THEOLOGICAL ISSUES - HOW ARE JUSTIFIED? BY FAITH OR BY WORKS?

 THEOLOGICAL ISSUES #7

Statement: God counts a person as righteous, not because of one’s works, but only because of one’s faith in Jesus Christ.

Only 34% of respondents strongly agreed with this statement. 44% either disagreed or were unsure. 

This is the doctrine of justification. We know this because of the language “God counts a person as righteous”. That language comes from Genesis 15:6, which says “And he (Abraham) believed the LORD (Yahweh) and he counted it as righteousness”. 

Introduction - What Is Justification

Justification is a principal benefit of our salvation. In justification, God declares sinners to be righteous in his sight. When God saves, he forgives the sins of his people and imputes Christ’s righteousness to them. He puts it on their accounts before him because of Jesus’ sinless life, atoning death, and resurrection. 

Justification was central to the Protestant Reformers as they refuted the theology of Roman Catholicism. It is also central to the theology of Paul. He discusses it primarily in Romans and Galatians. 

The Need for Justification

We all need justification because of sin. First, we have the sin we inherited from Adam and the sins we have committed. Romans 5:12 says “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…”. 

Again, in Romans 3:23, Paul writes “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. And in Romans 6:23, he says “…the wages of sin is death…”. 

When the day of judgment comes, all human beings will stand before the throne to be judged. No one will be able to stand before God on his or her own merit. The Psalmist wrote “there is none who does good”. (Psalm 14:1) Again, he stated “They have all tuned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:3) 

Paul quotes the verses in Romans 3 to make this point. 

Jesus describes the human condition bluntly when he writes “whoever does not believe is condemned already”. (John 3:18) No one has been able to meet God’s standards. “By works of the law no human being will be justified” (Rom. 3:20) This is the picture of a courtroom in a criminal case. And non-believers will hear the Lord, as judge, pronounce them guilty and sentence to death. 

The Nature of Justification

In contrast to non-believers, God will recognize believers as not guilty. On judgment day, believers will be vindicated before men and angels because God has declared them righteous. 

God justifies, declares righteous, the sinner when he or she comes to Christ in faith.  Being declared righteous, we are no longer subject to condemnation. Romans 8:33–34 says “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” 

God does this because, when we are united with Christ, God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us. He credits it to our account. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might come the righteousness of God.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:21)

The Old Testament example that Paul argues from is Abraham. He wrote: “Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well. (Romans 4:11-12)

We used to sing a children’s song called Father Abraham. It has only one stanza sung repeatedly:

Father Abraham had many sons

Many sons had Father Abraham

I am one of them and so are you

So let's just praise the Lord!

That song was meant to teach the truths of Romans 4:11-12. 

Why do we need justification, to be justified? 

We need more than forgiveness for breaking God’s law in the past. We also need to have perfectly obeyed God’s law. It’s one thing to have our guilt removed, but we also need to be credited with perfect righteousness. Perfect righteousness comes from perfect, complete, obedience. 

Only Jesus has been perfectly obedient. (Hebrews 4:15) So, we need, and receive, God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. Romans 5:19 says “For as by one man’s (Adam’s) disobedience many were made sinners, so by the one man’s (Christ) obedience the many will be made righteous. 

Christ’s obedience was both active and passive.  

Jesus’ active obedience is His perfect obedience to God’s law and commands. Jesus was sinless. Although he was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) Jesus lived on earth in perfect obedience to the Father. 

Jesus’ passive obedience is His paying the penalty for our failure to obey God’s law. Philippians 2:8 says “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

God’s law makes demands of us and if we fail to meet those demands, then the law prescribes a penalty in keeping with the severity of those offenses, which is death. (Romans 6:23) 

That is what God told Adam. He said “You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day the you eat of it you shall surely die”. (Genesis 2:16)

It’s that double demand of God’s law that makes Christ’s active and passive obedience necessary. He both fulfills the law’s demands and pays its penalty. He perfectly obeyed His Father’s law as our previous representative, Adam, failed to do, and as our new representative, the last Adam, He suffered the penalty prescribed by God’s law for our disobedience. “he was wounded for our transgressions and he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:8) 

The Means of Justification: Faith Alone (Sola Fide)

God justifies those who have faith in Jesus, who believe the gospel. Romans 4:23 says “But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his (Abraham’s) alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification’”. 

“The righteous shall I’ve by faith”. (Romans 1:17)

Galatians 2:15-16 says:

“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified”. 

The Blessings Of Justification

Forgiveness - Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity…” (Psalm 32:1-2)

Peace with God - “Therefore, since we have b been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:1)

“ When I see Christ on the cross, Christ in the tomb, Christ risen from the dead, Christ at the right hand of God, I understand that he took away my sin. He died; he was buried; he came forth from the grave, having destroyed my sin, and put it away; and he has gone into the heavens as my Representative, to take possession of the right hand of God for me, that I in him and with him may sit there for ever and ever. To me, Christ’s sacrifice is a business transaction as clear and straight as mathematics could make it. I care not that men decry what they call ‘the mercantile theory of the atonement.’ I hold no ‘theory’ of the atonement; I believe that the substitution of Christ for his people is the atonement for their sins; and that there is no other atonement, but that all else is theory.”

C. H. Spurgeon 

THEOLOGICAL ISSUES #6 - IS GOD UNCHANGING?

 Statement: God is unchanging.

52% of evangelicals strongly agreed with this statement. That means 48% did not strongly agree.

What does the Bible say?

Remember that we look to the Bible as our authority and our instructor as 2 Timothy 3:16 says: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”.

The Bible is clear in both the old and new testaments that God does not change. 

“For I the Lord do not change…”(Mal. 3:6;) 

The context of that verse is God calling Israel to repentance because they were not obeying God’s law. He said they had not been consumed because he does not change. He would return to them if they would return to him. So, his not changing was a good thing for them. 

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James1:17)

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

God is eternal and eternally unchanging. The God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament. He has the same attributes.

God’s very name implies his unchanging nature. When God, at the burning bush, commissioned Moses to bring Israel out of Egypt, Moses asked for God’s name. God said “I AM WHO I AM” and he told Moses to tell Israel “I AM has sent me to you”. (Exodus 3:14) God said he is who he is and will be, not changing. 

In Isaiah, God repeatedly affirms to Israel that “I am he”, meaning he is the one who is and will always be the same, unchanged. For example, in Isaiah 41:4, he says “Who has performed an done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first and with the last; I am he”. 

In 43:10, he says “…that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he”. In 46:4, he says “even to your old age I am he…”, a comfort for us as we age. In 48:12, he declares “…I am he; I am the first, and I am the last”. 

The Westminster Shorter Catechism captures this doctrine, saying: 

“God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” 

(Westminster Shorter Catechism 4)

This is the theological doctrine of Divine immutability.  It flows from the doctrine of Aseity. Aseity means God is independent of everything outside of himself; he is sufficient in himself. He needs nothing, he depends on no one. It is we who depend on him, not he who depends on us.

It also means he has the fullness of being, containing all perfections. He is perfect. (Matthew 5:48) There is nothing lacking in him. Thus, there would be no need for God to change.

Therefore, there can be no change in God because any change in God would imply a change for the worse, which would make him less than what he is, less than perfect. He cannot change for the better because there is no better than perfect.

Augustine said “If God were not immutable, he would not be God”. (Augustine, “On Grace and Free Will”)

There are philosophies and theologies that attempt to contradict this doctrine, however. 

A philosophy that developed a theology that wrongly contradicts this is process theology. It holds that God learns and changes as he adapts to what he has learned. It denies God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and immutability. This idea is in opposition to the teaching of the Bible and classic Christianity. 

God knows all things (omniscience), so he has no need to learn. (1 John 3:20) He also has no need to adapt to changing circumstances because his will was established before the creation of the world. (Ephesians 1:8) He is omnipresent (present at all times, not bound by space or time). His plans are eternal and unchanging. (Isaiah 46:10; Psalm 33:11) He is the eternal and sovereign king of the universe. 

If God learns, his knowledge is dependent. If God adapts to different circumstances, his being is dependent on those circumstances. Ultimately, to say that God learns and that God adapts to different circumstances is to say that God is a dependent being, and a God who is dependent isn’t God.

Open theism holds that God's knowledge of the future is not exhaustive, because the future is not yet fixed. It is not fixed because the free will of humans may change it. It denies God’s omniscience. It requires that God be ignorant of some things in the future. 

If this were true, God could not say, as he does:

 “I am God…declaring the end from the  beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying ‘My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose…I have spoken and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed and I will do it”. (Isaiah 46:10-11)

God said he knows what will happen all the way to the end. This is omniscience. He knows it because he wills it in his sovereignty. 

Here is an example. In Genesis 3:15, God tells the serpent: 

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heal”. 

We know that God was speaking of the coming of Jesus Christ who would conquer Satan, the serpent. Clearly, God knew what would happen because he ordained it to happen around 4,000 years before it happened. 

Open Theism also denies God’s immutability, holding that God’s knowledge grows in response to what humans do and he changes as he grows. This also denies God’s sovereignty. 

I call this “Dune Theology”. The Dune Trilogy written by Frank Herbert features a messiah like character who sees many possible futures and narrows the field as time goes on until he has a good idea of what will actually happen. That is not how God is. 

As the Puritan Stephen Charnock states: 

“He who hath not being from another, cannot but be always what he

is: God is the first Being, an independent Being; he was not

produced of himself, or of any other, but by nature always

hath been, and, therefore, cannot by himself, or by any other,

be changed from what he is in his own nature.”

Stephen Charnock, ”The Existence and Attributes of God."

Ramifications

God’s immutability is a source of comfort and assurance to Christians 

because we can count on God to be who he says he is and to do what he says he will do. 

God’s immutability is one of the attributes that make him different, and better than, than human beings.That leads us to worship.

Since a vast majority of Evangelicals said the Bible was their authority, why did not a greater number affirm this doctrine? It means they do not know their Bibles. In some cases, it may mean they actually do not accept the Bible’s authority. Don’t be like those people. 

If we define God as other than he reveals himself, we worship an idol. 

Carnal men love the god they make, but not the God that made them.

Charles Spurgeon. 

Problems For The Rich - James 5:1-5

 A friend who has been teaching through the book of James, asked me to teach on this passage since he was out of town. Here is my lesson.

Condemnation Of The Prideful Rich Landowners

James 5:1-6

James condemns those who have taken security in their material wealth and have mistreated those who work for them. In this case, they are wealthy land owners. They owned the fields. That made them wealthy and powerful. 

James did not condemn them simply because they were rich, but because they used their wealth sinfully. 

James addresses them on 4 issues: 

1. Their misplaced confidence in their riches. (1-3)
2. Their defrauding of their laborers - withholding wages (4)
3. Their self-indulgence (5)
4. Their persecution of the righteous (6) 

Their misplaced confidence in their riches. (1-3)

James said they should be mourning because misery is coming upon them. They are confident in themselves because they have it so good. But, although they are wealthy and live in luxury now, that will change. When the judgment comes, wealth will not save them. 

The words “weep” and “howl” (ESV) or “wail” (NIV) is the language of the fear and mourning that the lost express on the “Day of the Lord”, the day of judgment. For example, Isaiah 13:6 says: “Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come!”

James also reflects the words of Jesus on this matter when he speaks of the corrosion of their wealth. Jesus, in Matthew 6:19-24, tells us not to lay up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. 

For us today, we can lose our treasure when the stock market declines or real estate markets crash. We still have thieves who steal. One of the early men who made a fortune in bitcoin had it stolen by hackers. 

The decay of their hoarded riches are evidence against them. (3) The NIV says testify against them. The New Living Translation puts it bluntly, saying “This treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment”. James sees the judgment as a trial with God as the judge and the hoarded and ill gotten riches as evidence that convicts them of sinful behavior.

Notice that he says they accumulated riches in the last days. His thought was that Christ would return and judgment would come, making their wealth irrelevant at best and convicting at the worst. 

A judgment did occur about 20 years after James wrote this. The Roman army defeated Israel and took over the land. The wealth of the Jews disappeared completely and was replaced with sorrow, poverty, and death.

Certainly those Jews who were left in Jerusalem when the Romans destroyed the city lost all their possessions. I wonder if that rich young man who walked away from Jesus was there, losing all his possessions and losing his soul because he chose possessions over Jesus. 

But that is just a foretaste of the final judgment of God.

Defrauding Their Laborers (4)

James also condemned them for holding back wages from their workers. (4) The Old Testament law required prompt payment. Many workers needed that day’s wages to buy food for their family. If they were not paid, their family did not eat. 

Leviticus 19:13 required owners to pay laborers at the end of the day, not waiting until the next morning. Deuteronomy 24:14 required payment before sunset. 

We see this reflected in Jesus’ parables of the laborers in the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard hired workers all through the day. At the end of the day he told his foreman to call them laborers in and pay them the day’s wages. The point of the parable is something else, but it shows us this was the common practice as well as the law.

James says that these sins cry out against them and the Lord of hosts has heard them. (4)  That implies that the Lord is displeased with their actions and will judge them harshly for them. 

God is very concerned with social justice and the treatment of the poor. Justice in the Old Testament is more about how we treat the poor and oppressed than about criminal trials.

The Sabbath specifically applied to servants. (Exodus 20:10) You could not take the Sabbath off but make your servants work. You had to free a slave in the seventh year. (Exodus 21:2) So, getting rich off of a poor man’s wages was offensive to God. (I wish I had known to send this verse to my clients when I had my own business.) 

I want to pay a fair price for what I buy. I want to tip young waiters generously for serving me. I do not want to save money off of the back of poor people.  

The younger generations today are very concerned with social justice. They do not want to belong to churches or other organizations that condone injustice. My youngest daughter will not shop at a well known discount chain because they work to keep their employees from getting benefits and they pay very low wages.  

Condemnation For Self-indulgence (5)

James said the rich lived in luxury and self indulgence. In our time, it is amazing how much money is made by entertainers, actors, musicians, and athletes. Sylvester Stallone recently paid over 438 million dollars for his Florida home. It has 10 bathrooms. Taylor Swift, the singer, has several homes worth a total of over $60 million. It has 8 fireplaces. Tom Brady owns a private jet, a Gulfstream G550, which he uses for travel. He purchased the jet for around $20 million. That is a lot of self indulgence. It is very tempting when you are rich to be self indulgent. 

The problem with self indulgence is that it focuses on one’s self and turns the focus away from God and the needs of others. Living this way, they were fattening their hearts for slaughter. The image here is of fattening livestock before you kill them for food. It symbolizes adding to the sins for which they will be judged and punished. 

Condemnation For Persecuting The Righteous

James also condemned them because they mistreated innocent people and even murdered them.(6) He said they had condemned and murdered righteous people who did not resist them. In this context, he may be talking about a rich persons laborers. 

This sentence raises the question: is this literal or figurative language? Did they actually kill people? Or is this hyperbole for mistreatment? Either way, they are condemned for their behavior. 

Most of us do not consider ourselves rich (although many people in world would consider us to be). So, how does this apply to us? 

First, Christians must treat those who serve us justly and kindly. We do not take advantage of them because they are powerless or poor. 

Second, we should be generous whenever we can, especially with those who have less than we do.

Third, wealth is a gift from God. We should not hoard or get self indulgent. We should invest in the kingdom. We should constantly ask how ourselves “do we have too much”. 

Fourth, all that we do, including how we spend our money, should be done in light of Christ’s return so that he finds us living in a manner that brings honor and glory to him. 

If we have sinned in this regard, repentance is in order. Otherwise judgment is coming for the non-believer. James tells them to weep and howl at the miseries that are coming upon them. These are words of judgment like the Old Testament prophets said to Israel.  But believers might also be subject to the correction and discipline of the Lord as he seeks our sanctification.