So, let's open up to Romans once again,
the third chapter.
And as I mentioned previously, I wanted to
come back to the verses that we looked
at last week and I wanted to highlight
really a few of the key words in
these verses here.
And I'm going to read once again from
verse 24 tonight of chapter 3 and I'll
read through verse 26.
So, Paul says, they're being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a
propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate
his righteousness, because in his forbearance, God had
passed over the sins that were previously committed
to demonstrate at the present time, his righteousness,
that he might be just and the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus.
So, perhaps you remember in our last study,
we saw that in these verses, Paul begins
to expound the doctrine of salvation by grace
through faith.
It's here also that he begins to explain
the doctrine of justification.
And this is such an important word.
We're going to look in depth at this
word tonight.
Justification refers to our standing before God in
the legal sense of God being the judge
who either justifies or condemns us.
So, that's ultimately what we want to focus
on tonight.
But we'll come back to that first.
I want to look at two other key
words in these verses, and they are the
words of propitiation and redemption.
And sometimes it's important when we're studying the
scriptures, and especially when you get to a
somewhat of a technical book like Romans, a
very doctrinally oriented book, sometimes you have to
stop and really analyze some of these words
to really get an understanding of the significance
of the words that are being used.
So, this word propitiation, we talked about it
a bit previously, but I want to go
into a little bit more detail.
The Greek word is elastirion.
Now, the word propitiation is a troubling word
for some theologians.
Some are embarrassed and even shocked by this
word, because to propitiate somebody means to placate
his or her anger.
And it seems to them an unworthy concept
of God to suppose that he gets angry
and needs to be appeased.
So, as a result of this, some have
suggested that the Greek word should not be
translated propitiation, that it should be translated perhaps
mercy seat, or perhaps it should be translated
expiation.
Now, obviously these, you know, propitiation, expiation are
kind of technical terms that we'll explain in
a moment.
Mercy seat is a word that at least
we're somewhat familiar with.
Now, why would they suggest to translate the
word mercy seat, this Greek word elastirion?
Because in the Septuagint, which is the Greek
version of the Old Testament, that word is
primarily translated mercy seat.
Every time you find mercy seat in that
translation, it's this particular word that is being
translated.
So, some suggest that, well, we ought to
just follow suit with the Septuagint, and we
ought to translate the word as mercy seat.
Plus, this word only occurs one other time
in the New Testament, and it is translated
that particular time as mercy seat.
Now, just to refresh your memory, the mercy
seat, of course, refers to the lid that
covered the Ark of the Covenant, and since
the sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the mercy
seat on the Day of Atonement, it is
suggested that Jesus is himself now the mercy
seat where God and sinners are reconciled.
Now, there's some truth to that.
That's not, you know, it's not by any
means a heretical idea.
There's some truth to what's being said there,
but it doesn't really fit the context of
what Paul is saying here.
That's the problem with it.
Now, you might wonder, well, what's the big
problem anyway?
Why are people bothered by the use of
the word propitiation?
And I've already indicated, they're bothered by it
because they don't like the idea, really, ultimately,
they don't like the idea of God's wrath
burning so hot against sin that he has
to be placated.
That's not a good picture in the mind
of those that have been sort of affected
by humanistic kind of thinking.
But, you know, you read the Scripture, and
that's definitely what the Bible teaches.
God is angry when it comes to sin,
and he will pour out his wrath upon
unrepentant sinners.
But there's another word that they suggest, and
that's the word expiation.
And some translations even have put the word
expiation in instead of propitiation.
Expiation means to annul guilt or to remove
defilement.
So again, you see what they're doing is
they're trying to lessen the idea of God's
wrath against sin.
So let's say that we're talking here about
the annulling of guilt or the removal of
defilement.
So as he says here, whom God set
forth as a, some would suggest, an expiation
by his blood.
It's just the idea of removing the guilt
of sin, not the idea of appeasing the
wrath of God.
Now, the main reason these options are not
satisfactory, and a reference to propitiation seems necessary,
is the context.
And this is so important.
People make a mistake a lot of times
of building a case around a word.
And, you know, sometimes maybe you've even heard
sometimes a person will say, oh, well, you
know, the Greek word says this.
Well, okay, that's fine.
But what is the context of the word?
Because you can't just take a word and
build necessarily a theological case on a word.
You have to consider the word in its
context.
You have to consider how it is used.
And so in these verses, Paul is describing
God's solution to the human predicament, which is
not only sin.
The human predicament is not merely sin, but
it's also God's wrath upon sin.
So the word propitiation in the context fits
better than either the word mercy seat or
the word expiation.
Now, not only is there the problem in
the mind of some of these theologians that,
you know, this whole idea of needing to
appease the wrath of God and God's wrath
burning hot against sin, that's not the only
problem.
The other problem is they see that as
a pagan rather than a Christian idea, because
this word was used in reference to appeasing
the pagan gods.
And so that's another reason why they sort
of want to run away from the word
propitiation.
But the Christian doctrine of propitiation is totally
different from the pagan superstitions.
There really can be no comparison.
Even though the same word is used, we're
talking about two completely different things.
It differs in its need, author, and nature.
So let's look at those three things.
Its need, the need for propitiation, who is
being propitiated, and the nature of propitiation.
So let me quote to you from John
Stott.
First, regarding the need, he said, why is
propitiation necessary?
The pagan answer is because the gods are
bad-tempered, subject to moods and fits, and
capricious.
The Christian answer is because God's holy wrath
rests on evil.
There is nothing unprincipled, unpredictable, or uncontrolled about
God's anger.
It is aroused by evil alone.
So God is not like one of the
pagan ideas of God, who just gets irritated
about any little thing, and you constantly have
to be appeasing the gods.
That's the idea in paganism.
And of course, the pagans had gods for
all of the different natural phenomena that would
go on.
So there was the god of the wind,
and the god of the storms, and the
god of fire, and all of these things.
And when anything would happen, any sort of
natural disaster type of a thing would happen,
they would attribute that to the anger of
the gods, or to the gods being offended,
and then they would need to come with
some sort of propitiation.
But that's not the biblical picture.
God isn't like that.
He's not just getting upset about anything and
everything.
There's one thing, and one thing alone, that
brings about God's wrath, and that is evil.
So, the need.
Secondly, the author.
Who undertakes to do the propitiating?
The pagan answer is that we do.
So, in paganism, the individual person is the
one who has to do the propitiating.
So, we have offended the gods, so we
must appease them.
The Christian answer, by contrast, is that we
cannot placate the righteous anger of God.
We have no means whatever by which to
do so.
But God, in his undeserved love, has done
for us what we could never do by
ourselves.
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement.
The love, the idea, the purpose, the initiative,
the action, and the gift were all God's.
So, you see, it's this whole thing of
propitiation.
In the end, God is the one who
is doing the propitiation.
He's propitiating himself.
That's what he did through Christ.
So, it's not us bringing something to God
going, oh, please, oh, have mercy on me.
Oh, don't strike me with that lightning bolt,
dear God.
Here, I'm offering, you know, this thing.
Oh, please have mercy.
That's not what we're doing.
God is the one who has provided the
sacrifice.
So, thirdly, Stott says the nature.
How has the propitiation been accomplished?
What is the propitiatory sacrifice?
The pagan answer is that we have to
bribe the gods with sweets, vegetable offerings, animals,
and even human sacrifices.
Now, I don't know if you realize this
or not, this stuff still happens today.
There are parts of the world today where
this is happening, where this is how people
are thinking that they are freeing themselves from
their, you know, guilt or their sin or
however they look at it.
Paganism is alive and well on the planet
today.
And there are entire cultures that believe in
a multiplicity of gods, and they have the
idea that these gods need to be propitiated.
And so, you can go into certain countries
today, and you can find that people are
offering sweets, vegetables, animals, and in some extreme
cases, you can still find today that human
sacrifices are taking place.
It's obviously much more rare than it was
at one time, but it still happens.
The Old Testament sacrificial system was entirely different
since it was recognized that God himself had
given the sacrifices to his people to make
atonement.
And this is clear beyond doubt in the
Christian propitiation.
For God gave his own son to die
in our place, and in giving his son,
he gave himself.
So, for the person who's afraid to use
the word propitiation because they don't want that
association with paganism, they don't have to worry
about any association.
There is no association.
The propitiation in the Bible is entirely different
than propitiation was among the pagans.
That's the point.
Now, moving on to the second word.
The second word is the word redemption.
And we'll just talk about this just for
a quick second.
Redemption is, the word is actually borrowed from
the marketplace.
It's a commercial word.
In the Old Testament, it was used of
slaves who were purchased in order to be
set free.
They were said to be redeemed.
That was the way they were referred to.
It was also used metaphorically of the people
of Israel who were redeemed from captivity in
Egypt and Babylon.
And then, of course, what the New Testament
teaches about redemption is that Jesus bought us
out of captivity to sin in the devil,
shedding his blood as the ransom price.
So, this is the meaning of the word
redemption.
It means to purchase.
And the idea is to purchase with the
objective of liberating someone from captivity.
And these words will come up again as
we continue to study, especially looking at the
grace of God.
But the main word that we want to
focus on tonight is the word justification.
So, that was all just a preliminary to
where we're really going to camp out here
for a few minutes.
The word justification.
This is such a great word in the
biblical context.
And when you understand justification, this is where
radical liberty begins to really occur.
Liberty in the sense of relief from the
bondage of thinking that I might not ultimately
get to heaven because I'm just not as
good as I know I should be.
Until a person understands justification, they will go
under that kind of oppression and bondage.
It's inevitable because we all, at times, sense
our failure, right?
We all sometimes looking at ourselves realize, you
know, I'm not good enough.
I don't think I'm ever going to make
it.
But when we understand justification, this is the
most liberating thing in the world.
This is what happened in what we call
the Reformation.
There was a rediscovery of this wonderful doctrine
of justification by faith, and this turned the
world upside down.
It brought real biblical Christianity back into the
forefront after it had been buried for literally
centuries under tradition and all kinds of false
views.
So justification is a legal or forensic term
belonging to the law court.
So you see, Paul is taking these things
from everyday life, and he's teaching through the
things that people would know.
They would know about redemption from the marketplace.
They would know about justification from the legal
process.
And it's important for us that we understand
these things too.
You know, we can get up here and
throw around words like redemption and justification and
propitiation and reconciliation and all of that.
Those are great words, but you wonder, well,
what do they mean?
So it's very important that we know what
they mean because when we know what they
mean, then we can embrace that reality for
ourselves and have the God-intended impact of
these things on our lives.
So justification, let me tell you what it's
not.
Justification is not simply pardon or forgiveness.
It's not just pardon or forgiveness.
Now, of course, we're forgiven.
Our sins are forgiven.
We've been pardoned.
But justification is more than that.
Pardon is negative, the remission of a penalty
or a debt.
Justification is positive, the bestowal of a righteous
status, the sinner's reinstatement into favor and fellowship
with God.
So you see, when God justifies a man,
he's not merely pardoning him.
He's not merely saying, I forgive you.
Go your way.
You're forgiven.
Go.
All right.
You're fine.
Just go.
He's not doing that.
When he's justifying us, he's not only forgiving
us, but then he's inviting us to come
and to enjoy his love and to participate
in his blessing.
So that's what's happening with justification.
Now, the source of our justification is God
and his grace.
We are not the source of our justification.
In other words, we don't justify ourselves.
It's clear that salvation is it's God's gift
to us, isn't it?
So he's the source of this.
It originates with God.
And at the end of the day, we
have to understand that salvation is because God
decided that there would be salvation.
And there was nothing that influenced God to
save man.
There was nothing that influenced him.
This was born out of his own heart
of love and compassion.
It wasn't that he looked and saw that,
well, you know, if I offer salvation, some
people will accept it.
So I will offer it.
He didn't do that.
God's plan to save originated in himself alone.
Now, let's remember, God didn't have to save
anybody.
God was perfectly fine before he created the
material universe.
He was perfectly happy and complete and total
before men or angels ever came into existence.
God lives in an eternal, perfected, harmonious, communal
state as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
So in other words, it's not like God
needed a universe.
It's not like he needed angels because he
was lonely or needed men because he didn't
have anything to do and, you know, wanted
a project.
So since he didn't need anything, when men
sinned and rebelled against him, he could have
easily just wiped the whole thing out and
said, okay, that was that.
And that's the end of that.
And I'll just go back to being perfectly
me.
So he didn't have to save anybody, but
he chose to.
He chose to save.
And of course, the radical thing is how
he would save and what it would entail
and what it would cost him to save.
That's when it gets really, really radical.
So the source of our justification is God
and his grace.
It's not in us.
And let me say this just for clarification.
It wasn't even in Christ as the source
in the sense that he did something that
the Father was reluctant or unwilling to do.
Now, there's not a whole lot of this
thinking today, but you still find it occasionally
in different places.
There was a time back, you know, in
the previous century in theological circles, the idea
was that Jesus loved us and he sort
of had to talk the Father into this
whole thing of redemption.
And, you know, so the Father sort of
went along just for the sake of Jesus
because he loves Jesus.
And there were those who tried to suggest
that there was a sharp distinction between the
Old Testament God and the God of the
New Testament.
And they would say blasphemous things about the
God of the Old Testament.
They'd say, oh, the God of the Old
Testament is a bloodthirsty tribal God.
And they would actually blame Paul the apostle
for importing that into the New Testament.
But they would say, but Jesus, you know,
they try to make a distinction between Paul
and Jesus as well.
Some people still do this today.
Some radical theologians today still, they say that,
you know, Pauline Christianity is not real Christianity.
Just Jesus is the source of real Christianity.
Forget Paul, forget everything he taught.
He corrupted Christianity.
So we got to get back to Jesus.
And what does that mean?
Well, let's just get back to loving your
neighbor.
Let's just get back to turning the other
cheek.
And those are the things Jesus said.
They conveniently omit a lot of other things
Jesus said.
But so that was the mentality though, that
the God of the Old Testament was, he
was the angry God.
He was the wrathful God.
He was the one that was going to
punish sin, but not Jesus.
So out of that came the idea that,
well, Jesus sort of, you know, talked God
the Father into saving mankind.
Not so.
For God the Father, is the reference there,
so loved the world that he gave his
only begotten Son.
This originated with the Father.
And of course, the Son and the Spirit
in agreement, but God the Father didn't need
to be talked into saving the world.
This whole plan originated with him.
So he is the source of our justification.
The ground of our justification is Christ and
his cross.
Now we talked about this previously, but let
me bring it up again because it's important.
This question, how does God remain just and
still justify the sinner?
That is the dilemma.
How does he do that?
Well, we understand through the passage here, Christ
dies for sinners and pays the penalty so
they can be freely justified.
So you see the ground of our justification
is Christ and his cross.
As we pointed out, God doesn't just simply
wink at sin.
He doesn't just close his eyes to sin.
He doesn't just say, oh, okay, look, I
know you just keep blowing.
It's okay.
We won't tell anybody.
Let's just try again.
Again, of course, as human beings, we do
that.
As I pointed out last time, we do
that because we're sinners.
We have no concept of absolute justice.
We have an idea to some extent of
what justice is, of course.
And we know what an injustice is.
We know when something's unfair or somebody's being
cheated, and that's all because we were created
in God's image.
And we have that sense.
But just in the pure, absolute sense as
God is, that's something because of our own
sinful condition, it's something that we can never
really comprehend even.
But this is what requires the payment for
sin.
So there has to be a ground for
a justification, and that is Christ and his
cross.
But then thirdly, the means of our justification
is faith, and this is the real key.
This is what, as I said, this is
what was rediscovered at the time of the
Reformation.
Now, it wasn't like there wasn't anybody on
the planet who didn't know this, but quite
honestly, the numbers were few and far between
because the pure gospel, which is, this is
it, we're reading it right straight from the
biblical text.
This, as I said, was lost for generations.
But once in a while, an individual here
or there would rise up and they would
get an understanding.
But because there was such power in the
existing church at the time, the church had
become this great political force in the world.
If you oppose the church's teaching, you were
just simply crushed under its heel.
So, you know, it was very difficult for
things to change.
They might change on a very small scale,
but any serious development of going back to
a pure biblical view of Christianity would immediately
be dealt with by the ecclesiastical powers of
the day.
But at this point in time, this point
in history, God sees fit to just sort
of blow the lid off of this whole
thing and to bring the true gospel back
out into the open.
And like I've already hinted at, he used
primarily Martin Luther to do that.
Now, Martin Luther, sometimes I'm a little bit
hesitant to talk too much about him because,
you know, he had some weird ideas and
problems.
But, you know, if you look real closely
at him, he's, you know, he's, well, what
was he?
He was a man, just like all other
men.
We have a tendency sometimes to idolize people
that God uses and to think more highly
of them than we actually ought to think
because, you know, we get some idea that
they're extra holy or they're, you know, there's
something extraordinary or unique about them, unlike other
Christians.
But the fact of the matter is, when
you get close to anybody, you find that
they're human beings.
They've got sins.
So if you understand that about Luther, then
it's okay.
But people have taken and, you know, put
him on a pedestal like they've done to
other people historically.
But all of that to say, regardless of
his foibles in a lot of different areas,
this is the one thing that he absolutely
got right.
And this is the most important thing because
this is the essence of the gospel.
And the conflict that existed back then that
really came out in Luther's contention with the
Roman Catholic Church, of which he was part,
he was a doctor, theological doctor of the
church, that issue still exists to this very
day.
Some people say, oh, well, you know, looking
back with hindsight, there never needed to be
a reformation, really.
You know, they got all worked up over,
you know, things that they shouldn't have gotten
that worked up over.
And to some extent, that's true.
I mean, they killed each other over some
of these things, so they never should have
done that, obviously.
But what people fail to see who look
back and with that attitude that, well, you
know, we really didn't even need a reformation,
they fail to see what the real issue
is here.
The real issue is between the true gospel
and no gospel at all.
I hate to say this, and I know
it'll offend some people, but Roman Catholicism to
this day still does not have the true
gospel.
They never recovered it.
They lost it, and it stayed lost.
And when one of their own found it
and stood up and said, hey, look what
I found, they said, shut up.
We'll kill you.
You know, they tried to destroy him.
And he was the only one that that
happened to.
But to this very day, now, I'm not
saying that there aren't Roman Catholics who are
genuinely Christians, there are.
But as I say, they're Christians despite their
system, not because of it.
Nobody is a Christian because of Roman Catholicism.
You have got to disagree with their theological
position, technically, to get saved.
Because to this day, they do not believe
that justification is by faith alone.
They believe that justification is by faith and
works.
If Paul's going to teach us anything in
this portion of Scripture, he's going to teach
us that justification is by faith, period.
And let me just again summarize justification.
Justification is the declaration by God that you
are righteous.
See, this is where the Catholics had a
real problem, the Catholic doctors, the theologians, the
leadership.
They didn't like the idea of this declaration
of righteousness.
And they insisted that, no, God doesn't just
declare you righteous.
He infuses you with righteous.
He makes you a righteous person.
But anybody who knows anything knows that that
isn't true, right?
Because the best Christian still isn't a righteous
person in the total sense, in the perfect
sense.
They still have sin.
So they could not get this, and they
still can't get it to this very day,
sadly.
Justification is a declaration of righteousness.
God says as a judge, you are righteous.
You are justified.
God declares us to be righteous, not because
we are, but because Christ is.
And that righteousness of Christ, God puts on
our account.
That's how he is able to declare us
righteous.
But I must say, even though they erred
in the idea of an infused righteousness, we
need to be careful as well, not to
think that you can just have a declaration
of righteousness, but never actually have that work
itself out into your life practically.
And this is where, again, they have this
mental block, it almost seems like.
We're not infused with righteousness the moment we're
justified.
We're declared righteous, but there is something else
that happens to us simultaneous to justification, and
that's called regeneration.
And we are, at that moment, born of
the Spirit of God.
And in a little bit of a sense,
there is a righteousness infused into us because
the life of God is implanted in us.
But, of course, we're not righteous in the
perfect sense.
And we're going to grow, and we're going
to learn, and we're going to stumble along
the way, and we're going to, you know,
make mistakes.
But thank God, we're already declared righteous, so
the stumbling, and the falling, and the mistakes,
and the sins, they don't cast us back
out into darkness.
They don't cast us back out of fellowship
with God.
Those are the things that God, by His
grace, He forgives us as we repent, and
then He just keeps moving us forward.
But our position of righteousness remains intact always.
I'm not more righteous on the days that
I do better than I am on the
days that I don't do too well.
And listen to this, you will never, in
one sense, be any more righteous than the
day you believed in Christ, in the sense
of justification, in the sense of your position.
As God sees you, He sees you in
Christ, He sees you absolutely perfect.
How could you ever improve on that?
You can't.
And when did He see you that way?
The moment you put your faith in Christ.
So we talked about this before, but this
is where it's so important to to make
the distinction between our position, we have this
position in Christ, but then we have the
practical reality that is working itself out.
But there's a word for that too, and
we'll get to that later as we go
further into Romans, that's the word sanctification.
And this is, to kind of put it
in a nutshell, the Catholic problem is they
confuse justification with sanctification.
They can't make the distinction between those two
things.
And if you fail to make the distinction
between justification and sanctification, you'll never have security
of salvation.
You'll never have confidence that you're going to
heaven, because you're always going to have in
your mind the idea that you're somehow earning
your way to heaven.
And when you do good, you're going to
feel like, okay, maybe I could die this
week because I think I'd get there.
But if you're having a bad week, you're
like, Lord, please don't let me get killed
this week, because I don't think I'll I'll
probably end up in hell.
People live like that.
No need.
Because these are two separate things.
Justification is instantaneous.
Sanctification is a lifelong process.
But it's connected back to regeneration, because when
God puts His Spirit in us and He
starts conforming us through this process into the
image of Christ.
So the means of our justification is faith.
Having been justified by faith, Paul will say
in the fifth chapter of the first verse,
having been justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That's where he kind of gets to the
end of his case on justification.
We'll get there.
But know this, faith is not meritorious.
It is not a work.
Now, some people have taken even faith and
tried to sort of say that it's a
work.
It's just another form of a work.
It's not.
The Bible contrasts faith with works.
It never confuses the two.
Faith is faith.
Works are works.
Now, faith, true biblical faith, works itself out.
And we'll see that as we go on.
But so this is it.
The means of our justification is faith.
And let me close with this one.
One other quote from John Stott.
This is a tremendous sort of just summing
up all that we've said about these things
tonight.
He said, there's no other system, ideology, or
religion proclaims a free forgiveness and a new
life to those who have done nothing to
deserve it, but a lot to deserve judgment
instead.
On the contrary, all other systems teach some
form of self-salvation through good works of
religion.
Righteousness or philanthropy, Christianity by contrast, is not
in its essence a religion at all.
It is a gospel.
The gospel, good news, listen, that God's grace
has turned away his wrath, that God's son
has died our death and born our judgment,
that God has mercy on the deserving, and
that there is nothing left for us to
do or even contribute.
Faith's only function is to receive what grace
offers.
That is so beautiful.
That's faith's only function.
It's just to receive what grace offers.
I was talking today, I'll close with this,
I was talking today to a man that
I know, and I know his daughter very
well, and we were talking about her conversion,
and then he began to tell me his
story because he got saved through her, when
she came to the Lord, she influenced her
family, and they finally received Christ after a
couple of years.
This is back in 1972, but he said,
you know, his daughter left home on the
east coast and came out to the west
coast, and at a certain point she called
home and said, I found Jesus, and his
response was, well, he's right here in Baltimore.
Why did you have to, you know, go
to Oregon to find him?
You know, he's a Catholic, and that was,
you know, that was fine.
Jesus was right there, and so he goes
on, and he tells me the story.
He says, you know, we watched, and we
saw a transformation in her life, and she,
you know, she would say things to us,
and she would pray, and that impacted us,
and he said, you know, a couple years
later, he said, one night my wife and
I were sitting there in front of the
TV, and he said it was about midnight,
and there were, it was a talk show
kind of a thing.
He said there were five men, evidently evangelical
Christians, that were talking, and he said, one
of the guys said this, said, you know,
the problem with the Catholics is they're trying
to work their way to heaven, and he
said that statement just pierced his heart, and
he realized that's true.
That's what I'm doing.
I'm trying to work my way to heaven,
and I'm not doing a very good job.
I'm not, I'm not feeling all that good
about making it, and he said right then,
my wife and I got on our knees
in front of the TV, and we prayed
to receive Christ, and that was 1972, and
you know, today he's older, and he's, but
he's serving the Lord, but I just thought,
you know, wow, amazing, but you see, it's
that, it's that radical distinction, and I love
what Stott says here.
He, and, and, you know, we say it
often, in its essence, it's, it's not a
religion at all, because a religion isn't good
news.
There's no good news in religion, because religion
says you got to do this, this, that,
and the other thing, and maybe if you
do it well enough, you can spend a
couple millennium in purgatory, and then you might
eventually get out of there, if you got
people praying for you.
That's what religion says.
It never gives you any assurance, confidence, but
the, this is good news, and the good
news is basically that God's done it all
through Christ, and our only function is to
receive what grace offers.
Lord, I receive that salvation, and when we
let go of trying to make ourselves righteous,
and we just say, Lord, I receive your
righteousness, that's when all of the, that's all
the difference in the world.
That's the difference between life and death.
It's a difference between heaven and hell.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for this great and
glorious gospel, and this wonderful doctrine of justification,
and Lord, that you have declared us righteous.
You, the judge of the universe, you have
acquitted us, but not simply a pardon, but
Lord, you've invited us, brought us in to
be members of your family, made us your
sons and daughters through regeneration, and Lord, you've
done it all by your grace, and our
only part is just to receive what grace
offers.
How we thank you for that.
Lord, if there's a single person in this
room or a single person listening through any
sort of media that is yet to experience
that assurance that comes through being justified, Lord,
may they know tonight salvation.
May they know that they possess it.
May they know that you have declared them
righteous as they would simply put their trust
in Christ.
In his name we pray.
Amen.