Faith Alone Series

Scripture

During this fall, we are focusing our attention on the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation began when an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. His propositions sparked a debate that eventually gave us five key Reformation doctrines, and are usually referred to by their Latin names: sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), and soli deo Gloria (glory to God alone). Today, I would like to examine faith alone.

Let’s read Romans 3:21-26, although my text is Romans 3:24-26:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:24-26)

Introduction

In Romans 3:21-26 the Apostle Paul deals with the subject of justification. In these six tightly packed verses are “the centre and heart” of the whole letter, according to New Testament scholar C. E. B. Cranfield. Another New Testament scholar, Leon Morris asserts that this may be “possibly the most important single paragraph ever written.” That is quite a statement, isn’t it?

The Bible uses a number of different words to describe how God saves sinners.

For example, the word propitiation, which is very important for our understanding of salvation, is used only 4 times in the entire New Testament. (One of those references is in Romans 3:25).

The word reconciliation is also used only 4 times in the New Testament.

The word redemption is used 9 times in the New Testament, although it used more frequently in the Old Testament (17 times).

The Greek word for justification and righteousness come from the same Greek root—dike. Remarkably, these two words are used hundreds of times in the Bible. Therefore, the frequency of the words indicates that justification is the central idea in salvation.

Preachers throughout history have come to the same conclusion. For example, John Calvin, the father of our Presbyterian and Reformed churches, called justification “the main hinge on which salvation turns.”

Thomas Cranmer, the architect of the Church of England, believed that justification is “the strong rock and foundation of the Christian religion.” He declared that “whoever denies [this doctrine] is not to be counted for a true Christian man…but for an adversary of Christ.”

Thomas Watson, one of the great Puritan Divines, said, “Justification is the very hinge and pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in a foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine cast into this spring is damnable.”

And finally, the great German Reformer, Martin Luther, wrote, “When the article of justification has fallen, everything has fallen…. This is the chief article from which all other doctrines have flowed…. It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church of God; and without it the church of God cannot exist for one hour…. Justification is the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines.”

As James Montgomery Boice says in his commentary, from which I am drawing much of today’s material, “these statements are not exaggerations. They present simple truth, because justification is indeed God’s answer to the most important of all human questions: How can a man or a woman become right with God? We are not right with God in ourselves. We are under God’s wrath. Justification if vital, because we must become right with God or perish eternally.”

But what is justification? The word justification comes from the law courts and describes the act of a judge in acquitting an accused person. As Leon Morris says, “Justification…is a legal term indicating the process of declaring a person righteous.”

It is important to note that justification does not mean that a person is actually righteous. It simply means that a person is declared to be right as far as the law is concerned. The person who is justified may have broken the law but the law has been satisfied, and so the person is declared to be right with respect to the law.