Justification by Faith with John Samson on Today's Dividing Line

Justification by Faith Alone and the Biblical Gospel

Welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is John Sampson, in for Dr. James White today. I believe he's on a plane or is about to be on a plane to Phoenix very soon, and we're looking forward to having him back here in the Valley of the Sun.

And yet it's my joy to come to you and talk about something very close to the heart of God, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to talk about justification by faith alone, part two. Yes, just when you thought it might be safe to go back into the water, part two is here for us to talk about.

And I believe that what we're going to talk about today will be a blessing to the people of God. Let's pray as we get started. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for James and the amazing ministry out in South Africa.

Just bless him and his travels. Just keep him safe. Thank you for that, Lord. And we thank you for this program today. I pray you'll open up the scriptures to us as we delve into them. May the same Holy Spirit who inspired the word now give us insight and access to the truth.

We ask in Jesus name. Amen. Last time on the dividing line, we were talking about justification by faith alone and seeing that the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ received by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is at the heart of the biblical gospel.

Earlier this year, I wrote a tract and I had a dual purpose in mind, something to put into the hands of non-Christians, but also into the hands of Christians. I believe the church of Jesus Christ needs to be re-evangelized because oftentimes what has been sold in the marketplace of ideas in the church has not been the gospel.

It's been something else. There's been an obscuring of the true God, an eclipse of the true God, where God is absolutely like the sun shining in resplendent beauty and majesty. And yet the moon is obscuring the sun and the moon in this sense are false ideas about God or inadequate ideas about God, character of God, who he is.

Oftentimes the love of God and the mercy of God is stressed to the point where the holiness and justice of God is not even in view. And I believe it's been deliberate in many sections of the church. Many will say, I don't want to mention the word sin from the pulpit.

I don't want to talk about the wrath of God. And yet you cannot read the book of Galatians or Romans or anything of the gospel in the New Testament and not stumble across those words. These are biblical words, biblical ideas, and I'm saying we need the biblical gospel.

So I wrote with a dual purpose to hand something to the non-Christian and say, this is what is, but also the feedback I'm getting about this particular tract that I wrote has been really encouraging because Christians have said to me for the first time, I'm getting it.

I'm getting the idea of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. I see it more clearly now than before. And I thought that's great. If I've been able to do that in a little tract here, it's been translated into a number of languages already.

It's been translated into Hungarian and on the streets of Budapest. I believe they're handing out tracts like this with obviously the translation in the vernacular of those in Hungary. Also, I don't know if you can see this, but I've got this in English or American English, but this one's in Malayalam.

It's a strange looking language. It looks like someone's joking with us. Can I put it a little bit closer to the camera perhaps? It's strange. That's all I can say. There are numbers on here, which I recognize, which are verses, but other than that, I have no idea what any, any of these words are.

And 25 ,000 have been printed and are being distributed in the state of Kerala in the Southern part of India. I've had the joy of going out there four different times and preaching the gospel there. And it's great to know that that particular tract is being used out there.

And we have a missions project at the church here in town, King's Church, to get the gospel out. We want to be not only reformed in our understanding, getting the gospel right, but getting the gospel out.

And it's our belief in divine election and predestination that tells us that God has sheep everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And evangelism is basically go out and round up the sheep. God knows who the sheep are.

We don't. We go preach the gospel to everyone, but God has his people and revelation tells us they're in every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. Revelation 5 verse 9. So if you'll allow me, I want to walk us through this little tract I wrote.

I might comment on one or two of the statements in here, but I want to go quickly through it because it really conveys what I believe is the biblical gospel. It's called the trial. And let me just read it.

The case of God, the father against, and there's a blank part of the sentence and it says, fill in your name. The case of God, the father against, John Samson, you insert your name. Prosecuting attorney, Satan, the accuser of the brethren, Zechariah 3 verse 1.

Defense attorney, the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 John 2 verse 1. Judge presiding, God, the righteous judge, Psalm 711. In attendance, the vast company of elect angels, 1 Timothy 5 21. It is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, Hebrews 9 27.

You now stand before God, the righteous judge, faced with the charge of great and terrible acts of high treason in the courtroom of heaven. Gabriel, the high-ranking angel, addresses the court saying, all rise.

The righteous judge is coming into his chamber. The judge declares his court to now be in session and asks for all to be seated. Without any delay, Satan stands up and addresses the court. He states that the record will show that you have broken all 10 of the 10 commandments.

On countless occasions, you've lied, you've stolen, you've used God's name in vain, you've hated, which Jesus said was murder of the heart, and you haven't put God first before anything else in your life, just to name a few.

Satan will prove your guilt on all counts. Also, there is indisputable video evidence, as well as reliable witnesses to attest to the facts in this case. Even your thought life stands as testimony against you, but the scripture says, and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account, Hebrews 4 13.

After the case is made against you, there is a hush in the court. The prosecuting attorney has shown that you've indeed committed acts of high treason against God. It seems inevitable that you will be found guilty.

Satan then addresses the judge and says, a good God must be a good judge. The facts are clear. You must find this one guilty. Your own record in Proverbs 17 15 states, he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.

For you to acquit this one would mean that you are not righteous yourself. You must find this one guilty as charged. I rest my case. The judge then calls upon your defense attorney to address the court, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Righteous Father, the case made by the prosecution is indeed true. I will not dispute the charges made. However, I will submit to this court two pieces of evidence in the defense of my client. Exhibit A, the passive obedience of Christ.

Let the record show that on Calvary's cross the sins of this one was transferred to me and I bore the full punishment demanded by your high and holy justice. I was wounded for his transgressions, bruised for his iniquities.

The chastisement that brought him peace was upon me and by my stripes he was healed. Isaiah 53 4 -6. Exhibit B, the active obedience of Christ. Let the record show that I, the second person of the adorable trinity, became a man, was born of a virgin and lived a righteous life on earth, always pleasing you, righteous Father.

I lived the life you demanded in your high and holy law. Just as this one's sins were transferred to me on the cross and I suffered the penalty due to him in his place, so also all the acts of my righteous life were transferred to his account.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5 21. Righteous Father, if you will check the record, you will see that this man's sins have been paid in full and in fact the only record concerning this man now is that he lived my life, for my life was imputed to his account legally and at your good pleasure.

For it was decreed that this should happen in the eternal counsel of the divine trinity before the foundation of the world. God the Judge. Having checked the eternal records and the validity of exhibits A and B, the case made by the defense is both true and satisfactory in this court for the purpose of dismissing all charges made against this man.

Would the accused please stand. In that my son has borne your punishment in full and has imputed his righteous life to your account, I declare you not guilty, but more than that righteous in the splendid righteousness of my son.

I can do this because my wrath due to you was borne by my son. He has paid for your sins in full. You are justified in my sight forever. I am at peace with you. Your sins I will remember no more by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Romans 5 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If salvation depends on the believer's deeds, our salvation is only as secure as our faithfulness.

Justification is a legal word from the courtroom and for the believer in Christ it is a past tense event through the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. Justified means not merely just as if I'd never sinned, but just as if I'd always obeyed.

This peace with God is not some temporary ceasefire in hostilities, but is the eternal, immutable, and irrevocable standing of the believer with his God. For God so loved the he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3 16. While this entire courtroom scenario is the certain expectation for those who repent and trust in Christ, it must be said that rejecting God's free gift of salvation will result in something entirely different, horribly different in fact.

One that provides no defense attorney in the court whatsoever, but instead the full bearing of the punishment of your crimes against God in hell forever. John 3 36 says whoever believes in the son has eternal life, whoever does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

You are a precious soul made in the image of God. Oh may you make haste in coming to Christ. The scripture says now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6 verse 2. Tomorrow is never promised to anyone.

The risen Lord Jesus Christ summons you even now to repent of your sins and to trust fully and only in him. Come to him then turning away from all you know to be wrong and trusting only in the finished work of the perfect savior.

I trust that as we've gone through that trial, although it's certainly something made up by me in terms of the idea of it, the actual outworking of it in the counsel of God is I believe accurate. It's an accurate statement because the courtroom has already convened.

The judge has declared every believer in Christ already justified and that's why Romans 5 1 says what it says. Therefore having been justified by faith, past tense event, we have present tense peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rome, Trent, and the Anathemas Against Justification by Faith Alone

We must believe the biblical gospel. We must embrace it for everything else leads us to a false gospel message but also to a false God. The God who exists only exists in terms of the reality of him being the one who's given us a gospel and he's the one who said any other gospel will not save.

The one who believes something else or proclaims something else. Let him be anathema. Rome has its anathemas on anyone who believes justification by faith alone. The stakes are very high. There are some Roman Catholics, many of them, many of them, multitudes of them who don't know that and they remain within that body but once that soul is awakened to the reality of what the gospel is and what Rome's gospel is, I believe a person is then duty bound to leave the false organization that preaches a false gospel.

Rome's anathemas despite messages to the contrary and despite a particular Roman Catholic priest you might meet who might say look we got over that a long time ago. What do you and I believe? What the Roman Catholic priest might say or what the official documents of Rome declare?

It's the Vatican that states what Roman Catholics believe and the question then is what does Rome say and they have been very clear and although the tone is very different today than it was in the 16th century at the Council of Trent, the actual statements of the Council of Trent which was the Roman Catholic opposition to the reformers and their proclamation about what the reformers were teaching, that has never been rescinded.

It's never been changed. In fact as recently as the Roman Catholic catechism all of Trent was reaffirmed. What are Rome's anathemas? Well some of the most relevant canons that came out of the Council of Trent were Canon 9.

If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, which is what I say and what Protestants would say, it says let him be anathema. That's it. That's what Rome still says today. We don't really need to read any more.

That's it. In writing that and stating that, they put the eternal anathema on anyone who believes the biblical gospel and in that sense put an anathema on their own selves. Canon 11. If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice or righteousness of Christ or by the sole remissions of sin or the sole remission of sins, let him be anathema.

Guilty as charged. Canon 12. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

People on both sides of the debate and people say, well why do the people just talk about anathema all the time? Because on both sides of the debate there was the belief that heaven was real and hell was real and people actually go there.

And from the biblical text of Galatians 1, Paul put his anathema on anyone who believed or proclaimed anything other than the gospel he brought to them. Someone somewhere is under the anathema of God because the reformers gospel and the Rome's gospel could not be held together in unity because they were preaching two different things.

Very, very clear. Canon 24. If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained but not the cause of the increase, again guilty as charged, let him be anathema.

Canon 30. If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, guilty as charged, let him be anathema.

Canon 32. If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ does not truly merit an increase of grace and eternal life, you guessed it, let him be anathema.

Really it was not the evangelicals, it was not really the reformers who were condemned in the Council of Trent in 1564 but the evangel itself, the gospel itself. The good news which alone is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes was judged by Rome to be so erroneous that anyone who held to it, anyone who embraced it, was to be regarded as under the curse of God.

Hasn't Rome changed? No, in fact it has not. The Vatican II documents as well as the new catechism re-invoke the theological position of the Council of Trent, that's very clear, condemning the gospel of justification by faith alone through the imputed righteousness of Christ.

What does scripture say? It says, 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 trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

So what do we say to the Roman Catholic? I remember listening to a certain CD some time back, it was a question and answer session where Dr. R .C. Sproul was fielding questions and I was listening and was very interested in the question and very interested in the answer that was given and so I got out my pen and slowed the CD down or at least stopped at every few words and made a transcription of this question and answer session.

I think it might be helpful, let me just read it to you. A question to Dr. R .C. Sproul, this was from a Ligonier conference back in Pittsburgh in the year 2000, still up to date though. Sproul was asked, how do you feel about the Vatican and its doctrine?

Can you believe in this and still be saved? Here's his answer. If they are asking, can you be a member of the Roman Catholic Church and be saved? I would say without question, yes. If you fully understand the doctrines of the Vatican and embrace them, then I would say no, you can't.

That's because to embrace the teaching of Rome, clearly understood, you would have to repudiate the gospel, particularly the doctrine of justification by faith alone, which contrary to the press releases of the accord with the Lutherans and all of that, the Roman Catholic Church has not changed its teaching from the Council of Trent one bit.

The Council of Trent in the middle of the 16th century was where they set forth their condemnation of the Reformation view of justification and set forth the expression of their own doctrine of justification.

The questioner then asked, which is? R .C. Sproul, well, it's complicated, but real quickly, the doctrine of justification in Rome involves several elements. It begins with baptism, sacramentally, where in the sacrament of baptism, justifying grace is infused into the soul of the recipient.

It's called the righteousness of Christ. It is infused ex operare operato through the working of the sacrament. That infusion of grace places the infant in a state of grace, and two things have to happen.

One, they must cooperate with that grace and assent to that grace to be justified. Cooperare et assentare are the exact words of Trent, to such a point that righteousness inheres in the soul for them to be saved.

Now, as long as righteousness inheres in the soul, you're in a state of justification. You're in a state of grace until or unless you commit mortal sin. Mortal sin is called mortal sin because it kills the grace of justification in your soul.

Now, here's also what is spelled out at Trent. You can commit mortal sin while you still have authentic faith, so you can have faith and not have justification, so faith alone will never suffice. They are not saying that you'll be justified without faith because they require that you have faith, and faith performs three functions.

Faith is determined at Trent to be the fundamentum, the foundation, the initium, the initiation, and the rodex, the root of justification, so you've got to have faith, but faith alone will not do it. Now, if you commit mortal sin, you don't get rebaptized, even though you've lost the grace of justification.

You go to the second plank of justification, which is the sacrament of penance, defined by Trent as the sacrament for those who've made shipwreck of their souls. In the sacrament of penance, you have to make confession, you have to get priestly absolution, and then you have to do your works of satisfaction, which are necessary to gain meritum de congruo, or congruous merit, merit that does not oblige God to redeem you, but makes it fitting for God to restore you to a state of grace, and as long as you stay in that state of grace, then you have inherent righteousness, righteousness that is in you, then you will be saved, but if you die with any impurity on your soul, you go to purgatory, the purging place, until the impurity is removed.

The Protestant, and I believe Biblical view, is that the moment you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, all that he is, and all that he has, becomes yours in the sight of God, and that the righteousness by which we are justified is not our inherent righteousness, but strictly and solely the righteousness that Luther said is extra nos, outside of us, and justicium alien, an alien righteousness, somebody else's righteousness, that's the gospel, that is what saves me, not my inherent righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ that was performed in his life, not in my life, in his life, and the moment I put my faith and trust in him, I'm redeemed forever.

I don't have to worry about purgatory, I don't have to worry about works of congruous merit, I don't have to worry about inherent righteousness, I mean God is going to make me inherently righteous in heaven, but my justification does not rely upon that, it is not the gospel to go tell people, here, the grace of God will help you become inherently righteous, why don't you come and join our church, and we will give you the sacrament of grace to help you, that's not the gospel.

I trust you're hearing what I'm saying, there's a big, huge distinction between Rome's gospel and the biblical gospel. Why do I say that? Rome says it, the reformer says it, and countless decades were spent on either side, not only searching the scriptures, but making sure we know what we're saying, we know what the other side is saying.

It was not something that just happened very, very quickly. The response of Rome was decades after Luther first started spouting the idea that we are saved because of the work of Christ alone, received by grace alone, through faith alone in him.

1564 is kind of a little bit out there, when the Diet of Worms was in 1521, and the writings of Luther had affected many people for decades. A lot of time was spent, but the Declaration of the Council of Trent still stands in the Roman Catholic system.

We may enjoy very, very many unifying doctrines regarding the person of God, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he's fully God and fully man, but it's the gospel that defines what Christians are and what they believe.

If you think about it, the Judaizing heretics in Galatia shared many commonalities with the true Christians. They believed in the true God, the God of Israel. They, I'm sure, believed that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God.

They just added one thing to the gospel, happened to be circumcision, and Rome has not just added one thing, but numerous things to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I trust that you have embraced the true gospel, because only by the true gospel do you proclaim and embrace the true Christ.

It was Augustus Toplady who wrote that wonderful hymn, Rock of Ages, written in 1763, Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee. One of the verses say, Not the labor of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands.

Could my zeal, no, respite, no, could my tears forever flow. All for sin could not atone. Thou must save and thou alone. Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to the cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress.

Helpless look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. While I draw this fleeting breath, when mine eyes shall close in death, when I rise to worlds unknown, see thee on thy judgment throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me.

Let me hide myself in thee. Is that your testimony? I trust that it is. I trust that it is. I trust you're trusting only in Christ, in what he has done, what he's provided. Let's talk about our faith, the faith that justifies, and recognize this, faith is not something meritorious, the one little work we do that God says, oh, that is such a superlative thing that you've done, placing your faith in my son.

That is so noteworthy. I will grant you all of the graces of salvation because of this meritorious act on your part. No, even the faith that we put in Christ is God's gift to us, and our faith is oftentimes feeble.

Can you imagine the situation where perhaps you've got some plumbing problems in the home? There's a pipe that's leaking, and you're aware of it, and you look through the phone book trying to find someone who'll come in, and you see an ad for a plumbing company, and you skeptically, well, I don't think I can fix this myself.

I'm good at some things, but not plumbing, and you call, but you're skeptical, but you make the call, and you happen to get hold of a guy who comes within minutes and looks at your pipes and says, I want you to just allow me to work on this, and you leave him for a few minutes, and he says, as he comes back and reports what's going on, your problem is certainly your pipe, but I found a bigger problem.

There's termites, and your house is, I'm amazed it's still standing, and your house is about to fall down. Not only your pipes, but your house are in trouble, but can you just go away for a few moments, in fact, for a couple of days, and you agree, and he not only fix your pipes, but he builds you a new house on the land.

He takes down everything and puts everything back up, and you say, this is amazing. What do I owe you? And he says nothing. I tell you, this is an illustration, by the way. You can tell. He gives you a new house.

He gives you a perfect house. He gives you a house that will stand through any storm, but was it your amazing faith that got you this amazing provision? No, it's the fact you called on the right person, and with weak faith, with little faith, you called on the right one, and it's the illustration that shows us Jesus is the perfect Savior.

He does the whole job. He doesn't just fix the little sin issue that we might have because we're still speaking with cuss words at times. We've got this little issue we're trying to deal with, right? He goes to the heart, and he says, you need not only to deal with your mouth, you need to deal with your heart, and here's the thing.

I'll take out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh, and everything of our salvation is all of Christ, and whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Whoever calls the right plumber gets that kind of a deal.

Whoever calls on the Lord Jesus Christ gets hold of the perfect Savior. He's perfect in his saving. He's perfect in his Saviorhood. Nothing meritorious about faith. Let me give you a quote from John Gerstner, who's now with the Lord, but he said this, but why is faith the means of justification?

Simply because it is the action of union with Jesus Christ. Faith is our coming to Him, our trusting Him, our resting in Him. The moment we are united to Him, we are immediately endowed with all that He has secured for us.

We are immediately justified before we have done a single good deed, because we are His, and He is God's. Just as a very poor woman is a very poor woman until the very moment that she marries a wealthy man, but at the moment she becomes his wife, she becomes a wealthy woman.

It is by means of her acceptance that she becomes a wealthy woman, but her acceptance does not make her a wealthy woman. It is her husband's wealth that makes her so. So faith does not justify. Christ justifies, but faith is the act of union with Christ.

Christ justifies through faith, but it's not the meritorious nature of faith that justifies. It's faith that gives us the merits of our Savior. B .B. Warfield said this, the saving power of faith resides not in itself, but in the Almighty Savior on whom it rests.

It is not faith that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ. It is not, strictly speaking, even faith in Christ that saves, but Christ that saves through faith. Do we understand this? Do we understand the wonder of this?

That on the cross, Jesus, in His passive obedience, absorbed the wrath of God due to us as our sins were laid on Him. Isaiah 53, 4 -6 spells it out. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to our own way, and the Lord has laid on Him, imputation, the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Not only is the passive obedience of Christ, Him laying His life down for us in death, but His active obedience was the whole life of Christ. Someone has said if all Jesus needed to do was die for us, He could have descended from heaven on Good Friday, gone to the cross, taken the wrath due to us, and risen from the dead three days later.

But that's not the story of the gospel, is it? The gospel is the fact that the second person of the Holy Trinity became a man, was born of a virgin, and lived a sinless life for all those years. And that was the plan of God, because God knew that we needed more than simply our sins to be forgiven to access heaven.

We needed positive righteousness. And so at the cross, Jesus absorbed the punishment due to our demerits, our sins. He took them on Himself. 1 Peter 2 .24, He bore our sins in His body on the tree. But at the cross, not only were our sins transferred to Christ, but Christ's righteousness is now transferred to the believer's account.

2 Corinthians 5 .21, Philippians 3 .9, it's through the New Testament, a righteousness that is not ours but Christ's. Christ is our righteousness. 1 Corinthians 1 .30. And that righteousness is not pulled from a tree somewhere, it's the righteous life of Christ that is reckoned or transferred to our account.

We all understand the idea of transfer. I remember I had a bank account some time back, and I kept very little in it and was surprised, knowing that it was slightly in the positive, to get a statement from the bank saying that I was in arrears and that I've been charged $70, two lots of $35 charges, for something that I thought was taken care of, because although there was very little in the account, I knew it had at least $8 in there, or $7 or $8 anyway.

So I got this letter saying I was so many dollars in arrears. So I went to the bank and they said, I'm sorry, you are in arrears. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm not. And they said, you are. I said, I'm not.

And this went on for about five seconds. And then they said, well, let's look at your account. And they pulled up my account and they said, oh, it seems that we have inadvertently charged you $10 when we shouldn't have.

You fulfill all the conditions to have no charges every month. And we've knocked your account below zero. And because you've made two very miniature, very minor payments of $2 here and $3 here on your credit card, we've charged you $35 each time you've done that.

And I said, oh, so is there anything you can do? And they said, because it was the bank's mistake, we will credit to your account the $70. Thank you very much. I said, and then I left the bank. That's what a credit is.

That's what a transfer is. There is a transfer from the bank's funds to my account. That's a illustration we can all understand, but in the spiritual realm, all of our sins were transferred to Christ.

Every one of them. And Romans 4 tells us if God counts our sins against us, there's only condemnation for us. But blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count sin.

Romans 4 verse 8. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or for the uncircumcised also? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. God credited the account of Abraham because he believed the promise of God.

There's only one gospel. Galatians 3 makes it clear that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. We see the exact same expression in Romans 4 as well. It's a wonderful promise.

And it's the promise that shows us the gospel is unchangeable from Old to New Testament. They believed in the one to come. We believe in the one who has come. This active obedience of Christ is our very salvation.

And you and I as believers need to uphold that and stand for it. I remember reading of Dr. J. Gresham Machen. And he was a tremendous theologian. Died in January of 1937. And he sent a final telegram to his friend, Professor John Murray.

And theologians are known to talk in language that others obviously do not. And he sent a telegram saying these words, I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it. I'm convinced that in those short words, Dr. Machen was able to express the essence of the biblical gospel.

It's Christ. It's his death and his life. Christ died for our sins and he lived for our righteousness. The next question we need to ask is, isn't there a big issue then between Paul and James? James seems to be saying something other than Paul when it comes to justification, doesn't he?

Paul and James on Faith, Works, and Justification

Well, seems at first glance that way. But in any conversation you and I would have, if someone jumps into a conversation not knowing the context, they can often misunderstand what is being said. Imagine you're at a church service and perhaps it's after the service and you and your friend are talking about sports and you've earlier in the day before the service had started.

This often happens because English soccer happens before church on Sunday sometimes, or before the Saturday, because they're seven or eight hours ahead and three o 'clock in the afternoon over in England.