Allowing the Word to Speak: Justification

And thanks for watching today. When Christians do Bible study, what should their goal be? I'm afraid there is a lot of Bible study that actually causes more confusion than it causes.

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Following the Argument of Scripture

When people study the Bible, they tend to examine merely a text here or a text there. It is vitally important that any person who wants to truly study the Word of God and have a sound understanding of the entire message of Scripture, that you do so in such a way that you learn to follow the arguments of Scripture.

Think of, for example, the book of Romans. Romans is a book that is specifically designed to present an ordered argument. You start at the beginning, you go to the end. If you don't know what that argument is, and you jump in in the middle someplace, it is very easy to misunderstand what is being said.

Think of how many times someone has come into a conversation you were having, and they've missed everything that's come before. They don't have any context, and yet they jump in and they immediately misinterpret why you just said something.

The other person doesn't misinterpret the person you've been talking to, because you've had the conversation. They understand what it is you're saying. This is unfortunately the foundation for so much of the false teaching of people that try to say they're using the Bible, try to make it look like they are giving you the Bible's message, but in reality they're doing anything but.

I have an excellent example of that to illustrate this, and hopefully at the same time to educate us in regards to one of the most important subjects, and that is how we were made right before God, justification by grace through faith alone.

I want to play a clip from a presentation made by a Roman Catholic speaker, Mr. Tim Staples of Catholic Answers. He is actually talking about the subject of purgatory, but he recognizes to establish the idea of purgatory, he first has to lay a number of foundations down, and he has to do away with the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone.

He is attempting to establish the idea that justification is a process. Modern Roman Catholic teachers like to try to say that we have been justified, we are being justified, and we will be justified.

Of course, they tie into certain Protestants who say somewhat similar things, but on a very different foundation, because from the Roman Catholic perspective, one is justified or enters into the state of grace by means of baptism, and then one is re-justified only after committing alleged mortal sins, the mortal venial issue being another area we could examine to see where Mr. Staples is an error on that level as well.

But they will attempt to make this idea that justification is a process, that only the initial grace of justification, not a biblical phrase itself, only the initial grace of justification is truly of grace and truly something we cannot merit for ourselves, but once we're in the state of grace, we do good works that are now, because we're in the state of grace, meritorious before God, which merits eternal life, and that we have to persevere in this.

This is a synergistic thing, and that initial justification is not enough, it has to grow and continue, so on and so forth. So Mr. Staples is attempting to establish this on the basis of biblical texts.

As we listen to the clip, notice how rarely the overall context is brought in. Notice how rarely the flow of thought or argument is brought in, and notice how Mr. Staples jumps from text to text to text.

This is, in fact, the very methodology that Mr. Staples and Jimmy Akin and those of Catholic Answers might as well try to patent, even though it's actually quite common in many false religions, where you just jump from text to text, and once in a while you'll stop and sort of expand on something, as long as it's not really a disputable issue, to give your audience the idea that you actually are dealing with the text in a meaningful fashion when in point of fact you are not.

I want to look at the text, just a few of the texts, we don't have time to do all of them, that Mr. Staples brings forward to point out where he is in error in regards to the utilization of the Word of God, and hopefully by doing this we'll see how vitally important it is for us to know the flow of thought in Galatians, the flow of thought in Romans, to see how Mr. Staples is jumping to this point in the argument, then back to a previous point and then to another book, and he's assuming that words have the exact same meanings in all of these different contexts, not allowing the text to speak for itself.

This is something that not only Roman Catholics do in regards to soteriology and salvation, it is something that Socinians and Arians do in denying the deity of Christ, it is a very, very common methodology, and the better you are, the better equipped you are at recognizing this kind of false teaching, the better off you're going to be dealing with a world where so many people today are presenting false doctrines.

So let's listen to what Mr. Staples has to say, and then examine each of his texts.

Romans 5:1 and the Past Tense of Justification

See, the Bible reveals justify, dikaio, and save, sozo, to have a past, present, and future contingent sense as well. This also indicates a process rather than a one-time only reception. Here are some examples.

Romans chapter 5 verse 1 says, and I quote,. Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, justified here is in the Aorist tense, which is a simple past tense.

In fact, you can translate this as, therefore, justified by faith, we have peace with God. But the point is here, we agree with our Protestant friends here that justification has a past sense to it. However, when we look at Romans chapter 3 verse 24, listen to this,.

Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by His blood to be received by faith.

Here, our justified is a present participle, which can indicate that ongoing process. Christians are being justified. And then we have Galatians chapter 5 verses 1 -6, and let me quote it,. For freedom Christ has set us free.

Stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law.

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You are fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail but faith working through love.

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? Notice the emphasis on continuing in the race here. The context is one of St. Paul warning against succumbing to the deception of the Judaizers who we've met before.

Those who choose to reject the truth and accept heresy would be severed from Christ according to the text. This indicates that they were once joined in him. And further, St. Paul emphasizes that, quote, through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness.

Now in Greek, this phrase, Elpida de kaiosunes, literally means the hope of justification. See folks, if you're hoping for something, that means you don't possess it yet. As St. Paul himself says in Romans 8 .24, and I quote,.

For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Close quote. Thus folks, justification according to St. Paul is a process that is not complete in this life.

Romans 5:1 as a Summary of Romans 3 and 4

Now the first text that Mr. Staples brought up was Romans chapter 5 verse 1. Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And Mr. Staples is correct to say, well, we have here very clearly the past tense of justification.

But notice he limits this merely to this initial grace of justification. But the text doesn't talk about an initial grace. In fact, he says, well, this word justified in the Greek is an aorist, and it's just a simple past action.

Mr. Staples' grasp of the Greek language is easily challengeable on many levels. We have documented many errors on his part in regards to the original languages in the past. Here he's correct that it's an aorist, but it's not a simple aorist.

It's an aorist participle. Having taught Greek myself, I've always enjoyed teaching the participles more than anything else, because in my opinion, if you have a firm grasp on the syntax of participles, you'll be able to translate the New Testament with greater felicity than anyone who struggles with participles, because participles so often provide time indicators and transitions in the language.

In this case, as we see in the Greek text, Dikaiothentes begins the Greek text. Therefore, having been justified by grace, participles very frequently, by their form, by their tense, then play off of the main verb of the sentence to give us an idea of the fact that here is a transitional statement.

Paul has just completed in Romans 3 and 4 this tremendous demonstration of the fact that we are justified by grace through faith. Now he is repeating this, and notice, therefore having been justified by faith, the very sola fide that we believe is the very beginning statement here that summarizes, this is the apostolic commentary, the summary of what Paul himself has been teaching in Romans 3 and 4, therefore having been justified by baptism.

Well, that's the Roman Catholic view, if this is the initial grace of justification, but it doesn't say that. It was talking about all believers justified by faith. It's a past tense here, because the main verb then is we have peace with God.

Now, there's a textual variant there, but even the majority, as far as I can see, of Roman Catholic commentators recognize that ecumenism is the best reading at this point. I go into more detail on that in my book, The God Who Justifies.

The tense of that verb then is communicating to us with the aorist participle, therefore having been justified, we look back upon our justification. Having been justified, therefore we have peace with God.

That justification gives us peace with God. Now, does mere baptism provide true peace with God in Roman Catholicism? Do you not immediately begin to contract the stains of venial sins? If you commit mortal sins, do you not lose this grace of justification?

Well, most certainly you do. That is, of course, a major problem. Paul isn't just merely saying, well, here's the first stage. Instead, he's saying, therefore, having been justified, experiencing justification results in the fact that we have peace with God.

The believer has peace with God. Sins imputed to Christ, Christ's righteousness imputed to us, that is why we have true peace with God. Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic gospel does not provide that. He is correct as far as saying, well, it's an aorist, but it's an aorist participle.

It says much more than Mr. Staples would have us to believe. Well, let's look at the next text, and that comes from Romans chapter 3. A text that pretty much everybody knows. Paul is now introducing the gospel, having presented the bad news all the way through verse 19 of chapter 3, the bad news of the universal sinfulness of man.

Now he begins to present what God has done about this in Jesus Christ. He says that this justification is something that is by faith. It's by faith so that everyone, Jew or Gentile, will stand equally before God.

That's the point of Romans 3 .23, for all have sinned, Jew and Gentile, and fall short of the glory of God. But then he looks at this next phrase, dikai omenoi dorion, being justified freely, and doesn't seem to understand what we have here is not a summary statement like we have a little bit later in Romans 5 .1.

Notice he's jumped backwards here. But he says, oh, this is present tense, therefore it means here is the second step. We are being justified. And yet this is not a description of anything more than the fact that we have the justification that Romans 5 .1 is going to confirm.

It's not saying, well, we were justified and now we're being justified again, having lost the quote-unquote grace of justification. This is not some temporal statement that adds a second kind of justification.

We've got justification back there, but you lose that. And so now you need to be being justified now, and then you have to be justified in the future. Simply finding the present tense ignores how it's functioning here.

This is describing the fact that anyone who believes in Jesus, being justified as a gift by his grace through redemption, which is in Christ Jesus. What other tense is he going to use here? He's not using an aorist participle to make that a past reality that then gives us this particular piece that we have, Romans 5 .1.

He's simply saying that justification is the free gift of God through faith in Christ Jesus. He's not contrasting this with, oh, you were justified, but now you've lost your justification, you need to be justified again.

No, this is a misuse of this text, which is simply describing the fact that anyone who believes in Christ is justified by that faith. So just simply finding a present tense, it almost looks like someone's going, well, we can find a past tense with an aorist, not really recognizing that it's a participle and that has meaning.

And now I'm going to go and I'm going to find a present tense. And again, it's a present tense participle that is found here in Romans 3 .24. And so I'm going to just assume that these tenses are going to be communicating what I'm saying they're communicating.

But what in the context substantiates this idea that this is a new justification separate from what one has already experienced by faith? They're both talking about the exact same thing. We are justified as a gift by his grace.

Is justification now different than it was back then? Well, hmm, in Roman Catholicism it is. Your re-justification is not the same, does not happen the same way as your initial justification. You have penances, you have sacramental forgiveness, you have the priest.

Seems to be missing in this particular text. Of course, the New Testament knows nothing about sacramental priesthoods or any of these other things to begin with. And so you don't have Paul arguing against Paul.

Remember, this is a part of the section that is going to be summarized by Paul in Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified by faith. So that's his understanding of his own words. To go backwards from Romans 5 .1 to Romans 3 .24 to create some second kind of justification is obviously to misuse the text.

And that certainly is what takes place in the next text that Mr. Staples brought up from the book of Galatians. Now here in Galatians 5, Paul is actually addressing people who are seeking to be justified not in God's way, but by their own way.

He's addressing people who are seeking to be justified by works. Notice Galatians 5 .4, you have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. Now Mr. Staples I think very errantly says, although he did very clearly, these people were in Christ.

No, they were seeking to be justified by law. No one who is walking the road of legalism is in Christ. They have been severed from grace because, look, you have a path. And one path is faith and grace in Christ.

The other side of the path is law and obedience. And you can only go so far both directions. They go opposite directions. That's Paul's point. So anyone going down this way, that's the way of grace. They've been severed from that by their own walking the wrong direction.

And so he's actually talking to people who are refusing to bow to God's own ordained way of peace with God through justification by faith in Jesus Christ. And so he's contrasting. Galatians 5 .5 is a contrast with those who are seeking to be justified by law.

For we, not those, we're not the ones who are trying to justify ourselves by law. No, no, no, we're not trying to accomplish something before God. We, through the spirit by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

Eagerly awaiting the hope of righteousness. Now, Mr. Staples does not even begin to discuss the fact that this particular phrase, elpida dikayasunes, he reads it for us. He tells us what it is in Greek.

But he doesn't seem to show any understanding of what it is that he's repeating. In other words, what's the relationship between elpida and dikayasunes? Dikayasunes is a genitive in anyone who's studied Greek, especially second year Greek.

First year Greek, you don't get into all this. But in second and third and fourth year Greek, you do get into the fact that the genitive is an incredibly rich and very difficult case. It has all sorts of different possible meanings.

Now, it is possible that elpida dikayasunes, that which we are eagerly awaiting, that we are eagerly awaiting righteousness. Most commentaries that would opt for that understanding recognize that the verb, apekdekum, that is used here is normally used in an eschatological sense by Paul.

And so they would understand this eagerly awaiting of righteousness as being the final judgment that is the universal declaration of the righteousness of Christ and the righteousness of those who are in him.

But there are other ways of understanding, especially the genitive that is used in this particular text. Another understanding is that we are eagerly awaiting that which righteousness hopes for instead of a objective genitive, a subjective understanding.

It's still primarily eschatological, but it is being used in contrast to those who are seeking by their own law keeping to be right with God. Instead, the person who experiences true righteousness is looking forward to the fruit of that righteousness, is looking forward to what that preexisting relationship brings about.

That is the whole fruit of the spirit, the entire reception of eternal life and the enjoyment of eternal life. Mr. Staples doesn't mention the fact that there are other ways of understanding the relationship between elpida and dikayasunes here in light of its being in the genitive form.

And I think that's a very important thing to note. But that's, I really don't think that this is one of the best verses to use to try to create the past, present, future justification is in essence the same thing as sanctification type argument because awaiting the hope of righteousness introduces all sorts of possibilities here.

I mean, even the Roman Catholic has to say that in the state of grace, you already are righteous. So why would you be hoping for it? In fact, he goes on to say that if you hope for something, you don't possess it.

But he already said in Romans 5 .1 that you did possess it. And in Romans 3 .24 that he did possess it. So I see some real inconsistency in Mr. Staples' argumentation here. But be that as it may, I don't think this is the best verse to use.

After this, he does in a later section, pretty much right after this, talk about probably the most commonly used text. And that is Romans 2 .13. Let's take a look at that. Because you have the phrase in verse 13, for it is not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.

And people say, there it is. The doers of the law will be justified. How much more clear can it be? You need to do the law to be justified. Well, the problem is it ignores the context. It ignores Paul's intention.

And of course, it ignores the entire message of the book of Romans that there's no one who does the law except Jesus. There's no doers to be justified in this way. If doing the law is the means by which anyone's going to be justified, no one's going to be justified.

It's not going to happen. And so it makes no sense to me that people would be so flippant in looking at this text and ignoring what it's actually saying. Romans 2 is talking about Jews who think that through the mere possession of the law, through the hearing of the law, that they are made right before God.

Paul's whole point is, it's not the hearers of the law. You can hear the law until the cows come home. You can hear the law from the time you're this tall. You can hear the law at your bar mitzvah and at every wedding and at every Sabbath.

You can hear the law. But if you do not do the law, what good is the hearing? The same point that James is going to make in his epistle as well. His whole point is to contrast the mere hearing of the law with the doing of the law.

And he's simply presenting here, not a hypothetical, he's presenting a truism. It's a general statement that everyone understands. And that is, those who do the law will be justified. He's not even addressing whether anybody can.

He's not addressing the mechanism of justification here. He's simply stating the statement, contrast. Here is the law, will not be justified. Just simply hearing, oh okay, I hear what God wants me to do and I go and do my own thing.

You're not going to be justified before God. If you want to be justified in this way, you have to do. It's not even beginning to address the question of, does anyone do? Because when he does address that in the book of Galatians, he says, well, and the standard is perfection.

And because it's perfection, he then points out the law was never intended as a means of justification. The law was our schoolmaster, it was our tutor to bring us to Christ. It brings conviction because we fail.

It is not the mechanism of justification. But you see, what he's trying to do here is, will be justified is future tense. So there's your future tense of justification. But it's in the statement of a truism.

It's not in any text where Paul's describing how we are made right before God. And notice the jumping around. We keep going backwards. We start with Romans five, go back to Romans three, now we're all the way to Romans two.

Why can't the Roman Catholic system start the beginning and work forward and follow the line of argument? Because ultimately it isn't a biblical argument. It's an argument that even as you listen to the entirety of Mr. Staples' presentation, it's Bible verses and early church fathers all wound together by the Catholic catechism.

It's not exegesis of the text. And so Mr. Staples has failed to establish this idea that justification is this ongoing process. The reality is that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. We are justified by the grace of God.

We are justified by faith. We are justified by his blood. There's only three things in the New Testament we are said to be justified by. Faith, grace, and the blood of Christ. And they all share one thing in common.

They are not things that mankind is able to accomplish. And yeah, I heard faith. And if you don't recognize that saving faith is a gift of God, then you've missed a very strong element of New Testament teaching.

And I know there's a lot of Protestants that have missed exactly that. But the reality is, if you're going to be right before God, God's the one who has to make you right before him. He does not share his glory with another.

He has provided the perfect Savior in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is able to perfectly save. He doesn't need your help. He doesn't need your assistance. He saves perfectly, and as a result of his work of salvation, we desire to do what is right before God.

But not as something that adds to his work. Not as meritorious works that earn us heaven. Not as things that are the addition to the work of Christ. Once again, we come back to a very important question.

What did the death of Christ accomplish? Did it save, or did it merely make men savable? I submit to you that if you hold to a position where the death of Christ does not save, but only makes salvation a possibility, that you truly do not have a divine gospel.

You have a man-centered gospel, which I would also submit to you makes it no gospel at all, because gospel means good news. And it is not good news if there is something that we have to add to the finished work of Christ.

And so, going back to where we started, I hope that listening to Mr. Staple's very confident presentation, and then seeing how when we actually get into the text, his statements really don't follow, is of use to you in seeing why we need to know the word of God well enough to be able to detect this kind of false teaching.

Detect this kind of error. It's vitally important that we know the word of God, that we spend time in it, not just a few minutes in a daily bread types of situation. You might say, oh, but you don't know how busy my life is.

There's nothing in this life more important than these things. We need to love the fellowship of the word, the word and the spirit. We need to be drawn to it. If there's anything that we think is more important than that, that's taking a place of an idol.

And so, I hope you can see how important this is. Here, it's the very gospel at stake. I could have given you examples from others who deny the deity of Christ and the resurrection, and they all use the same kind of hop, skip and jump methodology that the person who really knows the word of God recognizes immediately.

So, I hope this has encouraged you, not only in knowing what the gospel is, but also to dive deeply into the word of God, know it, memorize it, understand it, because it truly is God speaking.