The Lie of Final Justification

The Lie of Final Justification and the Liar Lexicon

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. I am in studio today with none other than Pastor.

Reverend Steve Cooley. That's Dr. Pastor Reverend, if you don't mind.

Doctor. It is Tuesday. Steve is known as the Tuesday guy. And Steve, I'd like to start off today's show with virtually litigation-proof phrases that you can use when it comes to hiring and firing people and stuff like that.

Oh, good. Yeah. Robert Thornton was a professor at Lehigh University, and he has a lexicon of intentionally ambiguous recommendations. So if you ever have to have a recommendation, lexicon, L, intentional, I, ambiguous, A, recommendations, R, L-I-A-R.

Liar. This is to describe someone who's inept. I enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever.

Yeah. No, I would want somebody to say with no reservations whatsoever, right? Not no.

Qualifications. I'm qualified. To describe an ex-employee who had problems getting along with fellow workers is what you say. I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine. It gives me great pleasure.

To describe an unproductive candidate, I can assure you that no.

Person would be better for the job. Now, see, that's just a matter of emphasis, though. I can write that with a clear conscience and have no person. There's no one who would be better for.

This job. And lastly, to describe an applicant not worth consideration, I would urge you to waste.

No time in making this candidate an offer. See, again, that's one, you know, if you say it with a different emphasis, sounds great. Yeah. Waste no time. That's from the liar lexicon. And today, we're going to talk about a theological lie.

Man, I was just cruising. I thought we were just going to do Abendroth comedy for the next 30 minutes, you know, so.

Well, you could say something like, if I were you, I'd give that man sweeping responsibilities. Grab the mop. She gives every appearance of being a loyal, dedicated employee. Anyway, I think there is a theological lie that we'd like to talk about today, and that is the lie of final justification.

It's in the news these days. A lot of people seem to be teaching it. And, Steve, it's kind of tricky because a lot of the nomenclature is the same, but I want you to know today we're going to talk about the myth or the lie of future justification.

And basically, you have two justifications in this lie. The justification when a person believes in the Lord Jesus, right? When it comes to you get Christ's righteousness, he gets your sin. It's the great double imputation.

And that's the first initial justification. And we'll talk about this later in the show. We have no problem with that one, do we? No. Yeah. Okay. And then there's a final justification that's not forensic, that's not legal.

It's transformative. You have to have enough change in your life to withstand the final judgment. That's the part we think is a lie.

Grace, Works, and the Logic of Justification

So, that might be like future grace kind of thing?

Well, sometimes they say future grace is when you're in a trial and the future of God will give you enough grace. So, you might call this future justification or final justification, something like that.

What do you mean by future grace? I don't know. Oh, the book. Oh, duh. I was kind of like nicely corrected you and you're already talking about...

Oh, man. See, you know, you can keep playing your checkers. I'm over here with a little 3D.

Chessam and Do. Well, he's the kind of employee you can swear by.

I think they meant to say swear out.

It's interesting. A lot of people teach this. Here's a quote by N .T. Wright, justification at the last will be on the basis of performance.

How about justification at the last will be the same as at the first? N .T. Wright, once again, proven wrong.

As some of my Jewish friends would say, I think they're wrong. I think they're wrong. Okay. There's a podcast I listen to, It Really History, and they have Menachem Begin at the very beginning with the same speech every time.

And he was talking about, you know, there can be no future together for Palestinians and Israelis. And he says, I think they're wrong.

Well, I'm looking forward to the new Golda movie.

So is there a new one? Yeah. You haven't seen this?

No, I have not. What's her name? A British actress is going to play Golda Meir. And it actually looks pretty good. Sorry. Sorry for that.

No, that's okay. The final justification advocates say this, that justification is not solely based on Christ's merits and his death and resurrection for us, but the Spirit of God's transformation in our lives as Christians.

Now, does the Spirit of God transform our lives?

Yes. And you know what? If you just left it at that, maybe I wouldn't have so much trouble with it, right? If the final justification is based on the Spirit's work in me, okay, well, I mean, the Holy Spirit's not going to fail.

But is that how it... Yeah, but that's not what they mean.

Yeah, I know. I think behind this all, Steve, and I think you agree with me. I mean, what are the reasons for this? Bad exegesis, improperly looking at Romans 2 .13 that we'll look at maybe a little bit later in the show.

But there is a built-in allergy, it seems like, to... Grace. Well, oh, yeah. They don't think grace motivates. They think law motivates. But they're trying to get people to not be licentious. They're trying to get people to live a holy life because if you somehow tell me there's no condemnation now in Christ Jesus, then I could just skate around and do whatever I want.

Yep. I'm free and clear, right? I mean, hey, God said I'm righteous, so therefore, I can do whatever I want.

Well, let's take it from this angle with initial and final justification language, and I don't like that language, but just for the sake of argument. Do works play any part, man's works, play any part in our initial justification?

No. Yeah. And so, we believe we receive Christ's benefits, but now works, our works, play a part in final justification?

Well, here, let me try to make it even more simple. God is the justifier. True. So, he initially justifies us, and then at final justification, he realizes his error. He's like, oh, oops, didn't know Steve was going to go so far off the rails.

Well, Steve, we talk about all the time, Colossians 2, 13, and 14, and 15, about Christ paying for our sins, past, present, and future. So, do we have to worry as Christians that we'll have to stand before God's judgment, and he will judge our sins?

Somehow our sinful deeds are going to be taken into account? What does that do to Christ's work?

Or, you know, our lack of merit, what does that sound like? But, you know, again, I just go back to, so God's going to go, yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that initial justification thing. Sorry about that.

You know what, I'm not, I'm just not feeling it. Sorry, bro.

Well, there's some tension there. We were talking about Romans 8, 1 earlier off air, and there's therefore now, right? That's a key word right there. Therefore now, no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

And there's a full stop with the Alexandrian text types, i .e., NAS, LSB, ESV, NIV, CSV, CVS, the massage. But Byzantine, i .e., King James, they talk about for those who walk not after the flesh, but according to the Spirit, kind of jamming chapter 8, verse 12 up in there.

It's almost like some scribe was thinking, that's just, that's just too much. That's just too good.

You know, that's what it was. He's looking at the context all together and goes, eh, you know, putting this wedge in this whole thing and, you know, kind of works into 8 .1. That's okay.

Rick Phillips, quote, the Bible's teaching that justification through faith alone is not provisional in character, but utterly definitive in securing God's righteous verdict.

What good would a provisional justification be? You know, like, hey, if you live good enough, yeah, I think I'm going to declare you righteous.

I think that's almost like purgatory on earth, right? We don't quite know what's on and we just have to work more.

And so, for many, many issues, when I'm studying theology, I think about the character of God. And what does this tell me about the character of God? It's frightening. This idea, like I said, he made a mistake.

He didn't know what he was doing. He kind of blindly trusted you and was betrayed by your I mean, what is going on? Who is this somewhat sovereign God who declares me justified and, you know, declares me righteous?

And then it's like, oh, man, oh. Ringing his hands going, oh, Steve, come on. Steve, I think you make a good point here.

It was James Buchanan with that book he wrote on justification, the Doctrine of Justification, one that I recommend. By the way, I would recommend to the readers and the listeners, rather, Calvin on justification in his Institutes, Turton on justification.

You can get a one-off, but it's in his three-volume set. Buchanan on justification, Fesco on justification, and Michael Horton on justification. And if you read those books, even one of them, you would never fall for this lie of final justification.

It says here, oh, so back to Buchanan. I forgot what I was going to say. The justice of God. Let's think about that for a moment. So, God's just, and he has poured out his wrath for our sins, all the elect sins on Jesus.

And then now somehow they're going to be taken into account later. In addition, the ground of salvation has to be perfect, because if you're going to stand before God on judgment day, you better be standing on perfect ground.

And therefore, how can it be that we're going to stand before God on that final day and final justification and final judgment on our own less-than-perfect works?

It makes no sense. Let's just back up for a moment. Let's just talk about before the foundations of the world, God set his affections on us. He decided that we would be spotless, blameless, right? And to that end, in time, the Holy Spirit convicts us, regenerates us, etc.

And then Jesus died for it. Well, I mean, this is before that, but he died for us to make us righteous. And somehow we lose that righteousness by our own actions. So, what is the covenant of redemption?

Apparently is interrupted by my infidelity to it, which I'm not even a part of the covenant of redemption, but I blow it. Well, maybe you're eternal. Maybe you're one of the founders of the world. Maybe you're like Mary.

I cut a deal, you know. Spurgeon,.

Quote, as soon as a repenting sinner is justified, remember, he is justified for all his sins. Here stands a man all guilty. The moment he believes in Christ, his pardon at once he receives, and his sins are no longer his.

They are cast into the depths of the sea. They are on the shoulders of Christ, gone. The man stands guiltless in the sight of God, except in the beloved. What you say, do you mean that literally? Yes, I do, Charles Spurgeon.

But you know, while you're reading that, I couldn't help but think what we're really talking about is we, after initial justification, so-called, go into a period of testing, a time of trying. We could even call it a covenant of works.

If that were possible, you had to be put back underneath that. How does that work? So, covenant of grace, and then now you're back on covenant of works? Yeah, because you got saved.

I mean, you were declared righteous. I mean, this is, you mentioned it, you kind of alluded to it, it's like essentially purgatory on earth. And this is the idea that somehow we have to be purified, you know, all the sins, and we have to work through these things, and we have to have essentially sufficient merit.

I think I was joking about it on Saturday morning. With the end of our lives, we appear before God and go, look at my works. My hands are cupped and holding them out, you know, like, here you go, Lord, here's all I did.

Isn't this good? Aren't you so proud of me? Well, I guess there are two options. You can either stand before God on judgment day, cloaked in the righteous works of Christ, or you can stand, cloaked, I guess, in part of his robes of righteousness and your own personal.

Righteousness, your own covenant faithfulness, your own personal Jesus. I mean, that is.

Something that I think even Judge Judy realizes is totally wrong. And how long have you been on that medication?

I've been on the medication of self-justification for a long time.

Assurance, Romans 8, and the Rejection of Final Justification

Let me give you some benefits of justification, Steve. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we hope we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we've obtained access, hopefully in the future by faith, into this grace in which we're groveling, and we're hoping in the glory of God.

More than that, our sufferings might cause us to rejoice. That's in a very fascinating Romans 5, 1 to 3.

Is that in the Bible or is that Vatican II?

By the way, these are all errors stemming from Rome's errors when they did this back hundreds of years ago, and we should not be surprised and think this is some new teaching. It's basically, it's papish is what it is.

The road to Rome is paved with, let's see, future justification.

No condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Can you think of a more assuring verse in all the Bible?

No. No condemnation unless you really do something bad. You know, I mean, maybe there's just something in your future that God wasn't thinking about when he declared you righteous.

S. Lewis Johnson is quite funny sometimes for being such a gentleman. By the way, Discovering Colossians is out today. Is it? Yeah, yeah. Discovering Colossians, S. Lewis Johnson. Well, let's go to Amazon and buy it.

There you go. Johnson said this, we might paraphrase by saying, there's no condemnation of any kind. The now is probably temporal, but one cannot give it the force of the Arminian lady who is giving her testimony and cried out, I thank God I'm saved.

I'm saved up to the present date.

Right up to this very moment. Who knows what the future holds?

Past sins, no condemnation. Present sins, no condemnation. Future sins, no condemnation. I thought we were actually adopted in the family and now we have God as a father. So does not our father accept our less than perfect works, even though they're sin tainted, because he accepts us in Christ Jesus?

Well, you know, no one can take you out of the hands of the father, except your future bad actions.

You and I were talking about Horatius Bonar the other day, and he was talking about Romans 8 .1. And it really, this is just, it's just, it's just honey to my, to my...

Don't say to your ears, because you don't want honey in your ears. To my tea.

These expressions of the apostle have often been shrunk from, like Romans 8, dreaded as dangerous, quoted with a guarding clause, like the AV does, 1611, are rather cited as seldom as possible under the secret feeling that unless greatly diluted, they better not be cited at all.

But why are these bold utterances there? If they're perilous, if they're not meant to be fearlessly proclaimed now, as if they were written 2000 years ago, what did the Holy Spirit mean by the promulgation of unguarded statements?

It was not for nothing that they were so boldly spoken. Timid words would not have served the purpose. The glorious gospel needed statements such as these to disentangle the great question of acceptance, to relieve troubled consciences, and to purge them from dead works, yet at the same time to give works their proper place.

Horatious Bonar, everlasting righteousness. Steve, talk to me a little bit about that assurance part.

We need assurance. I mean, to go with what Bonar is saying there, the context of Romans 8 .1, you know, here's a shocker, is Romans 7. And here's Paul struggling, saying, I don't do the things I want to do.

I do the things I don't want to do. You know, who's going to deliver me from this body of death, etc., etc., etc. And then he says, thanks be to God, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Listen, this is, this is, you know, in and of myself, I am, I have no assurance at all. Right? I'm just still a wretch. I'm the chief of sinners. I mean, you could just hear Paul, like, preaching, you know, I'm miserable.

And then he says, here's the good news. The good news is all those things, my feelings of inadequacy are irrelevant.

Norman Shepherd, Perseverance, and the Final Verdict

Yeah, because they're feelings. Yes. Yeah, totally. Well, there's a man named Norman Shepherd, Stroman Norman Shepherd, and he was a professor at Westminster Seminary, Philly. And after, I believe, Steve, seven, maybe eight years, he was dismissed from the faculty because he had a faulty view of justification.

And it took men like Robert Godfrey and others to get rid of him. Norman Shepherd has theses that describe what he believed in the middle of this, because he's trying to prove that he wasn't heretical.

So, he has a thesis. Here's his thesis number 22. The righteousness of Jesus Christ ever remains the exclusive ground of the believer's justification. I wish there was a period there, but there's a comma, where Norman puts a comma, don't put a period.

And we're about to hear but. Uh-huh, but. Way to go. The personal godliness of the believer is also necessary for his justification in the judgment of the last day. Now, we do the same thing over and over and over, Steve.

We ask the question, how much personal godliness is necessary? Because if some struggling saint, someone who's struggling with assurance, or if I am struggling with assurance, think, how much personal godliness do I need?

What's the answer? There has to be some answer.

Yeah, and we just look at them and go, you're right. You're probably not saved, you know, based on the fact that you're struggling, because real Christians don't struggle. I mean, this just reminds me of the gif where I like to post stuff like this, where the guy's swinging at a baseball and just ties himself into a knot, right?

It's a swing and a miss, because final justification, that idea, let's put it this way. If you can go through, you know, the great statements of faith and not find that, then how is it possible? Did those men all, you know, the Westminster divines, the men who wrote the London Baptist Confession of Faith, you know, Heidelberg, etc., etc., did they all miss this?

Were they asleep at the switch? You know, did God somehow not reveal to these men that this idea of final justification, or were they, in fact, keeping the gospel pure?

And the context, as you know, Steve, those men were fighting against the soteriological errors of Rome, which included this very thing that justification is by Christian obedience, because if it's not by Christ alone, it's Christ and Christians' obedience.

But you don't want to commit the sin of presumption. Oh. Wait a minute. Is that a real sin? Or given the fact that these things are written to us, that we may know that Jesus is the Christ and we can have eternal life, aren't those things in scripture somewhere?

I don't know. Was John, the beloved apostle, was he guilty of the sin of presumption? Was he encouraging the sin of presumption? Did he not know about final.

Justification? Dear Christian, your justification is based solely on the imputation of Christ's perfect righteousness. And you say, yes, but I have sin. No, no, that sin has also been credited. That sin has been credited to Christ, and you get his righteousness.

It is a once and for all, complete, final declaration. And that's why it's so good in Romans 8, 1, because you think, oh, I am sinning, like you said in Romans 7, Steve, and I wonder if God's still pleased.

And so, the assurance is given. There's no condemnation. We already have a little, it's almost like a sneak preview. See, we went and saw a show the other night. I can't remember even what it was. It was a couple of weeks ago, and there was 30 minutes of previews.

Oh, yeah. Sometimes it's awful.

And they were the worst shows. I mean, like Exorcist and stuff like that.

I think we must have seen the same thing because I'm just like, you know, sorry to interrupt, but sometimes my wife and I will just watch the previews and I'll lean over and go, yeah, I want to see that.

Yeah, I want to see that. Nah. Yeah. I didn't lean over to her one time because she knew. She's just like, what kind of previews are these? And I'm like, I don't know.

What Kim says to me, because we do the exact same thing, she says, what kind of twisted mind thought of that? And then what kind of twisted mind say we want to buy into that to sell to other people? It's awful.

Today we're talking about final justification and this theological lie. How can a person be right with God? And what's the answer, Steve? Through what non-meritorious instrument? Baptism? Confirmation?

I'm going to have to go with final justification. It's obviously faith and it's just so, I mean, the Bible could not be more plain. The creeds and confessions could not be more plain. You know, the only people arguing against those things have a lot of robes on and take their orders from the guy who lives in the Vatican.

Well, I only wish that was true. I know what you're saying.

What they don't take their orders from? Well, I mean, essentially, this is the invasion of Catholicism into, you know, biblical thought and Protestant theology.

Right. And if you don't have a law gospel distinction, it makes it even harder. So, you have somebody saying something like this, the stunning answer to how a person can be right with God is sola fide, faith alone.

What do you think the next word is going to be? But. But. Be sure you hear this carefully and precisely. Okay, I'm listening. 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 a right relationship to God.

John Piper. And so, you just think, what in the world is going on?

This is, it reminds me very much of somebody who once said, listen, you get back to neutral with God, you know, through his death, and then you're on your own. Better cinch up your belt, son, because you've got to get some righteousness to get into heaven.

I do? I mean, is that like salvation is available to everyone by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel? Is that what that's like? Right? What laws and ordinances do I need to obey so that I can make sure I get.

Into heaven? Steve, when I hear stuff like this, I only have kind of one comment, and I'll put it in a song form. We grew up with this, but it got popular with the whole latest movie. Oh, yeah. Yeah. With Star Lord.

Uh huh. That's right. Well, anyway, Mike Havenroth with Steve Cooley today on No Compromise Radio. We want you to have assurance you're a Christian, and we want you not to fall for anyone telling you that your works, your perseverance, your obedience is going to have anything to do with the final justification.

Your initial justification is the same as your final. And then you can freely serve God, love him, love neighbors, and things like that without.

Having this Damocles sword. Last word, Steve? Oh, really? But what about the P? Preservation or perseverance? Sorry. Perseverance of the saints. Don't they have to persevere,.

Mr. Big Shot Calvinist? Well, certainly, when God saves you, you have Christ for pardon and Christ for power, and you will endure to the end, and that will be perseverance. But it'll be, you better be thinking there's another P behind that, and that's preservation by God.

Amen. But you're, you will persevere, but your perseverance isn't what's going to get you in, because what got you in was Christ's perseverance.

He did it all. He did it all.

And it's simple. Let's just not confuse people, Steve. Let's say that fruits and obedience are simply evidence of saving faith, not the ground for saving faith. Amen. All right. See you next time. Anybody has any complaints?

It's Tuesday, guy. At NoCompromiseRadio .com.