Live Q&A on Final Justification & Mark Jones

Hi, this is Justin. Today's episode of the podcast is a little bit different. This is the audio from Theocast's second ever live event.

This particular event took place in Glendale, California when we were out on the west coast for the

Here We Still Stand conference put on by 1517. The conversation that you're about to listen to is between John and myself.

We talk about Sola Fide and some of the old and contemporary confusion around this great doctrine that we are saved by Jesus Christ alone through the mechanism, the vehicle of faith alone.

We answer some questions about the doctrine, including how do good works factor into our final salvation.

We begin to interact with an article written recently by Mark Jones in which he argues that we have the right to eternal life by faith alone, but that we will finally possess eternal life through good works.

The first 45 minutes of the conversation is free here. If you would like to hear the second half of the conversation, you can get that by becoming a

Total Access member, and you'll hear that on our members podcast. We hope that this conversation is encouraging to you, and we look forward to being with you again next week.

Well, it's good to have you guys here. For those of you who are online, thank you for watching again. Hopefully, we're going to do something a little bit different than we did

Wednesday night. We had a little bit of technical difficulties, so hopefully you'll be able to hear us fine and see us fine tonight.

We're super pro here. We put a lot of money into this. If you can't tell, it's a pretty high -tech operation.

That's awesome. For those of you that are here tonight, we've got the books in the back.

Faith vs. Faithfulness is free. Please grab a copy. That's there for you. Then the Pilgrim's Guide to Rest, we don't have a way to receive funds, so just grab one if you want one.

If you can make a donation on our website, just go to theocast .org and whatever you can donate there.

That would be just helpful for us, so feel free to buy two, three, four hundred of those. That would be great. Absolutely.

I want to thank Pastor Philip George. Thank you, brother. For those online, we're at Calvary Presbyterian Church here in Glendale, California.

Thank you for letting us use your lights and air conditioning and facilities. I'll be preaching here tomorrow morning.

I'll be doing Sunday school at 10. I believe it's at 10. Is that correct? Then I'll be preaching at 11, and then we're doing a post -lunch lecture as well.

I will be falling asleep right after that. We basically have not slept in three days, more or less.

Yes. We're running on some good adrenaline and Pete's coffee. And the Holy Spirit. I love

Pete's coffee. When I come to California, it's like In -N -Out. In -N -Out, carne asada tacos, and then

Pete's coffee. It just kind of has to happen. And I've not been mad about any of that. Yes.

We haven't hit any California donuts, which people don't believe me. If you're not from California, you don't understand, but the donuts out here are the best.

They're the best donuts. All right. Well, that's all of the kind of announcements that we have for now.

Oh, for those of you that are online, we're going to do a little bit of a lecture time or I guess a discussion on the podcast, and then we will take questions.

You and the audience as well, you guys can ask questions. Where you can do that at is you go to theocast .org live, and you can submit the questions in there, and then we will answer those.

Hopefully, if we have the time, we'll answer those. Time permitting, we'll get to at least a few of them. The topic that we are covering tonight, we're both pretty passionate about, and so we're going to try our best to get through it as much as we can.

JP, why don't you pray for us, and then we'll go ahead and start. JP – Happy to. Our Father, we come to You as sinners who are in need of what only

Jesus can provide for us, and we do pray that You would be with us in this time by Your Spirit, that You would guide this conversation.

We pray that the things that we say would build up the saints, and we pray that the saints would be encouraged in Your Son, and so we pray for Your help and guidance now in Jesus' name.

Amen. Jon Moffitt All right, so why don't you bring us in? What are we talking about tonight? Happy to, Jon. I mean,

I guess we can say that we're without our brother, Jimmy Buehler. Well, introduce us. There might be some new people.

True, yeah. So, for anybody new online or even here in the room, this is Jon Moffitt, over to my right, your left, pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Jimmy Buehler, our brother, pastor of Christ Community Church in Willmar, Minnesota, is in the air as we speak, headed back to Minnesota.

His church has just gotten started in terms of their Sunday morning gatherings, and so he needs to be there tomorrow for that, understandably.

He has a lot going on, so it's just Jon. Then myself tonight, I'm Justin Perdue. I'm the lead pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

It's good to be here with you guys here at Calvary Press tonight, and it's good to be with each of you who are watching online on the live stream.

Our topic of conversation tonight is an intimate gathering, so we want this to be conversational.

We're also quite tired, but we're excited to have this conversation tonight about sola fide, about faith alone.

How is it that we are justified, but not only justified, how is it that we are finally saved?

Is it based upon anything that we do, anything that we contribute, or is it based upon the work of Christ alone, imputed, counted to us by faith alone, all grounded in the grace of God alone?

We're going to talk about that for a little bit, what we mean by sola fide, perhaps what we don't mean, but I think we're going to get into that what we don't mean part or maybe what we don't agree with part as we take on some of the contemporary confusion that is surrounding this doctrine.

That's actually not so contemporary. Well, it's longstanding. There's nothing new under the sun, but what we mean by contemporary confusion is the fact that there has been a lot said and some ink spilled in the last six months, 18 months about how we'll finally be saved.

There was an article released even this week where a brother in the PCA wrote about good works and the fact that they're necessary for salvation and how we should think about that.

We may interact with that article a little bit. That's where we're going. Absolutely. This may sound like, and some people do reach out to and say, it sounds like you guys are really beating this idea of sola fide or faith alone.

You're being kind of a dead horse. There are times I feel that way. I was like, yeah, maybe this is it.

We've covered enough. Then I open up my computer and I have a flood of emails of some new article that's come out or some new sermon that's come out.

It's like, oh, we need to talk about sola fide again. Yeah. To be honest with you, it's not really the most popular view in broader evangelicalism, even conservative.

You mean our view? I would say the historic, yeah, the historic reform view. Absolutely. The historic reform view.

What we want to do is a little bit is set a foundation again and then put that up against some modern confusion that we're receiving that you're going to hear through,

I would say, very popular books, very popular theology, very popular speakers. Our job, the point of Theocast, we're not really a discernment ministry.

There's some great ones that are out there. What we're trying to help you do is look at theology from the perspective of a congregant, from the perspective of a sheep, and ask yourself, how is it that I can see this and receive this and then find rest in Christ?

Find it where every day I'm not living in dread or in fear, but there's a delight. There's a joy that comes.

There's peace and there's security. Absolutely. We were talking about this the other day, really throughout this trip that we've made out here to the

West Coast, you and Jimmy and myself. Eighty percent, roughly, of the questions and the emails that we receive at Theocast, at the heart of it, get to this question of assurance and this question of, how is it that I can know that I will make it, that I will be with God forever?

And for all of us, if you think about even Martin Luther, who was obviously instrumental in the

Protestant Reformation and getting that started, really what worked in Luther, God used as a means, was his conscience and his crisis of the soul, where he was acutely aware of the fact that he could never measure up.

I think we all feel that deep down in our bones and in our hearts and our minds. We know that if this depends upon me,

I've got no shot. So, we get that kind of question, that kind of email, regularly at Theocast.

We've joked a little bit about this. We don't talk about things like baptism, for example. Baptism. Baptism.

When we talk about baptism, that's a Jim Mora reference to a press conference years ago. We kind of joke about it.

It's like baptism. Y 'all want us to talk about baptism when there's tons of people that don't even know if they're saved. It's like, why would we do that?

And that's not to say that it's not an irrelevant topic. Of course not. Anyway, that was for free. Yeah, and that's just for the sake of confusion.

So, let's set some foundation. So, that's why we're talking about it again. Yeah, let's set some foundation here. So, when we say sola fide, we're talking about faith alone.

Faith in what? We're talking about faith in Christ alone for your standing before God.

And what ends up happening is there's confusion between what do we mean by faith alone?

And the caveat we get at Theocast and Reformed Theology has been receiving for years is, well, yeah,

John, we understand it's faith alone, but you still have to do work. So, you need to make sure that you're doing the

Christian steps, that's whatever there. So, now we have an immediate confusion. It's faith alone, but it's...

Which is not truly faith alone. It's faith alone that's footnoted, right, or it's hedged on. It's faith alone and.

Right. I mean, we believe in faith alone. We believe in the five solas, but make sure you include.

Sure. And so, this is where we have to set this foundation before we jump into some articles that we have that we want to kind of look through, is that when someone says faith alone, we're shortening down a theological concept, which is this.

When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, there's the moment you go from death to life. You're no longer condemned under God, but you are now accepted as His child.

The exception of God, this is what's included. Your faith includes your standing made right, which is your justification.

By the way, we have some teenagers and children in here. This is, like, awesome. Yeah. So, I wish

I could get my kids to listen to Theocast. Yeah. You're probably not here by choice, but thanks for being here anyway. We have a number of teenagers at our church that listen, that interact with me.

Oh, really? They listen? No way. All right. There you go. There you go. Well, free books for all of you.

So, we're talking about our standing before God. So, we no longer stand before God as enemy, according to Ephesians.

We stand before Him as redeemed child. Then there's the second part of it, which is sanctification.

So, you're not only justified by faith, but you're sanctified. You are made holy in the eyes of God, progressively made holy by faith alone.

This is Galatians, right? Galatians, when he says, why have you begun by the Spirit, but now are being perfected by the flesh?

Will that happen? No. No. Foolish. And then the last part of it, faith alone, includes your glorification.

Your glorification is not based upon a performance. Otherwise, it would not be faith alone. So, when we say faith alone, sola fide, it is including your standing justification, your progress, your sanctification, and the end result of being with God in perfection, your glorification.

All of that is consisted in sola fide. That's the foundation that we're setting. I want to jump on that a little bit. So, we will talk about salvation in those three phases in one sense.

The justification, sanctification, glorification. We have been justified by faith in Christ.

We now have peace with God. This is like Romans 5 .1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, Romans 8 .1,

and the like, many other verses that we could cite. Then we think about sanctification, the fact that we've been united to Christ by faith, we are in Him.

If you think about a verse like Hebrews 10 .14, Jesus has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

So, we'll talk about, we have been justified by faith in Christ. We are being sanctified by the

Spirit of God as we trust Christ. We will be finally glorified by faith because of our union to Christ.

Everything that we could ever need in terms of our standing before God, everything that could ever be required of us to live with God forever has been accomplished for us by Christ, has been provided to us by Christ, and it is all imputed and counted to us through the means of faith.

So, we mean those things. And now the objection is always raised, brother. It's the age -old objection that has always been levied against this reformed biblical perspective.

So, okay, well, what about good works? If you preach this gospel of faith alone, you are going to produce lawless people who don't give a rip about obedience and holiness.

And so, that's what's, I think, warping many people out of their frame. And we want to be really clear, the

Bible's clear, that if we have been justified, we have been united to Christ by faith, we have been indwelt by the

Holy Spirit of God, and good works will be there. That's right. We at Theokas absolutely believe that. They'll be there as evidence of your justification.

They will bear witness, in one sense, to the work that God has done in you. That's right. And we absolutely are happy and thrilled to talk in those terms because the reformers did.

Part of sola fide, if you have been regenerate and you are living by faith alone, that is not in absence of the

Holy Spirit. So, there isn't this moment where you may have the Spirit or you may not.

And this sounds like a reputation, we're repeating ourselves, but it's so important because we're about to dive into some stuff that's very confusing.

It's important because if you do not, you don't keep this foundation clear, the moment you start tripping into some passages that can sound like, oh, wait a minute, it sounds like if I'm not doing certain works,

I'm not going to make it here. I'm not going to fully make it to the end. This is why when we hear passages like, he who began a good work in you will complete it.

It is not, he who began a good work in you, now it's up to you to complete it. It's very important that we understand what comes after the beginning of the work.

Or Jesus saves to the othermost those who draw near to God through him because he always lives to make intercession for his own.

That's right. It's those kind of texts. And he loses none of his sheep, he knows his sheep. It's not, it's not,

Jesus doesn't wonder. I wonder who's going to become my sheep. He says, I know my sheep and they know me. All the father gives to me will come to me.

Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. This is John 6, 37 to 40, that there are those who were the fathers, they were given to Jesus and he will lose none of them.

That is his father's will, that he would lose none of all that the father has given him, but he would raise them up on the last day.

So this is secure. This is rock under our feet. When you're saying, oh yes, yes, yes,

I believe in faith alone. You're not just saying, yeah, my standing before God is secure by my faith alone.

You're saying your standing, your progression, and the finish line is all secured by faith.

Right. You're thinking about that past, present, future thing. Two ways we can frame that.

We have been justified. We are being sanctified. We will be glorified. That's like by faith in Christ, in the work of the spirit.

Then we also can say, as people have through history, we have been saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved.

Like, it's legitimate to talk like this. All by faith in Christ, all through what he has done, not what we do, applied to us by the

Holy Spirit through the means of faith. That's right. And of course, verses that are lobbed at us immediately.

Well, well, well, John, it says faith without works is dead. We agree. Right. So you have to understand, if you're diagnosing a situation, okay, so someone comes up to me and they say, hey, look,

I believe in Jesus Christ by faith alone. And then, you know, this becomes the immediate response to this is what we get into what we call fruit checking.

And so are we supposed to be fruit checking? Are we not supposed to be fruit checking is the question. And, you know, that's a very good question.

Here's the struggle. I was going to read James 2. We've referenced this. So James 2, 17, so also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead.

We agree. Verse 18, but someone will say, you have faith and I have works.

To which James says, show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

He is speaking about works as bearing witness to the saving, justifying faith that he has.

And we agree completely with that, that if a person has been justified and born again by the Holy Spirit of God, that there will be transformation of life.

And if there is no transformation of life, we need to have a conversation. So we agree with James. It's guaranteed and varying, meaning that there will be a transformation of life, but you cannot say, okay, at year one, you're here.

And at year two, you're here. It's this linear, nice, clean progression. Now, if it would be, I mean, if that was the case, that would be great.

Oh, we probably wouldn't be talking like we are tonight. Church discipline would not be necessary.

We'd be doing something else. Well, and you're right. I agree with you. Those two words are good.

Our progression, our sanctification, it is certain. Absolutely. And it is variable in terms of how it happens in particular seasons and to how much of a degree and the like.

Encapsulated into Sola Fide, we are not saying Sola Fide means you are saved and sanctified and glorified by faith alone, absent from works.

The question is, this is the biggest question when we're dealing with Sola Fide. What are works for?

What are they for? Which we've answered this in the past. And how do they factor into our final salvation or not?

In a pietistic or legalistic tendency, works are used for the foundation or the basis of assurance.

At least as a part of it. Absolutely. So, how do I know that I'm right with God?

Well, I look at my works. Now, I'll be frank with you. The confessions are very clear that works are absolutely used to strengthen one's faith.

And this is a part that we miss a lot, are used to strengthen someone else's faith, can be used to, the confession is very clear to Westminster and the 1689, they use it and they say, can add to, and this is where adding is a very important phrase because it's not the ground of, it's not the foundation of, it's what it's added to.

Yeah, I agree. I think the way that we've, we talked about this the other night on Wednesday, that you absolutely can have your assurance bolstered by looking at your life and the good works that are there and the fruit that is there, or more often by having other brothers and sisters in your own local church, look at your life and say, brother or sister,

I'm seeing this. You should be encouraged because I am. This looks different than it did a year ago or 10 years ago and praise be to God for that.

And that not only encourages your brother or sister, it should encourage you in your faith and it should bolster your assurance, but it is never the ground of it.

That's right. Like we could never find our assurance in the works that we do if we're talking in absolute terms.

That's right. Can't be done. That's right. That's good. So, hopefully we have a foundation that we're working with.

Sola Fide, faith alone, means all of these realities are true.

Justification, sanctification, glorification. Within that, you can't be justified and not have good works.

The danger is if you try to monitor those good works for the sake of your assurance, you are going to have massive questions because here's the problem.

How much good works is enough good works to assure you that you are truly justified? I can tell you how much faith you must have in order to assure you that you are justified.

Any. Any faith. Any faith. And people are like, and here's the thing is we want to be able to measure our faith.

And normally we connect the measuring our faith to our emotion. Well, if I really, really feel whatever, or we connect it to our actions, my faith.

Our performance. Right, our performance. And this is where we get accused of being antinomian.

Hear me very clearly. We are not telling you, you can just go live however you want, because if that's what you're doing, you don't understand what put

Christ on the cross. We are not saying that. We're also not saying that fruit isn't necessary. It's not necessary for your justification, but it is the, and this is kind of the transition

I want to make here. Fruit is not necessary for your justification. But if you have truly been justified, there will be fruit.

Right. Do you understand the difference? This is why it says we are not saved by works, lest any man should boast.

And I'm going to just make a statement here about how that often goes wrong. Right. Biblical truth is that reality that if you have been justified by God through faith in Christ alone, good works will be present in your life.

That is a biblical truth. But then what we do from a human perspective is we draw conclusions that the

Bible does not draw. That's right. And we present the gospel and we present the Christian life in particular in a way that the scripture does not.

So we say, okay, if you've been justified, there will be good works present. Therefore, if there are not good works present, you have not been justified.

Okay. Now what we need to do then is tell people you better do good works.

You need to concern yourself with good works or you will not be saved.

It's how we often present it. And we end up then kind of coming in with the law and pounding people with it and motivating people by unsettling them in their standing before God and whether or not they will be finally saved.

It's like, brother, you better. That's right. You better get on that. Right. And there is a time for harsh language, and I've talked about it several times the last few days.

I don't need to reiterate and rehash that right now. Yeah, one question I would love to frame this conversation with, not that we need to talk about this right now, but that I think is absolutely essential in this conversation about Sola Fide, not the other big question we've already asked is huge, like good works.

Where do they factor in or not in my final salvation? That's a massive question. But then the other question that is essential to ask and answer is what did

Jesus accomplish on behalf of his people? Those who the

Father has chosen before the foundation of the world, those whom Christ died for, those whom the

Spirit applies his work to, what did Jesus accomplish for us, his own?

That's a huge question, and we'll get into that more in just a minute. There's other things that I want to say, but we may use the article that was published recently to maybe give us some fodder, but you may want to go in a different direction.

Yeah, we'll go once you queue it up and get there, and I'll set us up for the article.

So what we're about to move into, this is why this is important. We start confusing this idea of Sola Fide, meaning that I am right before God, I can be absolutely 100 % sure that God, there is no condemnation for me, because to be in Christ Jesus, the only way you can be in Christ Jesus is by faith alone.

So if that's the case, if you start to change just a little bit, and this is the change that we're going to start looking at, where you can make statements like, okay, you are justified, you actually possess justification by faith alone, but the journey to eternity must come through a work, and that is we are requiring works.

Here's the subtle difference. The difference is alive people walk and talk, dead people don't.

Okay, so are you following me? If you say you're alive, then naturally, you're going to be one who is walking and talking.

At what level? That's going to vary. If you're a dead person, you aren't going to walk and talk.

As a matter of fact, to require a dead person to walk and talk is a little foolish, right? To go down to a graveyard and have a conversation with a person down there doesn't make any sense.

But if someone says they are alive, you're assuming, you don't need to require them to walk and talk to you.

Why? You're looking at them, and you're like, it's obvious that they're alive at some form or another.

And so are you saved through your union with Christ Jesus? That's a question you could ask.

Are we saved through our union with Christ by faith? Our answer to that is yes. We are saved through being united to Jesus by faith because in you being united to Christ, we now have been raised to walk in newness of life in Him.

This is Romans 6. This is Paul's argument. We've been delivered from the dominion of sin. We obey now because we can.

We have become obedient from the heart. And then we also think about Ephesians 2, where having been saved by grace through faith,

Paul is explicitly clear about that, that God made us alive. It is by grace that you've been saved through faith. There's a gift of God that no man may boast.

He talks then about walking in Ephesians 2 .10, walking in the good works that have been prepared beforehand for us to walk in.

And so we absolutely agree that we will walk in good works, but those will be done by us in the power of Christ alone,

His spirit in us, and through our union with Him. Not sort of, oh, well, you've been justified.

Now, like, tag, you're it. You better now go do your part. That's just a very different perspective.

Brother, please. So yeah, there's an article that was sent to us earlier this week, and I've probably read it now,

I guess, three or four times, and mostly because I was truly trying to understand what was going on in this article.

So the author of the article is Mark Jones, and recently Mark Jones has written a book,

Antinomianism, in the last few years, and a couple other articles. And this one was brought to our attention because it brings in a theology that I believe is starting to confuse what we would say sola fide, when we say someone can be absolutely assured that their standing before God and their future home with God is secured by faith alone.

The natural response to this, if they have been brought to life, is good works. And so in this article, there is an explanation that's being given that there's almost two parts now to your salvation instead of one, where we would say any faith in Christ alone, you are safe and secure in the arms of God forever.

You've been adopted. You're in His arms. You're not climbing up into them. You're not striving to get there. Right. Now there's more of a two -part, and before we get into this article,

I think it's very important that Justin and I, we are not here to make fun of, bash, belittle, or put down.

This is more of a healthy conversation. These men are putting out public statements. They are trying to explain theology, and they put this out on the internet so that they can put forth a thought concerning our relationship with God.

And of course, Theocast, we do the exact same thing. We put a podcast out publicly so people can interact with what we're saying, and what we're trying to do is lead people down a historic understanding, a reformed historic understanding of the doctrine of salvation, or sort of theology is another way to say that.

And so what we're going to do tonight is kind of compare what they're saying in this article, and Mark Jones is not only referencing himself, he's referencing men like John Piper and William Shepard.

Yeah. And Turretin and others through history as well. Throughout history. And try and maybe—

Bellarmine, Dominant. We want to see where they're coming from. I want you to understand, this is not a heady conversation where it's super nerdy.

It really is an important conversation because when you lay your head down at night, you need to lay your head down at night either in full security and assurance, knowing that I am good with God not based upon my performance today, but I'm good before God because He has secured so by faith.

All right, so let me lighten the mood for a second. Yeah. When I was in eighth grade, there were two songs.

So eighth grade formal at the end of my year in school. I went to public school, so there that is.

You do that what you will. We had a dance at the end of the year. There were two songs that everybody wanted to hear. One was Water Runs Dry by Boyz II Men.

Amen. Amen, somebody, right? The other one was I'll Be Missing You by Puff Daddy and the Family.

And some people may know that song. A rapper named The Notorious B .I .G. was shot and killed.

Puff Daddy was another rapper who was his friend. Well, Puffy writes a song in B .I .G.'s honor, and there's a part of that song that goes this way.

It's kind of hard with you not around, but I know you're in heaven smiling down. Oh, wait, you got this memorized. Well, brother. Come on. Brother, come on.

It's kind of hard with you not around, but I know you're in heaven smiling down, watching us as we pray for you. Every day, we pray for you.

My question, I've used this as a sermon introduction before, truth in advertising. My question is, how did Puffy know that B .I

.G. was in heaven, right? That's the question that I think plagues every human being that we have to wrestle with, to your point.

When we lay down at night and we go to sleep, it's like, how do we know that we know that we know that we'll make it and that we will be counted righteous and stand amongst the congregation of the righteous on the last day?

That's maybe a, I don't know, a crazy way to get to it in the eyes of many, but it makes sense to me.

So there we go. So why don't you bring us in and give us maybe a two -minute overview.

Welcome, guys. A two -minute overview to where we're at as far as, okay, these are the two categories that they're trying to get at.

So some of the main points that Jones makes, and this is a decent -sized, it's more of an essay than an article, if not more than that.

I mean, so we're going to try to do this in a very, very high -level flyover. A distinction that he makes that others, he cites others through history.

He will talk about a distinction between having a right to eternal life.

So by faith alone, we are justified and we have a right to eternal life. But then there's this other piece that is a different category, which he refers to as the possession of eternal life.

So we have a right to eternal life by faith in Christ alone, but the possession of eternal life will finally be realized through works.

So that's the argument that he's making. We have a right to eternal life by faith alone, in Christ alone, we're justified.

Then we will finally possess eternal life through the path of good works.

So that's a big argument that he's making, and he is arguing that we need to use that kind of language.

Go ahead, brother, please. So he'll use verses that we would be familiar with, things like Hebrews 12, 14.

Which we did a whole podcast on that recently that'll come out soon. Yeah, so we're going to spend a lot of time on that verse. Justin, give us a 15 -second overview of Hebrews before I read this.

This is always fun to do. It's one of my favorite books in the Bible. So what is Hebrews about? Hebrews is essentially about this, that Jesus is greater than everything.

He starts by saying he's greater than angels. He's greater than Moses. He's greater than Aaron. He is a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Redemption has been accomplished by Jesus and it's over. It's so done that he sat down at the right hand of God.

He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. Let us now draw near to God in the full assurance of faith because of what

Jesus has done for us. So that's the first 10 chapters. In chapter 11, we get to what's often referred to as the hall of faith.

People through history who have had faith in the promises of God realized in Messiah. These people's lives were by no means exemplary across the board, but they lived lives of faith, trusting

God, and they were commended for that faith. Hebrews 12, one and two, the writer tells us, let us now set aside every weight and sin that clings so closely.

Let us run with endurance the race that has been set before us. How? By looking to Jesus, the author, right?

And the perfecter of our faith. And then he talks about how Christ, you know, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame.

He then talks about discipline, the discipline of God, our loving Heavenly Father, and how He does that for our good.

How we have good earthly fathers who discipline us and how discipline always feels unpleasant in the moment. But then he says, look,

God is doing this so that you might share in His holiness. Verse 10. So bear up under the discipline of your loving

Heavenly Father. Strengthen your feeble hands and your weak knees and strive for peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the

Lord. And so as we read that text, Hebrews 12 is a passage of comfort to the saints, that when you encounter the discipline of God, remember that He loves you.

You're His child. He's conforming you to the image of His Son, right? And so take heart when this is happening in your life.

That's right. Yeah. So how it's being used, according to some people who understand kind of this two -stage of you're justified and you can hold on to it by faith alone, but the final state of it is by your works alone.

I mean, it can feel that way. I mean, if you read the verse, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the

Lord. So you're thinking to yourself, okay, wait a minute. Yeah, holiness is required in order to see

God. And we agree with Kevin DeYoung that he's not talking about positional holiness there. Yeah, this is definitely not a positional holiness.

We disagree with DeYoung on other things. That's a language you're not used to. What we would say is that to be positioned, meaning that when you stand before God and He looks at you,

He sees you 100 % holy. It's not 50%. He didn't grant you, okay, here's 50 % of the requirement.

Like, for instance, if you're going to buy a house for $100 ,000, well, here's $50 ,000 and you come up with, no, here's the full amount.

So when God looks at His children, He says, as it relates to your position as child to me as father, this position, you are 100 % covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

All the obedience of Jesus Christ has covered all the requirements, okay? So that's the difference between position, and here

He's talking about the actual outflow of the Spirit's work in you. So that means loving—an easy one is to love your brother as yourself, right?

Okay, so in this context of Hebrews, you have people who are not convinced that Jesus is enough to make them right in the eyes of God.

So the purpose of the Old Testament law was to make sure that they could obey the law and that God would bless them and they could stay in the presence of God and be accepted in the eyes of God.

The writer of Hebrews is saying, if you think your acceptability before God is going to go underneath the law—they wanted to abandon

Jesus— And return to the law. And return to the law. How could we neglect such a great salvation? That's right. I mean, just go back to the beginning of the chapter.

He's like, look, looking unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of your faith, meaning that He is the one who is your foundation and He is the one who will perfect you.

That's connected to Hebrews 12, 14, where He's saying, listen, if you think that your holiness can come by the law, it cannot.

Your pursuit of holiness has to come through Jesus Christ. So if they were to—so if you and I, if one were to go back under the law and say,

I'm going to love my brother under the law and I pursue that same holiness under Jesus Christ, what the writer of Hebrews is saying, the one who did it under Jesus Christ, who's pursuing holiness under Jesus Christ, that person's going to see

God. You see the difference? It is not, you need to be pursuing holiness or you will not see

Jesus. Because again, that's to remove—I'm just going to say this, I'll be frank. That just kind of goes against, if you're a

Calvinist, if you're like, yeah, I'm a Calvinist, I believe in the sovereignty of God. That kind of just, you're at that point denying

Calvinism. Because if He has chosen you before the foundation of the world, what's the second thing

He chose you to do? To walk in His good works. So it's not a question. He chose you not because you were something, but in order that you might be something, namely, presented holy and blameless before the throne of God in Christ Jesus.

It's going to happen. I mean, what works me up—I wouldn't even plan to say this, but I'll say it—what works me up in this whole thing is the fact that a lot of guys that are

Calvinistic, at least, are really good on justification. But then when it comes to sanctification, it's like people begin to lose their senses a little bit.

Justification has been accomplished by Christ. It's monergistic in that sense, right? God is the work—mono, one, and then one worker, ergo, right, worker.

So one worker, God does that. But then when we get to sanctification, it is now presented as this thing that, well, justification is certain, but sanctification is somehow uncertain.

God justified me, but now I need to do my part in sanctification, like decisively so.

And there's just a ton of inconsistency there. It's disconnected through the power of the Spirit. Justin Perdue Right. To where we would say—we're happy to say this, too—we are absolutely monergistic in terms of our understanding of sanctification.

Namely, you don't sanctify yourself. The Holy Spirit of God sanctifies us, full stop.

Justin Perdue No, but that doesn't mean, well, then I should just let go and wait for God to say, right, is it?

Justin Perdue No, we don't just sit and say, well, I don't care. Let me just do what I want. Not at all. You absolutely participate in your sanctification just like you participate in life by being alive.

Did you participate in your salvation? Justin Perdue Well, sure, because I'm making a decision, for example,

I'm coming to Christ. Justin Perdue You're consciously believing. Justin Perdue I'm saying, you know what? I believe the gospel.

I'm trusting Christ. That's not the question. The question is, why did you make that decision? What's underneath that?

Justin Perdue Right, and the decision to believe in Jesus Christ, we know, according to Ephesians, it is a gift of God. God did that.

Can you change your own heart? Answer me that question. If we're going to talk about the sanctification debate, lay my cards on the table here.

If you want to know where I stand, answer me this question. Can you change your own heart? The answer to that question is absolutely no.

Only God can do that. Again, that does not, and so here's the thing too. When the redeemed hear that Jesus has accomplished everything that they will ever need, that all the righteousness that could ever be required of them has been counted to them completely by faith in Christ and what he has done, and that the

Holy Spirit of God is faithful to sanctify them—like 1 Thessalonians 5, right? Let me just read it.

This is one of my favorite texts in the scripture, so that we're not taking my word for it, but we're looking to the Bible. Jon Moffitt That's not a good idea.

Justin Perdue Oh my gosh, Jon. Come on, man. Jon Moffitt Let me read one, and then we'll come back.

One of the verses that's quoted—Hebrews 12, 14 is quoted about four or five times in the article as evidence of, hey, this is where the

Bible would say there's a second part, or there's a confirming of your salvation. Another verse that's used is

Romans 8, 13. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the

Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Sure. So 1

Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24, thinking about the good news, not only of what Jesus has done for me, but now the

Spirit's work in me and God's working in decisiveness in my salvation. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, this is final salvation. There is no argument about that. Verse 24, he who calls you is faithful.

He will surely do it. To which all of God's people say, amen. And the redeemed never—I mean, said the redeemed never, when they hear something like that, oh, goody, let me go and send the lights out of the thing.

That's just not our response. And man, it works me out, because this has always been the objection that's levied against the sola fide biblical gospel.

Anyway, we're going to keep talking about some other stuff. Yeah, so to go back to Romans chapter 13, the idea of it is, okay, so if you're claiming sola fide, but you're living according to the flesh, that means you're going to die.

That your final state of living with God— Romans 8 .13 is what you're talking about still? Right, yeah. But if by the

Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Here's a question. How much of putting to death the deeds of the body are we talking about here?

Yeah, I mean, I would love for anybody to answer that question. Because in the Scripture, right, in the

Scripture, God's standard is perfection. So if we're talking about being able to stand before God in our own merit in any sense, you better be perfect.

Right. So then, yeah, if we're talking about, like you say, how much is required, nobody can answer that question from the

Scripture. Well, let me ask you this. Have you put to death every deed of the body? Absolutely not.

What I'm saying is, if you're telling me that, oh, well, yeah, you're justified by faith in Christ, and there then needs to be this killing of the flesh, well, how much, brother?

Like, okay, I'm trusting Christ, and I'm righteous in Him, but now I need this. Well, how much?

You know, I mean, nobody answered the question. But then read on in Romans 8, though, bro. Yeah, so I was going to ask you, then what is

Paul saying here? Right. Well, Romans, the verse right after this, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Verse 15, here we go. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry,

Abba, Father. And it's easy to see how you can fall in a state of fear of, well, I'm not quite sure if I'm going to make it, because have

I put to death the deeds of the body enough? Have I done enough good works by the end of my life where God will say, okay, yeah, solifated, you're justified, but let's now examine your life to see if you're going to be glorified.

And he's saying we are brothers who are debtors, verse 12, not to the flesh. Right. I mean, what he's saying, we're debtors to mercy.

I mean, we're debtors to God, you know, in how he's saying this. And then, of course, he's going to go on and talk about comfort and being children of God.

And yet we look at verse 13 and threaten people to high heavens. So, to be fair, I want to look at one or the other of their verses.

Sure. So, 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 13 is one that they put out here, and it says, God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the

Spirit and belief in the truth. So, the argument that they're making here within this particular section is that your final salvation is through the process of sanctification.

So, it says again, God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification, okay?

So, you have, again, you're possessing it by solifite, but you're gaining it by your sanctification.

And I want to be fair, like, I don't think I'm reading this into what Jones is writing and others who have written similar. We're trying not to.

Right, right. So, there is a separation. This is, I think, the heart of the matter. We've talked about the right to life versus the possession of life.

There is a separation of our present justification and our final salvation.

I think everybody even here, I hope we can track together with this. The way that Jones will write and others is that, okay, you're justified now in the present by faith in Christ, but your final salvation entails something else.

That's right. It's Jesus plus. That's right. It's Jesus and something else. And so, in a hypothetical world, it's possible, it seems, that one might be justified by faith and fail to accomplish works, and then that would result in being lost forever and being damned forever.

And what seems interesting to me in this is they'll talk about, Jones will talk about in his article, the New Testament pattern of this kind of past, present, and future reality of salvation, which we've already alluded to.

You've been justified. You're being sanctified. You'll be glorified. You've been saved. You're being saved. You will be saved. And what he seems to do is to introduce into that, he's saying that that kind of past, present, and future dynamic necessarily introduces this kind of like contingent reality, right?

That, well, something that's in the future can't be certain in one sense, right? Because good works will need to be there.

And so, we need to exhort people to do good works so they might finally be saved, to which we're going to say, yes, we want to exhort people to love and good works, but not because their salvation hinges upon it.

That's right. But because they've been born again by the Spirit of God, and they now have become obedient from the heart, they now delight in the law of God and their inner man,

Romans 7. You know, and so now we're going to pursue love and good works because we're redeemed.

That's right. Yeah, so here's a quote, and all I want to say is that if they don't mean this,

I'm hoping that they will provide us some more clarification. This quote's been around for quite a while. Thomas Schreiner wrote a book called

Faith Alone, or it's basically a book on justification. Called Faith Alone. Right. And in that book,

Piper, and Jones uses this quote as kind of a defense to his position.

And he says in response to kind of how people are to be right with God, this is what

Piper writes to that question. How is a person to be right with God? The stunning question, sorry, the stunning

Christian answer is sola fide, faith alone. But be sure you hear this carefully and precisely.

He says, right with God by faith alone, not attain heaven by faith alone.

There are other conditions for attaining heaven, but no others for entering into a right relationship to God.

In fact, one must already be in a right relationship with God by faith alone in order to meet the other conditions.

So this is where, again, remember the foundation we set up? Sola fide means what?

Your justification, your sanctification, and your glorification are all secured in faith, in Christ alone.

Unless I'm misreading this, he is saying your standing or your possession of this justification as far as, okay, yeah, you're in a good relationship with God now, is there by faith alone.

But the final, the final position, the final possession of your relationship with God, or to basically make it to heaven, is there are other conditions to meet.

Now, towards the end of this article, Jones says very, very clearly, so I want to give him credit here.

Yeah, go ahead. I want to give him credit. He says this is not merit -based. In other words, if you say you must merit in order to receive heaven, then that's

Catholic, and he says it very strongly. Sure, sure. To which I say, brother, you're going to have to be more clear because if you say condition, and you say required, that's the same as saying merit.

Because if you're saying for you to receive heaven, you must do these works.

Someone comes to my house and does work, and I give them the result of it, that's called they merited it, right? You did the work, you receive.

And I only say that just because he is trying not to be Roman Catholic.

Sure. To their defense, they are not trying to be Roman Catholic. So, if you've heard us say anything, do not go out here and say, oh, those guys are calling

John Piper a heretic, and they're calling Mark Jones a heretic. We are not doing that. So, just to be clear.

Let me read some more from the essay, from the article. Jones says, quote, the right to life given graciously by Christ through spirit -wrought faith is antecedent to the condition of good works in the covenant of grace.

Now, that statement in and of itself is confusing. The condition of good works in the covenant of grace.

We'll talk about that in a second. He goes on to say, good works are necessary for the possession of salvation.

They are the path upon which we must, by the spirit, walk to eternal life. There is no other path available to the

Christian but the path of works to eternal life, close quote. Okay, a few thoughts here.

From a covenantal framework, so, John and I, you know, theocast, I mean, we are covenantal in our understanding of the

Bible. We would promote a covenant. We would promote covenant theology. Yeah. Right. So, in covenant theology, high -level summary, you have the covenant of redemption in eternity past where God decides that He's going to redeem a people from the mass of fallen humanity and that the

Son, God the Son in particular, would be the mediator of that covenant and accomplish redemption. Right. A covenant of works is issued in the

Garden of Eden when God makes man. There are terms to that covenant. Most notably, here's what you need to do,

Adam. Here's what I've commissioned you to do as a man made in my image, as human beings made in my image, and if you violate my covenant by eating of that tree over there, then you'll surely die.

Those are the terms. Of course, Adam transgresses that covenant. He breaks it, which plunges all of us into ruin and we're inheriting

Adam's corruption and the like. But then, beginning in Genesis 3 .15, where God promises that from the seed of the woman, there will come one who will crush the head of the snake, the

Redeemer who will come, the covenant of grace is instituted in time and space. Now, under the covenant of grace, there are a number of other covenants that all find their fulfillment in the new covenant through Messiah.

Right. And so, the way that covenant theologians understand the relationship between the covenant of works in Adam and the covenant of grace fulfilled by Christ is key here because where Adam failed and transgressed the covenant,

Jesus then comes and fulfills that covenant of works and thereby redeems

God's people. So, what we mean then is that everything that we lost in Adam is gained for us in Christ.

Everything. That's right. Right? Like, it's done. Like, how we fell in Adam, we are redeemed in Jesus.

And so, everything that could be necessary in terms of what needed to be accomplished, a covenant of works, law, right?

Everything that needed to be accomplished, Jesus did that. So, the covenant of grace traditionally understood is just that.

It's unmerited. Like, it's not conditional. Like, grace by definition is unmerited favor, right?

And so, when we use this language as Jones does, the antecedent, the right to life given graciously by Christ through spirit, wrath, faith is antecedent to the condition of good works in the covenant of grace.

I'm like, brother, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about. And maybe I'm demonstrating some ignorance here, but that at least appears to be contradictory to a covenantal understanding and framework of Scripture.

Covenantal and covenistic. Right. So, let me say this too. I've been using this word a lot lately, and John mocks me for saying it.

Anyway, this is how he is. You can pray for me. Right? No, I'm kidding. So, I've been saying a lot, like, what is happening here with Jones and others?

They are bifurcating present justification and final salvation. They're separating those two things.

Well, in the Scripture, it's very clear that justification is often used by the apostles as a synonym for salvation because it brings peace.

It brings joy and rest and all these things. Like, Romans 5 .1, therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. I'm like, brother, sincerely, explain to me what in the world that could even mean if I might be justified by faith and have peace with God now, but then

I better do my part or I'm going to be lost. And I think in the article, the feeling that you get is that as you're alive right now, there's no condemnation.

You're in right relationship to God. Right, and I think he uses this verse where he says, at the judgment seat, you will stand and all of your works, right?

And we know these verses, right? So, we're all going to die and we're going to stand before the judge, and he's going to look at our good deeds and our bad deeds, right?

And we'll be judged by them. Well, I don't deny that. I'm anticipating that moment.

I'm actually not afraid of standing before the judge because he's my father. Who will bring any charge against God's elect?

It's like he's standing up in the judge holding it, and there's this moment where he looks at you and he winks like, it's all good.

Yeah, it's— Don't worry. It's God who justifies, more than that, it's Christ who died. When he says he disciplines those whom he loves, there's work for the believer to do because there's a mission ahead of us, and that mission is to care for and find the sheep, and basically what the judgment is is, okay, did this work actually matter for the kingdom?

Then it gets moved over to here and it's burned and it's not necessary. But there's never fear. Otherwise, why would

Paul say there's no condemnation? So, there's so many categories that are getting mixed up.

When you go to bed tonight, you could say, man, I'm so glad I don't have condemnation right now, but I don't know if I will have condemnation later.

That's where assurance is now removed. Well, in Romans 5, 1, immediately after that,

Paul goes on, through him, Christ Jesus. So, we have peace with God. You know, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we've been justified.

Through him, we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

I mean, this is a future -looking hope. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

And here's this, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. That is certain. Like, we have peace with God now and we hope in the glory of God in the future because we know that we will not be put to shame because of what

God has done for us in Christ and because his spirit and his love has been poured out into our hearts. And it's like, what could this possibly mean?

And so, I want to read from the 1689 London Baptist Confession really quickly, if I can do that.

So, maybe my favorite paragraph in the whole confession is chapter 11, paragraph 1, regarding justification.

So, this, I think, will make quite clear what the framers of this confession and the Westminster divines would have been the same.

You know, how they understood justification and what they meant by it, and it is a massive thing in their minds.

Here we go. This is 11 .1 of the 1689. Those God effectually calls, he also freely justifies.

He does this not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins and accounting and accepting them as righteous.

He does this for Christ's sake alone and not for anything produced in them or done by them.

He does not impute faith itself, the act of believing, or any other gospel obedience to them as their righteousness.

Instead, he imputes Christ's active obedience to the whole law and passive obedience in his death as their whole and only righteousness by faith.

This faith is not self -generated. It is the gift of God. Amen. Like, it is so clear that the framers of this confession see this as the definitive word on our standing before God now and in the future.

Right. Everything that we could ever need has been accomplished for us by Christ, and it's been counted to us by faith.