He's the one who saves from sin, and he is perfect in his work.

And so, he lived a life that you and I could not live. You hear that in my preaching every Sunday. I always say the same thing.

Jesus died a death that we, he lived a life that we could not live. He died a death that we deserved, okay?

That is key to understanding the gospel. It's key to understanding justification. He lived a life you could not live.

He was perfect, blameless, holy, righteous. And that is then credited to you.

So when God sees you on that day of judgment, he either sees you for who you truly are as a sinner, or he'll see you as covered in the blood of Jesus.

Therefore, he sees Jesus and not you. He sees Jesus. And I had this conversation with someone recently, maybe a week or two ago.

Where, again, they were struggling with this concept.

How can you, how can you just, you know, basically,

Roman Catholics really struggled with, like, bedside salvation, or, like, you know, deathbed salvations and stuff like that.

Because, again, it's justifications by works. And the idea that this person was struggling with was like, well, how could this person live however they wanted, and then they can confess

Jesus at the last minute, and then they go to heaven? How's that fair? And I brought up the analogy of the biblical story of the

Passover. Think of the Passover for a moment. You have God giving instruction to put the blood of the lamb over the doorposts of the home.

Now, let's think about that forensically for a moment. Did it matter who lived in that house?

No. Did it matter what they had, you know, how many sins they committed? Did it matter, you know, if they had just sinned 10 minutes prior to the angel of death coming?

No. Those things were not material, because what was required for salvation at that moment was the blood of the lamb over the doorposts, okay?

And justification is the same way. It's the blood of Jesus over the hearts of sinners. And that work of Christ, imputed righteousness, it's that perfect blood that's covering us by which the wrath of God can pass over us.

And so Christ is, as Paul says, he is our Passover lamb. And so it's that simple.

That's the beauty of justification. And so I want you to look at Romans chapter eight, and let's look at how this process plays out.

It says in verse, who would like to read verses 28 to 30? Go for it, brother.

Isn't that a beautiful, reformed, Paulian and Calvinistic text?

That's right, the chain of redemption right there. And what is interesting of note there is salvation starts where?

Starts with God in what act? In predestination. So it says, those whom he predestined, okay?

So again, before you were born, you were not, you know, we're not like Mormons who believe that we existed prior to the foundation of the world.

Mormonism teaches that you are, you know, pre -mortal existence and spirit prior to the creation. We don't believe that, the

Bible does not teach that. And so you were not at the foundation of the world. At, before the foundation of the world,

God predestined. God, in his sovereign decree, declared individuals who had not yet come into existence and sealed them for salvation in Christ.

That's also Ephesians chapter one. That's the beauty that we see of the counsel of his own will in which he predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son.

And then it says, those whom he predestined, he what? He also called, it's the effectual calling, effectual grace being poured out here.

He calls us, and it says in John chapter six, verse 44, that all those that are called will certainly come to the

Father or come to Christ through the Father. And so there is this guarantee that those whom he called, he will also what?

Justify. There's an unbroken chain here. It's not maybe, might, hopefully.

It is declared from the foundation of the world that those whom he predestined, he will also call.

Those who are called will be justified, and those who are justified will eventually be what? Glorified.

Glorified. That's the chain. It's unbroken, can't be broken.

God will not fail, as it says in John chapter 10, verse 30 and 31.

Christ will not lose not one of his sheep, because he and the Father are one. And so God will, he who began this work in us, what it says in verse 28, or we know that those who are called are called according to his purpose, and he who began a good work in us shall bring it to completion.

This is all God. In Revelation, God is called the

Alpha and the Omega. He's the first and the last. He's everything in between. God has the final say in all things, including our justification.

And so I hope that this helps you understand the beauty of the doctrinal justification. It's really at the heart of the gospel, and it demonstrates the glory of God in that he gets every ounce of credit from beginning to end, all the way from the foundation of the world when he predestined, all the way to the end of the world when he glorifies.

It's all him, it's all him. And so true religion teaches, can be summed up in this creed, to God alone be the glory, okay?

True religion will always be summed up in that. False religion will always say, man gets the glory.

True religion says, God gets the glory. And so which doctrine demonstrates that better, the

Roman Catholic view of justification or the Reformed Protestant view? I think we know the answer.

Let me pray. Actually, before we pray, we got like one, two more minutes. Any thoughts on this teaching, any questions? Thank you, brother.

To God alone be the glory, amen? All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your goodness.

We thank you, Lord, that justification is indeed an act that started not in the heart of man, but in the heart of God in eternity past.

Knowing, Father, that we in our feebleness would fall into a state of depravity and fallenness and brokenness, you declared it so from the beginning that there would be a

Savior in Jesus Christ through whom you would reconcile the world to yourself by means of the finished and perfect work of Christ.

Lord, we know, Father, that we are fallen and we are in need of your grace daily.

And so, Father, help us to walk in the path that you have set for us, walk according to your purpose, for we know,

God, you are ultimately working all things together for good and for the glory of your name. And so,

Father, help us to, again, know the truth and the truth would set us free so that we may help others to know this great and beautiful, precious truth that to you alone belongs all the glory.

From beginning to end, you are Savior. And we pray this in your name, amen. All right, see you guys for service.