WWUTT 1207 Justified by Faith Apart from Works? (Romans 3:28-29)

Romans 3 28 says, For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

It is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that you are declared innocent when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Romans chapter 3.

And picking up where we left off yesterday, I'll begin reading in verse 27 through verse 31.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome, Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.

By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also?

Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.

So yesterday, verse 27 was what we looked at. Then what becomes of our boasting?

It is excluded. We have no ground upon which to boast about our salvation. We cannot take any credit for any of it.

Not even one percent. There's not even a small little tiny percentage that you can hold up and say, ha ha, this is mine.

I did this. That would be boasting. And it is excluded. We have no place to boast in our own salvation.

We've done nothing. God has done everything. By what kind of law?

By a law of works? It can't be. Because if our boasting is excluded, then it will not be by our works that we are saved.

So no, it is not by a law of works, but by the law of faith.

Recognize that. So there's no list of rules somewhere that you keep these rules and then you receive salvation.

Not even, let me add this in there, okay? Not even walk this aisle and pray this prayer and repeat after me, raise your hand if you want to come receive salvation.

Not even that. Not even that work gets you saved. That is written down nowhere in the

Bible, by the way. That is a modern invention. The altar call, the sinner's prayer, these are things that have come about in the last couple of hundred years.

And the altar call really was made popular mostly in the 20th century. These are not the things that we see in Scripture regarding a person's saving faith.

How they come to saving faith. It's not raising a hand, walking an aisle, saying a prayer.

It is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel was preached to them. They repent of their sin.

They turn to Jesus. They love the Lord God, where previously they hated

God, now they desire him and they find that relationship with God through Christ. And all of this is the work of God.

It's through the preaching of the gospel and the belief in that gospel. And then a person is going to do things that will demonstrate that faith, like pray, go and get baptized.

I remember a question was asked of me and my church, because when I took over as pastor, I was not doing altar calls.

The previous pastor did them every single Sunday. I was not doing an altar call at all, never have done one as long as I've been pastor at the church that I'm at.

And so I had people coming up to me after, it wasn't at first, but it was like after a few weeks, a few months, someone started, some of the members of my congregation started coming to me and asking me about that.

And one question that I got was this, how do we know who's getting saved if we don't have people walking down an aisle and praying a prayer?

And I said, that's what baptism is for. They do an action before a body of believers to show

I've been buried with Christ in my sins and risen again to new life. And I have,

I'm a professing believer now. I'm professing faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is my

Lord. That's what we do with baptism. But baptism has been replaced by the altar calls and the sinner's prayers.

And that is not the way that a person gets saved. That would be a law of works.

You have to do these things and then you're saved. And then you'll have preachers. And you know, this is especially traditional in the

Southern Baptist denomination of which I'm a part, but you'll have those preachers that will say, then write the date down in your

Bible. So if there's any ever doubt in your heart as to whether or not you're saved, all you have to do is open your

Bible and read the promises of God, right? Nope. Look at the date that you wrote down in your

Bible. And that's how you know that you're saved. My friends, that's adding to the word of God quite literally that you're writing it down in the

Bible. This is how I know I'm saved. I was saved on this date. You know you're saved because you read the promises of God.

You've been sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption. And it has nothing to do with whatever date you feel like you became a follower of Christ.

Some people know that. I don't. I actually do not know what day it was. I went from being rebellious against God to a follower of Christ.

I know about the season in which it happened. And then I was like a prodigal son and I fell away and then came back, came back to the and repenting of my sins and he threw his arms around me and put a robe on me.

That's my story. I don't have a particular date or time that I could say this was exactly when it happened.

Here's where I fell on my knees and I wept before God. I've certainly had those instances, but they were after I was saved, not like the day of my salvation.

So some people know that and that's fine. But writing the date down in your Bible is not assurance of salvation.

Assurance of salvation is reading the promises of God that we have in his word. It's trusting in his word.

It's faith in Jesus Christ. That's how you have assurance of your salvation, knowing that this work is accomplished by God and it is not accomplished by us.

So this is not by a law of works. So what is it by then? How do we come to this salvation?

It is by the law of faith. It is what God has established as the vessel through which he would pour out his blessings upon the believer.

The one who believes in Jesus Christ, what he has done on the cross, rising again from the grave, ascending into heaven, seated at the right hand of God, interceding for us, promising that he's going to come back to judge the living and the dead, looking for the day of his coming, working faithfully, following in the faith, pursuing righteousness, godliness, preaching the gospel until that day when

Christ returns. These are the things that we do and it is God working in us that brings about both the justification that we've received and the sanctification that we are receiving.

This is the law of faith that God has written on our hearts.

Like I said yesterday, we're going to get to chapter four and see that this faith was even at work prior to Christ's coming, but he is still and always has been the author and the perfecter of our faith.

So we are saved by the law of faith, faith in Jesus Christ. As we read back in verse 24, we are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Faith in Jesus is how we are saved. God has chosen faith as the mechanism through which he would pour out his blessings upon us, and he is the one who has established this.

So it is the law of faith, this which God has established for our benefit to receive righteousness, holiness, salvation in Christ, fellowship with God.

It's all by faith. Verse 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

So how is it that you are justified? By faith, not by any work that you do, but by faith in Christ.

Jesus justifies you before the father. Now this word justifies is a legal term.

The word justice comes from the same word. God is just. God judges. He does justice.

All his ways are justice, as it says in Deuteronomy. So it's from this same word that we have justified, and it means to be declared innocent.

It also, by its very nature, implies that previously you were guilty.

If you are called justified, it's implied that you were guilty before you were termed justified.

All right? Are you following with me? So when we come before God in repentance and faith, we are justified by faith in Christ.

The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. The righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us through faith.

Again, this is what we read earlier in this section in Romans 3, verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

So you have received God's righteousness by faith. It has been imputed to you, and you are justified.

So you were guilty before God. We were guilty of our sin. We were under the judgment of God. John 3, 36 says, whoever has the son has life, but whoever does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Not that it is placed on him. It remains on him because you were born in that state.

You were born in the natural condition that you were in was sinful, fallen from God.

We were, by our nature, sinners, rebellious against God. So God's wrath was on you as children of wrath.

It says in Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, so the wrath of God was on you until you came to faith in Christ.

The one who does not come to faith in Christ, the wrath of God remains on him.

So that was the state in which we were in. We were guilty before God, having committed treason against the high throne of the king of all of creation.

And what we deserve for this was death. Paul talks about that later on. Of course, you know, a verse you've likely memorized,

Romans 6, 23, for all have sinned. That's Romans 3, 23. Romans 6, 23 is for the wages of sin is death.

But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So what we deserve for our sin is death.

Through Christ, we receive life and it's by faith in him that we are justified.

We now stand before God as holy, not as condemned criminals, but now justified saints in the presence of almighty

God and being justified by his grace. We are now heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

That's Titus 3, 7 being justified by his grace. We might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

We were traitors against the kingdom of God, and now we've become inheritors of the kingdom of God through faith in our

Lord Christ. So we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

You don't do anything to then become declared innocent. And this is the way that you recognize this even in a court of law.

When a person has been tried guilty of murder, they've murdered somebody, it goes to court, all the evidence is there, witnesses come forth.

There's a trial by jury. The jury decides this man is guilty, he's committed murder.

So then the judge sentences the person who has just been declared guilty, and here's what your sentence is.

Can that person who's been declared guilty do anything to take his sentence away?

No, especially when you're talking about something like murder. He can't go be nice to a hundred people and that will cover over the evil of the one thing that he did, the one person that he killed.

If I've been nice to a hundred people, that undoes the one murder. You could be nice to a billion people, and it still doesn't take away the fact that you have murdered, because really,

I mean, that's the way the argument could go in court. You could say, well, hey, there's seven and a half billion people in the world.

I've been nice to all of them. I only killed this one guy. So you have to look at seven and a half billion people that I've been nice to.

I didn't kill them. I just killed this guy. So really, the niceties outweigh the evil that I have done.

A criminal can't do that. He cannot defend his case that way in court. We would laugh that out of court.

We would consider that to be absurd. The judge would land his gavel and say, no, you're guilty, life behind bars.

That's likely going to be the sentence. What he deserves for that is the death penalty, and that's straight from scripture.

But anyway, you can't. The point being that you can't do anything to cover over the evil that you have done, even if you committed a lesser crime.

So let's stay in the example of an earthly judicial system. OK, and I'm from the

United States of America, so I'm using America's judicial system. Let's say you get caught robbing someone's house.

They caught you red handed. Nothing you do about it. So you come before court. You plead guilty. The judge says,

OK, here's what you owe. You have to serve two years jail time and you have to pay back everything that you stole.

Plus plus the damages plus interest. So you'll also have to pay this much on top of everything else that you owe.

So then you go to jail for two years. You pay back everything that you owe. After all of that is done, you are still guilty.

Right. That didn't take away the guilt that you had incurred because of the crime that you committed.

It just means you've paid your debt to society. Now when it comes to sinning against God, there there are not lesser crimes.

When a person does anything evil, it is a blasphemy against God. Anything that is contrary to God's law is blasphemy against him because we are declaring that God is not enough for us.

I have to have this other thing in order to be saved. All sin comes from an ungrateful heart.

You're not thankful to God for him, for any of his blessings. And so you have to do this other thing, breaking the law of God and declaring to God, I know better than you do.

I need this thing in order to be happy. And what you have for me just simply wasn't enough. So no matter what you do, it is always going to be a great blasphemy against God.

Therefore, there is no sin in the grand scheme of things. Looking at the eternal scope of things, there is no sin that is, you know, you can just do this little thing and still call yourself a good person.

Someone who is worthy to stand in the presence of holy, almighty God. There's no such thing.

Any one sin has instantly disqualified you from God and from his presence. Now, of course, we're not just guilty of one sin.

There is a multitude, plethora of things that we have done against God, worthy of death and destruction.

But all of that just simply to say that even though in society and in the scope of things, there are lesser sins that you could do that would not result in a life sentence.

Any sin that you commit against God is going to have eternal ramifications because God is eternal.

And so is his word. Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will never pass away.

God's holiness is eternal. We sin at any one point and we are unqualified to stand in the presence of almighty

God. We must understand holiness this way and how much God hates sin.

James 2 .10 says, whoever keeps the whole law but fails at one point has become guilty of all of it.

So you've broken one law, you're guilty of breaking the whole law of God, and there is nothing that we do to attain right standing or righteousness with God.

It is by his grace that he has given his son to die for us.

He gave his son to keep the whole law perfectly. Jesus kept the whole law. He did what we could not do and died the death we were supposed to die, taking the wrath of God upon himself with his death on the cross so that whoever believes in him, our sins are forgiven by his atoning sacrifice and we have received his righteousness.

He pays our fine. So going back to the courtroom motif again, and you've heard this example before, you're standing before the judge.

He declares you guilty. You're guilty of sin that is so heinous, you're getting the death penalty. And then the judge steps down and he comes to you and he says, but I'm going to pay this fine for you.

And he goes and dies in your place so that the debt that you owed society has been paid for by the judge himself.

And that's Christ. I mean, that's really a crude example of what Christ has done for us, because what he's done is, is so much higher than that, so much more holy, so much more spiritual than that analogy.

But, but that helps you to understand, right? You've been declared guilty. The judge has landed the gavel, but then the judge steps down, comes down to you and says, but I'm paying your fine for you.

They're going to give me the chair and not you. So you are free and, and your debt has been paid.

You're not even guilty because I'm taking your guilt upon myself. And that's what Christ has done for us.

We could not do anything to make ourselves right. But the judge himself, who was righteous, put himself in our place, took our sin upon him and gave us his righteousness.

And it is by faith in him that we are free, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how your sins are forgiven.

That's how you're justified before God, previously guilty, now declared innocent. And it is by faith.

We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Verse 29, or is God the God of Jews only?

Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Now why the discrepancy there? By faith, through faith. Well, it simply means that the

Jew was already in the position to receive this justification by faith. The Gentile receives it,

Christ keeping the law, even though the Gentile doesn't know the law. And he receives the righteousness of Christ through faith.

So that's the reason for the different words regarding faith there. He will justify the circumcised, who are the

Jews, by faith, and the uncircumcised, who are the Gentiles, through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. And that's where we'll pick up tomorrow as we finish up Romans chapter three.

Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, what a good father you are to have given us righteousness and peace through faith in your son,

Jesus Christ. Previously, we were hostile against God, and now we have peace with God because of faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. He has satisfied God's wrath with his death on the cross.

And by faith in him, whoever believes in him, we will not perish, but we will have everlasting life.

So lead us in ways of righteousness today. May we pursue the peace of Christ, have peace with one another.

May we do the things that are righteous in your eyes, not what the world says is right, but what you have said is right according to your word.

And may we recognize that we rest from our works. It is not by our works that we attain righteousness, but by the work of Christ that his righteousness has been imputed to us.

So now whatever we do, we do by faith. We do rejoicing in the Lord Christ, for it is you who has made us right, justified before God.

We thank you for this assurance of salvation that we have by faith.

And may we continue to walk by faith, for as it says in the scriptures, the just shall live by faith.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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