The Battle for Grace

My goodness what what a miracle we have this morning. We have a bunch of Texans up on a Saturday morning and we didn't you didn't make any offering or anything to you know raffling off a truck or something like that 67 Chevy something like that.

A Ford. I don't know it is pretty amazing on a Saturday morning given the fact that well there's a lot of things the world would think would be a little bit better for us to be doing than discussing sola fide and we're discussing a Latin phrase is that is is that an unusual thing in the United States today.

Or what it is exciting to be with you before we get started. I would like to notice that everyone on the staff is running around wearing these really uber cool shirts and I'm feeling a little left out personally so I'll make it.

I'll make a deal with y 'all if I can get one of those things. I won't wear a bow tie tomorrow night. How's that. Is that actually I'm trying to start a new reformed fashion trend. It isn't catching on quite yet but we're gonna we're gonna keep trying.

My wife doesn't want to be seen with me in public. But other than that it's okay. We had a great start last evening. I am very appreciative of the the Ministry of Brother Lawson. I don't I don't really normally get invited to things that are quite on the high level that Steve Lawson's ad and John MacArthur's been here and all these folks like that.

So I'm sort of feeling a little giddy right now personally but the brother was mentioned the pastor's mentioning the fact that just a few weeks ago I I had what I considered to be the most important debate I've done in about the 75 or 80 that I've done now since 1990 was with dr. Bart Ehrman.

Some of you are familiar with his book Miss quoting Jesus. I'm gonna be talking a little bit about him a little bit later on. So I'm still sort of in that mode so when I sneak him in here at the end you'll understand why I did that.

But it has been my privilege to be here before I walked into the offices last evening I said I've been here before haven't I. And yeah about seven years ago. Ah thank you very much. I and I think as I recall correctly I was actually preaching on justification.

So it's a seven-year cycle. I suppose it the locusts and me they sort of go together so but we did have a great start last night. I I was mentioning this morning I have to use digital stuff to make up for my obvious imperfections and flaws and the fact I have no hair and Steve is older than I have and he has hair and can preach a lot better than I can.

So I'll try to amaze you with with stuff up on the screen if we if we can. For those of you who are colorblind the globe is turning. I just thought it took me a long time to make that so I really hope you appreciate it.

Well hopefully that won't be a distraction. As we talk about the the battle for grace I have been asked to speak to you about the common attacks that have been made upon Sola Fide down through the centuries.

And I do have some expertise in that area. Hopefully not in having launched any of them myself obviously but in having dealt with many of them. The first debate that I ever did in August of 1990 at a Roman Catholic Church in the in Long Beach was with a former PCA minister at the time a doctoral student at Westminster Theological Seminary who had become a Roman Catholic by name of Jerry Matitix.

Jerry is still running around out there. But that very first debate actually was on one of the solos solo scriptura one of the primary areas of difference between us obviously Sola Fide can only stand on the highest view of scripture as we mentioned in a moment once you abandon that high view of scripture to be honest with you the world figures what we're doing here is simple foolishness when we define it as last evening when brother Lawson was preaching what was he preaching from.

He wasn't preaching from a confession of faith. He wasn't preaching from a book of tradition. When he defined it he was preaching from the Word of God. Well once you abandon the highest view of the Word of God there really isn't any reason to even be discussing this or the deity of Christ the Trinity or any other divine truth as long as we don't any longer believe that God has spoken.

And so that is an area that I have defended Sola Fide against to Mormons and and Roman Catholics and others and so it is an area of special passion for me. I want to start however by emphasizing a couple things that I think are very very important for us to understand concerning Sola Fide.

When we talk about what it means to have saving faith it is extremely important to understand what the Bible says about the nature of that faith. What kind of faith justifies especially in today's context.

There are many individuals for example some of you I think who maybe keep up with this might be aware of the fact that the current Pope was the leading theologian of the Roman Catholic Church prior to his elevation to the papacy after the death of John Paul.

And the former Cardinal Ratzinger is quite a theologian in of himself. And he has made statements recently that basically said that if properly understood Luther was right. And there are a lot of folks in evangelical circles who are saying hey it's great the Reformation is over we want Rome has adopted everything that we believe.

And I did debate a liberal Roman Catholic in Salt Lake City once. That was very interesting to have the Mormons going. What are you guys talking about. They had no idea it was strange. We have had a couple of those up there and the Mormons are always like man that's weird you know.

But I did have a liberal Roman Catholic once say hey the Reformation is over Rome has agreed with us on everything. Let's just all get back together again. Well my Roman Catholic apologist friends are quite on that page yet.

But there are people that are saying well you know as long as we understand it correctly. Well what does that mean. Some of you remember the evangelicals and Catholics together document that came out in 1994 and the fact that there were evangelicals saying see we've we've made such huge progress because it says that we are we are justified by God's grace through faith.

Well yeah everybody at the Reformation said the same thing there was just one word left out called alone. And what alone means. And when you don't have that word then you're leaving the door open for the entire sacramental system of the Roman Catholic Church and that becomes the issue.

What do I mean by the empty hand of faith. Let's look very quickly at Romans chapter 4 verses 4 -8. I'll be putting them up on the screen. But especially those of you who have the 47 pound edition of the English Standard Version Study Bible which in California has to be registered as a deadly weapon thing is huge.

Look at that thing. There's one right down there that's Joel's. Is that Seth's. Is that look at the size of that beast. You can do curls with that thing. It's incredible man. And it's about seven point print.

So it's only relevant to people under the age of 40. But trust me Romans chapter 4 there's so many places you could go. And obviously brother Lawson only had so much time last night and I know he'll be in Galatians but I find Romans chapter 4 to be the key text.

Pergola sweet. Especially in dealing with Roman Catholicism on this subject. Romans chapter 4 Paul is is explaining his position having enunciated it in Romans 328 that man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

And having enunciated that he now gives us his primary evidence of that Abram and Abraham believed God Genesis 15 6 and was reckoned to him it was imputed to him as righteousness. And then interpreting that ancient text the inspired Apostle says now to the one who works his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteousness. Now normally if I took the time to open all this text up to you I put it up in the Greeks you could see that these two statements are exact opposites of one another uses the exact same words in the same order but in the second place he just puts the word not there just to make sure that we understand that we're talking about a 180 degree contrast between these two attitudes.

You have one who works and he uses standard language the language that we would use of business even to this day. To the one who works. To the one who goes in on Monday morning and begins to do what he does to to earn his wage.

The one who works his wages again standard secular term for wages his wages are not counted as a gift literally according to grace but as his do what is owed to him. Very same term that you would find found in documents of that day talking about a debt.

So in other words when you get up on Monday morning and you go to work if you're still blessed to have a job in our society today and you go in to put in your 40 50 or 60 hours a week. When you go in there unless you're working for as a volunteer you are expecting at the end of the week at the end of the pay period to receive payment for your services you are working with the expectation of receiving something back from your employer.

And if you should go in there and your employer comes up to you and hands you your paycheck and says boy I consider this a gift. That's probably not a good thing. That's probably not indicative of future advancement in your position because you feel like you have earned that which you have received as pay.

And that's all Paul's talking about to the one who works his wages are not counted as a gift but as what is due him. And so if in the situation of obtaining salvation we are doing something so as to obtain something from God if we think that by our actions even if those actions we admit are prompted by God's grace even if we admit that the very opportunity to engage in these actions are prompted by God's grace.

If our attitude is I'm going to do this to gain this to receive this that's the attitude of verse 4. But notice the contrast of 180 degree contrast in verse 5 to the one who does not work. It's just the working one of verse 4.

But you put not there the one not working. But in contrast to that the opposite of that kind of working is believing in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteousness. What faith is going to be counted as righteousness.

The faith that is not seeking reward. The empty hand of faith that comes to God and says I offer nothing. It is not the it is not the the painful illustration that I have heard used in Mormon circles of the young girl who wants a bicycle and they go to the bicycle shop and and and all of a sudden she's dejected because she sees the price tag and she only has 98 pennies and the and the bicycle cost $10.

And so the father makes up the difference that this is presented as the idea of salvation that is not what Paul is talking about. You cannot bring even a single soiled penny before the holy God. As if somehow there was some way that we could make up for our depravity we could make up for our sinfulness.

The fact that we love our sin we enjoy our sin. We spit in the face of our Creator every day we steal his air to engage in our rebellion. While the real things that needs to be understood in the biblical presentation of justification is the holiness of God.

If we do not understand the holiness of God then the necessity of atonement the necessity of the empty hand of faith is lost. So much of the human denials of sola fide comes from having way too low of you of the holiness of God way too high of you of ourselves.

Here's the contrast in saving faith. Saving faith is a faith that believes in him. Notice it's not just believes. There's an object here. It's in him. And it's a specific him him who justifies the ungodly not who merely makes justification available.

Justification is a divine act. It's something God does. It's not a program where he makes it available if we will do X Y Z. Justification is a divine sentence based upon the work of Christ in behalf of the sinner where he says righteous.

That's something God does. It is not simply the end result of a process that we engage in. But time is going way too fast for me and I'm preaching the next few verses. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered blesses a man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. I think it's very important to notice Paul says that David here in Psalm 32.

It's Psalm 31 the Greek Septuagint that David is speaking about the blessing of the one to whom God imputes or counts righteousness apart from works. So Paul's interpretation is that David here is talking about God's imputation of righteousness but not based upon the works that a person does.

But notice what David says. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven whose sins are covered blesses the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Notice that in David's words forgiveness of sin is in sight.

Forgiveness of sin is seen in Paul's understanding in concert with the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. Now again time precludes us camping on this. I would love to for a while because it's just so tremendous.

But it's important to recognize something here. We have a definition from the inspired Apostle of what it means to have Christ's righteousness imputed to us. It involves in the same phraseology he uses over in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5.

He who knew no sin was made to be sin on our behalf so we might be made the righteousness of God in him. It is the great exchange our sin born by the substitute upon the cross of Calvary and his righteousness imputed to us as our soul standing before a holy God.

It is this great exchange that Paul is speaking of here. And he uses David's words. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven whose sins are covered. And then notice this last verse. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

Who is that. Who is that blessed man. How many of you have family members who are Roman Catholics. I do too. When you ask those individuals about the gospel may I suggest a question for you. I found this to be extremely useful over the years.

Who is the blessed man of Romans 4 8. Who is the blessed man. I have asked many a priest that question. Who is the blessed man. Well I had one actually tell me what. The blessed man is the person who is just been baptized before they leave the church.

That's the blessed man because their sins have not been counted and they've been washed away in the ordinance of baptism by baptism regeneration. Now soon as they walk out the door of the church they might commit a mortal sin or a venial sin.

And so the temporal punishments of sins begin to pile up against their soul and they're no longer the blessed man. I asked father Peter Stravinsky in a debate on purgatory in Long Island 2001. Who is the blessed man.

He says Jesus blessed man to whom the Lord will not count his sin. That's Jesus. And so he obviously never been asked that question before. And so I sort of gave him a second chance. Would you like to reconsider that.

And here is his answer. Well I hope I could be. I hope I could be think about that folks if you stand today professing faith in Jesus Christ guess what. You are the blessed man. Every believer is the blessed man.

That's what it means to be a Christian. That's what it means to be in Christ. Is that your sins will not be accounted to you. Why. Because they have been justly imputed to another who has borne them and borne the wrath that was due to them in perfection in himself upon Calvary's tree.

That is why you have peace with God. That is why you have a right standing with God is because your sins in their entirety are imputed to him. His perfect righteousness imputed to you. That's what I mean by the empty hand of faith.

This type of faith that does not work. This type of faith that believes in the God who justifies not in the me who justifies myself through my works but the God who justifies. That is the empty hand of faith.

That's what saving faith is. And you can talk about faith all you want. But if it's not a biblical faith that is not the faith of which we are speaking. So what about the apostolic experience. Was this a popular truth epistle to the Galatians demonstrates to us that every generation of the church including the apostolic generation has to fight for the purity of the gospel.

That book of Galatians is a tough book. That book of Galatians contains the strongest language that I know of in the New Testament Matthew chapter 23. And the book of Galatians strongest language that I know of in all the New Testament.

So that makes us blush. Sometimes the English translations actually sort of try to soften a little bit. But Paul is angry. In fact when you read in the original language those of you who can read Greek know that if you read Romans or you read Ephesians there's a sort of a certain cadence a certain form not in Galatians because who's ever writing it is writing it with a lot of emotion.

And Paul even says see what large letters I'm writing to you maybe even wrote himself normally would dictate as he says in Romans to someone else in a menu. And there is much further in Paul's language because he sees that the very gospel itself is at stake in what is going on the churches in Galatia he sees it as a possibility that the the Christian movement itself could be divided up into parts with one gospel for one group and another gospel for another group.

And that is not what Christ's intention for the church was. So if even when the Apostles are walking the earth there is a need to fight for this gospel we can see that those who look back to the golden days of the early church if we could just get back to them.

And have you read much of the New Testament those churches had problems. Have you read first Corinthians recently or second Corinthians or Galatians you know anathemas and so on and so forth. If every generation has had to fight why should we think we would be the exception.

Why should we think we should be the exception. The Judaizers in Galatia. By the way when you when you put together a list of the things they taught they clearly taught that there's absolutely no indication in that book that Paul accuses them of heresy in regards to the Godhead in regards to the the deity of Christ the resurrection the historical reality of the cross.

In fact in comparison to most liberal Protestant groups today the Judaizers would be our next-door brothers. Theologically in comparison to the list of stuff that you can put together that Rome teaches today these folks look pretty good.

That's why a lot of folks look at Galatians 1 and Paul's anathematizing them. And they're like that's just way over the top. But you see Paul recognized we're talking here about the very definition of the gospel and they preached faith.

You need to believe in Jesus. They preached the necessity of grace folks. I I'll never forget listening to a very well-known evangelical one that I've even written a book in response to that doesn't actually define who it is.

Does it in that scary. I am an equal opportunity offender. That doesn't really tell me. No. But I remember listening this man on on radio one day and he was going on and on and on about how you know if you really read Trent carefully the Council of Trent carefully the Roman Catholics believe in the necessity of grace.

Really. Yeah. And he was just excited about this. I'm just like have you read Calvin recently. Have you read any history recently. The issue at the Reformation was not the necessity of grace. The only people decide.

Great that said grace is not necessary with the Pelagians. There's a reason why we refer to Roman Catholic soteriology is semi Pelagian ism rather than just rank Pelagian ism. Pelagius said you could you know pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

But Rome didn't say that. In fact Trent anathematized anyone who said that you could be justified outside the grace of God. The issue my friends has never ever been the necessity of grace. The issue has always been the sufficiency of grace.

That's the dividing line. That's where it's always been. It's still there. There's lots of folks trying to cover that over. There's lots of folks thinking that well if we could all just get together and get this Reformation thing over with we just think of the voting block.

Yeah. How well that work in the last election. That right. The issue is does God's is God's grace sufficient to save in and of itself or does it require human cooperation for salvation. That's still the issue.

It's not changed any over time. But unfortunately a lot of folks get confused on that matter. So the impetus of human religion is to acknowledge the need of God's power acknowledge the need of God's grace.

But then then to control that power and grace through human religion control it. I can admit God does 98 percent of it. But I want to have that little bit of control. I want to say God tried and tried and tried.

But fundamentally the reason I'm saved the reason I differ is because I made the decision. The idea that God's grace would be absolutely sufficient is simply beyond the comprehension of the natural man who has yet to come to understand his own slavery.

This is what human religion is all about. Look at all man's religions as diverse as they may be. The common theme all along is you develop this mechanism whereby the man by his works by his activities controls the very power of God that is the Roman sacramental system.

That's what it is. It's a means of controlling the grace of God. Now the fundamental power the final decision remains with man. It cannot be something that is solely to the glory of God. It cannot be something that is solely his work.

For the grace of God is always placed under the control of man. That is the very essence of the systems that then must find some way of compromising the empty hand of faith. You have to be able to have something in there that God's gonna find worthwhile.

That's the only way you can maintain control. That's what Roman sacramentalism is all about. That's what all the acts and the idea that well you see this is this is how it fits with faith is because you see it's God's grace that has provided these systems and these sacraments.

And it's it's your faith in engaging in these sacraments that allows them to be effective etc etc etc. And that's why that faith alone. You leave that alone out and you're opening the barn door for the insertion of all sorts of human inventions in the process in the post-apostolic times in those first 260 years after the founding of the church up until the piece of church in 313 the focus was upon survival not being fed the Lions not being cast into prison.

That does have amazing impact upon the thinking of the church. For some odd reason we have a hard time understanding that we have a hard time understanding why. Even to this day in places where the church is persecuted which happens every single day.

Fact I wear this this crown of thorns pin in remembrance of those who are suffering even this day especially in Islamic countries for their their faith in Jesus Christ and for their unwillingness to deny that he is the Lord of all.

It's amazing how living in those contexts can focus one's attention. There's not nearly as many books published in those areas about some of the frou-frou things that we have. I don't think the prayer of Jabez did real well in in Islamic countries now didn't didn't go over some odd reason but there were controversies.

But the controversies were primarily focused upon the doctrine of God satirology the doctrine of salvation was not in the forefront during that period of time. There's also something else to remember about those early writings the church.

The canon was still in the process of being recognized. We don't have time to go into this today but just think about the Old Testament. There's a 400 year gap between the final Italian prophet Malachi and the New Testament.

See it's Saturday morning and normally I sort of use that to sort of see how well people are listening and we got any Krispy Creams left out there. I think we need an emergency infusion here. So it's about a 400 year gap between the end of the writing the Old Testament in the time of Christ and the canon is recognized.

The church does not. The people of God does not create the canon but they recognize it during that period time same time period in essence in the New Testament as well. And so there were times where you had some people who might be living in an area where they don't have all the New Testament available to them at that point in time as yet.

And that impacts the balance of their viewpoints and understandings of certain things. Some lack the full apostolic witness at that particular point in time and I think we need to be careful in judging people overly harshly.

It's real easy for us to sit in judgment of them. Now we're sitting here with our ESV study Bibles and the pastor has what I call the uber Bible the Lachman NASB made of the the calf skin that moves at night.

It's so nice and soft and really just turn off the lights to turn the air-conditioning off. You can hear the thing is it's just.

Great.

Everyone's gonna be coming up and asking to feel your Bible. Now we sell that we call it the uber Bible. It's great. But hey we you know it's even got thumb indexing. Why does a pastor need thumb indexing.

I've tried to figure that out. I had not thought of that until just now. I want you to know. Yeah. Okay anyway back to the point they didn't have that I mean it's it's a blessing for us to have that. I hope you realize you live in the generation of Christians who have has more information about the Bible available to you than any generation has ever lived ever lived.

I can't tell you what's on this computer. It's an I don't know how many thousands of volumes I have on this computer original languages and so on. It's just incredible the availability of information and how little we seem to be utilizing it.

Be perfectly honest with you it's amazing. I mean I can do a search and programs on this thing that used to take Greek scholars and all the graduate students a year to do. I can do in less than one second.

That's how things have changed. Well a lot of people in the early church didn't have any of that. They didn't have the calfskin Bibles they didn't have any of that kind of stuff. And so we need to be a little bit careful looking at what they had to say in light of that very issue.

So Justin Martyr is one of my main examples. And of course given his name I think anyone who is martyred you might want to be a little bit slow in condemning them. But if you look at the writings of Justin Martyr he lives in the middle of the second century.

He's very clearly far more influenced by Plato than he is by Paul. He does not really seem to have almost any familiarity with Paul's writings at least in a deep sense. And since he comes the Christian faith from a philosophical perspective we can't necessarily just go with everything he has to say.

And so when you look at his soteriology it's not exactly what I would call robust on these issues. That's understandable. But don't get me wrong that's not everybody in the early church for example there is a man we call him Mattheus because he calls himself a disciple.

We don't know what his name was. But he wrote an epistle to Dionysius and I just wanted to give you and I just an example because you normally don't hear anything overly positive about the early church.

But let me give you an example what he said in regards justification. But when our wickedness had reached its height he himself took on him the burden of our iniquities. He gave his own son as a ransom for us the holy one for transgressors the blameless one for the wicked the righteous one for the unrighteous the incorruptible one for the corruptible the immortal one for them that are that are mortal.

For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than his righteousness. By what other one was it possible that we the wicked and ungodly could be justified then by the only son of God. Oh sweet exchange.

We were just talking about the great exchange. Oh unsearchable operational benefit surpassing all expectation that the wickedness of many should be hidden a single righteous one and that the righteousness of one should justify many transgressors.

Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life and having now revealed the Savior who is able to save even those things which it was formerly impossible to save by both these facts he desired to lead us to trust in his kindness to esteem him our nourisher father teacher counselor healer our wisdom light honor glory power and life.

And so it wasn't that you know some people have the idea that as soon as the Apostles died apostasy everywhere that's it. They somehow weren't able to teach anybody that you know that the truth just disappeared.

But the early church is a mix-match of things and that needs to be kept in mind as we look at historical sources. Of course you're probably familiar with the Pelagian Augustinian controversy the controversy between the British monk Pelagius and Augustine.

This results in a a hardening form of what we would call semi Pelagian ism after the days of Augustine. Augustine was the greatest theologian in the West up to the time of Calvin. Some would say of all time.

That doesn't mean that he was perfect. Augustine was not one of those who knew both of the original languages of the Bible. There are very few in the early church who knew both Greek and Hebrew origin was one Jerome was another.

Augustine did not and so he had some some errors concerning justification. He thought that the Dikai Dikai O Dikai Asune that that verb to justify meant to actually literally change a person. And so he had some some odd views there.

In fact if we had time I would talk more about Augustine and how he is an excellent example of how we are all formed by the controversies of our day. There are two great controversies in Augustine's life that formed his theology.

And the problem is they pulled him two different directions. As a result there are some very interesting contradictions in Augustine's perspective. For example Augustine did believe in in divine election that God predestined a certain number of people and that he did so not on the basis of anything that that they did but on the basis is his free grace and that he would give them the gift of perseverance and they would not fall away all those things we go.

Yeah yeah yeah. And the reformers quoted him on that. But because of his view of the church and his view of baptism he also believed there are people who regenerated by their baptism but they weren't given the gift of perseverance they eventually fall away and they wouldn't be end up being saved.

So you got this other kind of Christian out there and it comes from the two major controversies that took place in his life. But even after his death while there are many who did not want to argue with his voluminous output still the bent of human religion is always away from the idea of the sovereignty of God and salvation.

And so you had the the creation of a form of semi-palatianism where the grace of God is necessary but it's not in of itself sufficient and as the centuries go by the the the formal church moves farther and farther and farther away from even the position that Augustine himself had had presented so that by before the end of the first millennium you have a man by the name of Gottschalk who was beaten and chucked into a jail cell for daring to preach Augustine's views of election.

So it didn't take very long only took about five hundred years before this kind of shock could be expressed at someone who would present even Augustine's perspectives on these particular issues. Now last last evening brother Lawson talked to us a lot about Martin Luther.

But I think Luther would have been one of the first ones to tell you that he recognized he was not alone. There were those those pre-reformation reformers. I hope you have the opportunity sometime. Many of you have already done this and if you have you know what I'm talking about studying church history is a very encouraging thing as long as we do so in a balanced way anyway some people sort of lose their balance to see the hand of God in Providence.

There were men who I would think would have been much more likely candidates to spark the fire of the Reformation than Martin Luther was. Martin Luther was not a systematic theologian. He wasn't like a John Calvin.

He was a theologian of the heart. He he did not organize things overly. Well he never wrote a systematic theology for example of his own. And so there would be people that I would appoint as well would make more sense with that guy or with that guy there.

But you see the Reformation came into existence because of all these streams of development under the sovereignty of God his king his kingly decree coming together to allow the Reformation to take place.

Let me give you just one example when during that time period the brother was talking about where Luther is struggling with these things he's teaching to Romans teaching to Galatians. He obtains the first edition of Desiderius Erasmus' Greek New Testament came out in 1516 the Novum Instrumentum.

And it was in studying that text that he was able to discern. You look at the Latin Vulgate and it has the command puonatentium agate do penance. But then he looks at Erasmus. He looks at the Novum Instrumentum now available printed in Greek for the first time.