Born of God Means Salvation Apart From Works

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the third chapter. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Nicodemus said to him, How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen.

But you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.

And as Jesus lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Coram Deo and Coram Mundo in Justification

All right, this is a great text. And I'm going to use the occasion of this gospel text combined with our epistle text from Romans 4 to do a little weed-whacking regarding misunderstandings as it relates to James 2.

Because if you've ever read James 2, it sounds like it stands in direct contradiction to what we heard in our epistle text, that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works. That we are justified by faith, made right before God.

And so in order to understand something, we'll do a little groundwork here first. I want to teach you two concepts. Two concepts. One is a fancy Latin phrase, and the fancy Latin phrase is coram Deo. I mean, it's awesome.

It sounds like the kind of thing you would like on a tattoo or something, right? Coram Deo. That means before God. Now there is another coram, and that has to do coram mundo, before the world. Before God, before the world.

So to kind of set it up here, if you are saved by grace through faith apart from works and God has given you that faith, are you justified before God, coram Deo, all by what Christ has done? Yeah, you betcha.

Don't you know? Yeah, you can say that here. Now, before each other, how do we know that somebody has faith? And I'm not talking about her.

Okay. Okay.

A little bit of a note here. Christ does talk about how our good works shine before men. This is true. This is true. And so when we get to James, we're going to note that there's something that James is up to.

And James is speaking coram mundo because some yahoos had crept into the church, and they were probably kind of proto-gnostics who really had no problem engaging in sexual immorality and things like that because they think that the body doesn't matter.

And so they were basically making this claim, I have faith, and I don't have to do any good works at all. That's a weird bird, by the way, just a weird, weird one. Very exotic, very rare. But unfortunately, like the phoenix, they end up burning.

But we'll talk about that. So what James was addressing was the fact that you can see faith in somebody by their good works and that if you claim that you have faith but you don't have good works, well, that's weird.

That doesn't make any sense. And again, it's a species thing. So we're going to kind of lay this all out. Those are our framing thoughts. So let's dive into our gospel text because I always love this text.

And we'll do some work here because if you miss a certain thing, you're going to miss everything. And we'll talk about how evangelicals misunderstand this text as well. So in John 3, it says there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

This man came to Jesus by night, and he said to him, Rabbi, we know you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. So far, so good. That's a good start because you're going to note that John himself says that if they recorded all of the signs, the miraculous signs that Jesus had performed, that probably all the books in the world couldn't contain them.

But he notes then that these signs, these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you might have life in his name. So the signs of Jesus are radiating out there.

And Nicodemus, who's a Pharisee, goes, this guy has to be from God. And so it was off to a good start. And then Jesus says these words, Amen, Amen. That's actually what the Greek says. Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless one is born.

And I've got to stop here because I know the word in your English translation says again. But we've got a problem. And the problem is that the word here in the Greek can have two meanings. It's pretty much one of these words where there's really only two ways to go about it.

One is again, but the other is from above. And the word is anothen, anothen. So let's just kind of put anothen here. And you guys know that it can mean either again or from above. And so listen to what Jesus says.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anothen, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And notice it says born, born. So Nicodemus is scratching his head and going, how can a man be born when he's old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? So what do you think Nicodemus thought Jesus said? Again, Nicodemus goes, how can one be born again? But Jesus now goes on. You're going to note that what Jesus says is not talking about being born again.

Everything he says from this point on is pointing to being born from above. Now as I was reading the church fathers in anticipation of this sermon, which I'm prone to do from time to time, came across kind of an obscure sermon from a little-known church father.

And he noted this, that Jesus himself was born from above. I mean, he was born, conceived, born of the Virgin Mary. And as the second Adam, he's kind of the first of a new group of people. And so he used that argument to say Jesus had to mean born from above because he himself was.

I thought that was provocative, provocative in a good way. And so now listen to what Jesus says. Amen, amen. I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, and that's what baptism is, washing of water and the Word, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So do not marvel that I said you must be born anothen. And what's he arguing? Arguing from above. Now, here's how the evangelicals read the text.

You have to be born again. Born again means that you need to make a freewill conscious decision to make Jesus the Lord of your life, or ask him into your heart, or say the sinner's prayer. And the experience itself is vital because unless you've had this experience, well, then you're not really a Christian.

And it creates all kinds of problems because here's the issue. If you don't recognize that what Christ is arguing here is that you need to be born from above, you're going to start down the track of trying to earn your salvation by your works, by your repentance, by this time I mean it, Lord, I'm really going to get my act together, and I'm going to get right with you, God.

I'm going to really do that. But Jesus isn't arguing that you need to have a born-again experience by making a freewill decision for him because other passages rule that completely out. Instead, he's saying you need to be born from above.

Good luck on having a freewill decision for that. Let me ask you guys. We'll go back 100 years. How many of you at that time were petitioning your grandparents to, well, and great-grandparents to, you know, have your parents so that you can be born?

And then when your parents finally came along, how many of you were saying, Mom, Dad, you need to get married. You need to come together so that I can be conceived. Come on. I'm rooting for you. I'm pulling for you.

None of us had any say in our birth. There was the whole lot of human history that you and I weren't here, and then all of a sudden we're here. And your freewill had nothing to do with that. And if you were born from above, who do you think's will has to be involved for that to happen?

I would argue God's. And this is the thing. God is the one who's chosen us. And if we're truly born from above, then you're going to note here, that means that Christians are, at their core, different than unbelievers.

That God has done something to them, for them, that makes them qualitatively different than a pagan. Because what does Paul say in Ephesians 2? You are dead in trespasses and sins, but God has made you alive in Christ.

If God is the one who's made you alive in Christ, then the idea here is that everyone who is truly a believer in Jesus, God is the one who gave them that faith, repented them, raised them from the dead, and they are a different species.

They are already part of the new creation. And if that's the case, then you can't do a certain number of works in order to earn the right to become born of God. And that's where people get off track.

Are you a Christian?

Well, I hope to be one someday. It doesn't work that way. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. So don't marvel that I said to you, you must be born from above.

The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. And Nicodemus, his mind is blown. How can this be?

He says, are you not the teacher of Israel, yet you don't understand these things? Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know. We bear witness of what we have seen, but you don't receive our testimony.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And then listen to these next words, because this really helps. Because this is one of those sayings of Jesus that you sit there and you scratch your head and go, what's he getting at?

But listen to the words. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. Let me translate that for you. Nobody by their good works has climbed the ladder up to heaven and earned their salvation, earned the right to stand before God because of their good works.

No one has ascended into heaven. Nobody can. So what does God do? He sends his Son down to us. Salvation is not me working my way up to heaven. Salvation is God the Son being born of the Virgin Mary coming down to us, coming down to you, coming down to me.

And I'll kind of leave it there at that for a second. Now let's take a look at our epistle text because this is quite helpful. Our epistle text references our Old Testament text from Genesis 12 as well as 15.

And Paul asks this question. So what shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified, now that means to be declared righteous, if he was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

So let me ask you this question. In Romans 4, are we talking about justification quorum Deo, or are we talking about justification quorum mundo? It's quorum Deo, before God. So if he was justified by works, well, he had something to boast about, but not before God.

But what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Those are great words. Wait a second, you mean what? Abraham believed God's words, and God credited it to him as righteousness?

Yeah, exactly.

And by the way, that's how it works for all of us because that's Paul's point here. So now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. I'll pick on my son here for a second.

Every couple of weeks, I have to do a paycheck for you. Now, have I ever gifted you your paycheck?

No.

That would be weird, wouldn't it, gifting you your paycheck? You earn it. Yeah, see, we have this agreement, and the way the agreement goes, he does particular video editing work for me, and I, in return for his work and his skills, I give him money.

But it's called a wage. And the thing is that there isn't a single penny that he's received via these paychecks that were given to him as a gift. I don't write when we do his paychecks. They don't put a bow on it.

All right?

Merry Christmas, son. It doesn't work that way, right? And that's the point that Paul's making. To the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

But what is salvation? It is a gift.

You didn't earn it. God is giving it to you. So to the one who does not work, let me emphasize the word, the one who does not work, I am on strike. I refuse to work for my salvation. Oh, Pastor Rose, bro, that's some pretty scary words right there.

Listen to what it says. The one who does not work but trusts, has faith in him who justifies, declares righteous, the ungodly. And I've got to point this out. I keep pointing it out every time this text comes up.

The ungodly. If you don't see yourself in that group, you don't need Jesus. But if you don't see yourself in that group as part of the ungodly, you are completely self-deceived. Christ died for the ungodly.

That's me. That's you. So God justifies. He declares righteous.

Who?

The ungodly.

How?

By faith. His faith is counted as righteousness. Just like Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, the ungodly who believed that Jesus bled and died for all their sins. God counts that faith as righteousness.

The text says so.

Right here.

If I seem a little animated, I apologize. But this is some good stuff. It's just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteous apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

And if it is the adherence of the law who are to be heirs, well then faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith.

In order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring. Whose offspring?

Here?

Abraham's. Now remember what Jesus said. Everyone who's born from above. You got to be born from above. This text right here says something really weird. Hang on a second here. Y 'all look kind of like Norwegian, German, European-ish to me.

Oh, except for the back row.

Yeah.

Yeah, the back row. You girls definitely look like you come from the east. Yeah, from China and places like that. But anyone here Jewish?

No.

Huh.

That's weird. Because this text just said that all of y 'all, me included, that all of us, that we're the offspring of Abraham. As Mikey would say, mazel tov.

All right?

We can celebrate now. All of us are the offspring of Abraham. Every single one of us. Even if you don't have a drop of Jewish DNA in your blood. How can that be? So note here, even Paul is pointing to a fact that everybody who is a Christian is born from above and everybody who is a Christian, regardless of whether or not they are Jewish or part of the goyim, they are the offspring of Abraham.

Because there's a reality to being a Christian. So he says, not only to the adherent of the law, but also the one who shares the faith of Abraham.

Ah-ha!

See, if you have the same faith as Abraham, you are Abraham's offspring.

How?

By virtue of the fact that you've been born from above. Because everybody who's been born from above is the descendant, true descendant of Abraham. And he's the father of us all. As it is written, I've made you the father of many nations in the presence of God in whom he.

Believed,.

Who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. And there's more consistent theology right here. God is the one who gives life to the dead. And that was every one of us.

Born dead in trespasses and sins. We have now been born from above. We are all now the sons and daughters, the offspring of Abraham. And God has called us out of nonexistence into existence, brought us from death to life all as a gift.

This is some good stuff. Ah, but somebody sits there and goes, oh, Pastor Rose, bro, this is too good to be true. You are deceiving everybody because James says that faith without works is dead. So you are wrong.

You have to earn your salvation by your works. Cause that's what it says in James chapter two. No, it don't. It don't say that at all.

All right.

And the person who says that is having some exegetical issues and that's the best construction on it. So listen to the words of James from James chapter two, verse 14. What good is it? My brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works, does that thing exist?

That this is nuts. That species of animal does not exist. And you're going to note there's a metaphor he's going to use at the end of this section, which is quite helpful here. So how do you guys know I'm alive?

There's kind of signs. You kind of know that I'm alive here. I'm moving. I'm breathing. But let's say that we were in downtown Grand Forks, maybe having some nice coffee or maybe visiting the gun shop there, you know, right up next to the bridge.

And as we walk out, a construction truck is driving by and a board flies off and hits me smack in.

The head.

And there I am laid out flat on the sidewalk. And I mean, it was a good thud too. At this point, how do you know whether I'm alive or not? Now those of you with at least a modicum of medical training, you immediately go for the wrist and you do this kind of thing to see if you,.

If I have a pulse.

But if you don't know how to do that, there's another way, by the way, there is another way you, what you do is you grab a mirror. Hey lady, do you have a mirror? Yeah, I do. And what you do is you hold it up to my nostrils.

And if I can fog a mirror, I'm alive. And if I can't fog the mirror, start planning the funeral.

Okay.

This is, this is real simple.

All right.

That's his overarching point here is that if you can't fog a mirror spiritually, you're dead.

Still you're dead, dead, dead, doobie doobie dead.

All right.

In that partly dead or mostly dead, totally dead. How do we know? Cause you can't fog a mirror. How do you fog a mirror by faith? Because faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone. So I know y 'all have faith because I can see that you can fog a mirror spiritually with your good works.

So that's his point. And now we're not talking Coram Deo. We're talking Coram Mundo. So what good is it? My brothers, if someone says he has faith, but doesn't have works,.

What is that thing?

Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to him, go in peace, be warm, be filled.

I know it's really cold outside.

You'll probably die. And then don't give them the things they need for their body. What good is that? So faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. And this is exactly what Paul says in Ephesians 2.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God so that no one may boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. So if you ain't got good works, you're still dead.

Now, I want to make something very clear here. This does not mean that you're sinless. This does not mean that your good works earn salvation.

No.

Your good works show that you are already of a different species, that you are born from above, that you are a child of Abraham. And as a result of that, if somebody sits there and goes, Well, I don't have any good works.

I don't have any good works.

I just believe in Jesus.

What?

That's dead. So notice what he says. Faith by itself, if it doesn't have works, is dead. Well, someone will say, Well, you have faith.

I have works.

Show me your faith apart from your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works. Is that Coram Deo or is it Coram Mundo? Coram Mundo. So this is all an argument based upon how we view each other. And then you'll note that the quintessential last bit that Paul throws in here in verse 26 is the part that frames it all.

For just as the body that is not breathing is dead, so faith apart from works is dead. He's not saying if you want to be alive in Christ, you better get busy. Jesus is coming back soon. He's saying if you don't have good works, you still don't have faith.

The two go together. As I always point out, cows moo because they're cows. Cats meow because they're cats. Christians do good works because they're Christians.

Full stop.

So James doesn't take away the fact that salvation is a gift. It is a gift given by God. And the very faith that the gospel demands, God gives it to you. That's what Paul says in Ephesians 2. By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God.

Everything that the gospel demands, the gospel provides. And when Christ breathes in you and you are brought to life and you are a child of Abraham and you are born from above, you immediately get busy with the good works.

And these are not hard things. It doesn't require you to go climb the Scalia in Rome on your knees and say they are father at every stop on the way. The good works are done here in your family, in your community.

Your good works are done by loving your spouse, by caring for your children, by putting in a hard day at work. These are the works that God's word says are the ones that please him. And you sit there and go, well, I'm already doing that.

Of course. Of course. That's the point.

The Bronze Serpent, the Cross, and Salvation by Faith

So let me finish then our Bible study of sorts with the words of Christ from the back end of our gospel text because these are the best words ever. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

You see, Jesus is going to the cross, and in the Lenten season we are always keeping our eyes on that fact. And, brothers and sisters, he goes to the cross to bear your sin in mind. In the book of Numbers, you have that account of the people of Israel once again grumbling against God and him sending these desert adders, these bronze desert adders in to bite them, and people were dying.

And they recognized their sin, and they prayed that God would forgive them and take away the serpents. But rather than take them away, Moses was commanded to fashion a bronze serpent and put it on a pole.

And the promise was this, anyone who is bitten may look to that bronze serpent and live. And all of that is the type in shadow because we all know that we, each and every one of us, we have already been bitten by the serpent.

The words of the serpent spoken to our first parents, Adam and Eve, that venom is still working through every one of us. And you're going to note that Jesus takes that bronze serpent and he applies it to himself.

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes in him, it doesn't say whoever works for it, strives for it, earns it, does enough, then he may have eternal life.

No, whoever believes in him may have eternal life. So recognize that you are snake bit. I am snake bit. But Christ has taken the venom of sin in himself, and his blood now is the antivenom. And it was shed so that you and I can be forgiven.

So that whoever believes in him should have eternal life. Another note here, and that is if you really believe that you have to earn your salvation by your works, by the things that you do, by your obedience, your sinlessness or anything else, it's pretty hard to view God as loving.

At some point, you wear out and you throw your fist up at God, kind of in anger and frustration. And you might say something to the effect of, what do I have to do to please you? When is it going to be enough, God?

Yeah, the problem is not God here. The problem is that you think that you have to earn his favor. But see, God has had mercy on us. And then Jesus says these words, for God so loved the world. He loved you.

He loves me. He so loved us that he gave his only son. He bled and died for us, was scourged, beaten, nailed to the cross, lifted up between heaven and earth so that we can be pardoned and forgiven of all of our sins, not just some of it.

He gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. You see, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

You, me, all of us. So repent of your wickedness. Repent of your weak good works. Repent of your striving. Put it all away and rest. Rest and believe that what God here says, what God in human flesh says is true.

Whoever believes in him will not perish and that he didn't send his son to condemn you, but that you might be saved. He wills for your salvation so much so that he paid the whole price and he gives it away as a gift.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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