Dear Christian friends, Romans
5, 1 to 9 provides us with a great surprise. Our usual idea is that
because of our faithfulness, God justifies us. He justifies
us because we have become worthy of justification through our
demonstration of faith and trust in Him. But this chapter says,
oh no, we are justified when and whilst we are ungodly. So that God justifies people
even before belief. Now that's a surprising thing
for many people and it's part of what we call the reformed
doctrine of justification from eternity. Now justification from
eternity, God's act in eternity decreeing and activating our
justification in Christ has become a most debated and debatable
subject. It was a subject that most of
our reformers, whether they were Anglican, Presbyterian, or Baptist,
or Congregationalist, it was a doctrine which most of those
people accepted. But in recent years, it has been
challenged mightily. And great heroes of the past
are being denounced as heretics. So we have John Gill, the great
Baptist preacher, pastor, and theologian, who is now called
an antinomian and a hyper-Calvinist, because he talked about justification
from eternity. We have the Anglican James Harvey,
who had a very similar view, but not quite as pronounced as
Gill. but we have Augustus Toplady,
who believed exactly as Gill, and we have John Brine, who believed
exactly as Gill, and we have John Ryland, who believed exactly
as Gill. And we have William Romaine,
to go back from the Baptists to the Anglicans, who believed
exactly as Gill. Now, these people are called
people who are in error by our modern reformed establishment.
And there is a great change in views about when our justification
actually took place. So that recently, Traill, Robert
Traill, the great Scotsman who wrote a vindication of the doctrine
of justification, has been republished by a certain reformed publishing
company, but the editors thought fit to place in the foreword
a warning that we cannot trust Traill all the way because he
believed in justification from eternity. So I say, why print
the book in the first place? Because from page one to page
400 and whatever it is, Traill defends the doctrine of justification
from eternity. And everybody thought Traill
was perfectly orthodox until our modern times. Now just what
does just mean? Justification is from a Latin
word meaning made just. The ìifiedî at the end is always
an ending which means ìthis is madeî. If you are petrified,
you are made like stone in fear or things are actually petrified.
If a thing is clarified, it is made clear and if you are justified,
you are made just. excuse me, I've got a frog in
my throat now, just is a word which we misuse a lot we can
say he is a just man and we can mean something quite different
to he is just a man the first sentence, he is a just man means
he is a real, true, fine man But if he is just a man, it would mean, oh,
he's not much of a man. And so it's very important that
we know what we are talking about when we say just and justified,
made just, Now the question what is justification is answered
us in Isaiah chapter 46 verses 18 to 25. I'm just putting several
verses together so if you just note the the chapter and verse
rather than read it because I shall jump over various sentences but
18 to 25 of chapter 46 of Isaiah says this, I the Lord speak righteousness
I declare things that are right now we'll see what righteousness
has to do with being justified soon I have sworn by myself the
word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not
return that unto me every knee shall bow every tongue shall
swear surely shall one say in the Lord have I righteousness
and strength even to him shall men come, and all that are incensed
against him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory." Is there a question there? I'm sorry, you said Isaiah 46? Isaiah chapter 46, 18 to 25. Is there a mistake in the numbers
there? Ah, then I've probably got the
number there incorrect. We'll look at that later. My
Bible's just here. Anyway, if you look up, I the
Lord speak righteously, beg your pardon? Oh, I've mixed up the
numbers there, sorry. Chapter 45, 18 to 25. Those who know me know that I
can't tell one number from the next. Now the term just describes
a God who acts righteously and who demands righteousness of
his people. God declares things that are
right and he makes things right. We can become just and thus act
righteously if we turn to him. Where this responsibility is
not exercised, there is no justification and no righteousness but just
cause to be ashamed. Which means, when faced with
God's justice, we shall not have a word to say in our defense. What God demands of himself,
he demands of others. The devil tempted man to become
like the gods by disobeying God. God invites us to become like
God through obedience. We fail in disobedience, but
God nevertheless makes us right by having his Son obey for us. In the biblical languages, whether
Hebrew or Greek, to be made just is the same as to be made righteous. A just man is a righteous man. A justified man is a man made
righteous. the terms are synonymous. For
a definition of justification on these terms, we may safely
turn to John Gill. He says that justification is
an act of God's grace whereby he clears his people from sin,
discharges them from condemnation, and reckons them righteous for
the sake of Christ's righteousness. which he has accepted of and
imputes unto them. This, on God's part, can be viewed
from three angles. A. In foro Dei, which means in
the courts of God, as the eternal, imminent act of God. It's an act which started and
is centered in eternity. The second is in foro conscientiae,
which means in the courts of our consciousness. as a declarative
act to and upon the conscience of the believer, so the believer
experiences his justification. And then there is C in 4.0 Mundi
as an act, which means in the courts of the world, as an act
declared to men and angels at the last judgment. In other words, God is always
justifying his elect. Now, I read an article in a magazine
just recently. This magazine has written article
upon article against justification from eternity. And there were
two fine articles actually on Martin Busser, the Franco-German
theologian. And Martin Buser outlined this
three-fold justification. And the writer said how wonderful
his view of justification was. But his view is justification
from eternity, which shows that the magazine who argued so much
against justification from eternity just didn't know what justification
from eternity was. Now, the main debating point
nowadays is, is justification real or is it make-believe? Is it real or is it just a show? Now, the modern reformed churches
of today seem to believe that our justification is not real.
It's what they call a pro-former act. God deals with us as if
we were justified, but God does not deal with us as truly justified
people. Now, does God declare us to be
righteous? and pronounce us legally righteous
but we are not really made so. We are not really made righteous. It's just a theoretical affair. That's the big question. Has
our debt been legally annulled by some judicial wrangling which
clears our debt but does not change us and we still stand
guilty before God as sinners? Is that our case? Many modern
readers, such as John Murray, say yes. Murray says in his work
on justification, justification is not the eternal decree of
God with respect to us. So God in eternity has nothing
to do with our justification. He goes on to say, nor is it
the finished work of Christ for us, which once for all he reconciled
us to God by his death. So it's not the finished work
of Christ that justifies us. Nor is it the regenerative work
of God in us, nor is it any activity on our part in response to and
embrace of the gospel. But it is an act of God accomplished
in time wherein God passes judgment with respect to us as individuals. So God has not decreed our justification
in eternity. He has not justified us through
the saving work of Christ. He has only justified us when
he finds that we happen to believe and because of that belief we
gain or earn our justification. Now, this view is time-bound,
theoretical, and negative besides being fully unscriptural. It does not regard justification
as part of Christ's finished work for his elect. Mary sees
justification as part of the gospel warrant or free offer
of salvation to every man, arguing that as justification happens
after belief, it cannot be a decree of God enacted in eternity. Now, Scripture passages, and
please just note this, we can look at them later, I do believe
these are correct because I checked these too, Scriptural passages
such as Romans 8, 30-33 show positively that our justification
and election were planned and enacted from eternity. Romans
4.5 makes it quite obvious that justification is before belief,
but brings with it righteous faith when God, by His grace,
discloses His will to us at conversion. Thus to say that justification
is not the eternal decree of God with respect to us is quite
erroneous. you've no need just to read John
Murray if you read Leon Morris the Australian he has written
a book called the Apostolic Preaching of the Cross and he says justification
is not a decree of God now are we then just theoretically justified or does
God create us in righteousness and true holiness? I would say
God does just that and his justification is thus real. We have no mock
righteousness which saves us, and no sham holiness, because
we're dealing here with the righteousness of Christ and with his perfect
holiness, which is imputed to us through our union with Christ. According to scripture, God creates
his justified ones anew and makes them totally different creatures. so that Paul tells us that this
new man is created in righteousness and true holiness. John Gill
emphasizes this in his On the Veracity of God. Justification
by his righteousness is really imputed to his people, really
means it is truly activated in his people, and by which they
truly become righteous and not in a putative and imaginary sense,
pardoned by his blood, which is not merely typical, as by
the blood of slain beasts, as in the Old Testament, but real,
atonement by the sacrifice of himself, which he, this himself
is of course Christ, which he really and truly offered up to
God, and sanctification by the Spirit, which is the new man
created in righteousness and true holiness, and not outward,
typical, and ceremonial, nor feigned and hypocritical. Our justification, he adds, is
real, solid, and substantial. If you've been reading in recent
years the debate in the Banner of Truth magazine, you will have
found that people who believe that justification is actual
and real and true have been labelled heretics and they are told that
you have only an imaginary justification before God. God, as it were,
just pretends that you are justified Now, the traditional orthodox
doctrine of justification, I wish to argue, is justification from
eternity. You can touch the old reformers
wherever you like, and they all, whether they're Anglican or Baptist
or whatever, they believed firmly in justification from eternity. Gill explains how modern views
of hypothetical justification in time and after belief were
foreign to the Reformation. Indeed, the doctrine of justification
from eternity in various forms was commonly upheld in the churches
until very recently. the Anglican stalwarts of the
Lambeth and Dort articles. You remember the Council of Dort
which in 1619 determined the five points of Calvinism. Well those people en masse believed
in justification from eternity. And the particular Baptist, such
as Benjamin Keech, remember Benjamin Keech, his declaration of faith
was made the basis of all subsequent American declarations of faith. And he believed fully in justification
from eternity. The big break with historical
theology came with Andrew Fuller, that was 1780, who denied that
justification was a purpose in the divine mind, but was a conditional
and universal promise to whoever might partake of it. Justification,
Fuller argued, is conditional and consists of the voice of
God, I'm quoting him now, consists of the voice of God in the gospel
declaring that whosoever believeth shall be saved. Here Fuller writes,
mistake grace for law, as justification according to the law was conditional. But justification according to
grace is not. It is only God who makes things
right. Now that was the meaning of justification.
What about the method of justification? Now, the method of justification
teaches us that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us for our justification. The way Christ accomplishes this,
transferring his righteousness to us, is through the work of
imputation. Now George Whitfield, whom I
believe we all know, he was a great evangelist in America, and James
Harvey, his great friend, Whitfield told Harvey as he wooed him to
Christ, I long to have my dear friend come forth and preach
the truth as it is in Jesus. not a righteousness or inward
holiness of our own, whereby we may make ourselves meat, but
a righteousness of another, even the Lord our righteousness, upon
the imputation and apprehending of which by faith we shall be
made meat by his Holy Spirit to live with and to enjoy God."
Dear Mr. Harvey, It is an excellent thing
to be convinced of the freeness and riches of God's grace in
Christ Jesus. It is sweet to know and preach
that Christ justifies the ungodly, and that all truly good works
are not so much as partly the cause, but the effect of our
justification before God. till convinced of these truths
you must own free will in man, which is directly contrary to
the Holy Scriptures and the Articles of our Church." Well, by the
grace of God, the doctors told James Harvey, who was an invalid
most of his life, to go out into the countryside and followed
the ploughman behind the plough and breathe in the fresh country
air. And whilst he was following the
ploughman, he got talking to this dear man of the soil who
was a fine Christian man. And this man of the soil told
this learned graduate of Oxford that he was looking for a righteousness
in himself and he had become righteous over much and the only
righteousness which would do him any good at all was the imputed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, how is righteousness
imputed to us? Calvinists refer to the vicarious,
passive and active obedience of Christ in his redemptive work
as imputation, the vicarious, passive, and active obedience
of Christ in his redemptive work. This is imputation when this
is laid upon us, the people for whom Christ died. Christ's passive
obedience describes his sufferings as our penal substitute and ransom. thus gaining pardon for our sins. Christ's active obedience describes
Christ placing himself under the law and demonstratively fulfilling
its righteousness in his human nature as the federal head of
all his elect. He thus gained not only pardon
for them, but freedom from guilt and a status of innocence. In
the marriage feast of the Lamb, all those may partake who are
clothed in Christ's righteousness." In face of the error that justification
is a mere theoretical, passive, and legal as-if status of the
elect, which virtually leaves them in their guilt, which they
have to work off through a life of sincere obedience, Gill says,
I firmly believe that not only the active obedience of Christ
with his sufferings and death, but also that the holiness of
his human nature is imputed to us for justification. The law
requires an holy nature and perfect obedience, and in case of disobedience
enjoins punishment. Through sin, our nature is become
unholy. our obedience imperfect, and
so we are liable to punishment. Christ has assumed a holy human
nature, and in it performed perfect obedience to the law and suffered
the penalty of it, all which he did not for himself but for
us, and unto us it is all imputed for our justification. Thus Christ
fulfills the whole righteousness of the law in his elect chosen
ones. Justification is not the same
as pardon. Mike and I were speaking about
this today and I think Cyril and I too. Most people believe
that we are pardoned but we are still in our guilt and somehow
we have to work hard to remove that blot, that stain of our
guilt so that we will be fully acceptable to God. but justification
in the Bible means we are pardoned and our guilt is removed. We stand innocent before God
because of our union in Christ and because Christ on the cross
has delivered us from the condemnation of sin. So there is no guilt
between us now, between us and God, because Christ has removed
that guilt. So it is unbiblical to link justification
with pardon only, as most of us tend to do. Pardon merely
means the matter is forgotten legally, though the culprit might
be guilty. Justification pronounces a person
righteous according to law, but he is considered free of guilt. It is one thing for a man to
be tried by law, condemned, and imprisoned, then to receive the
President's pardon, and another thing to be tried by law, and
by it to be found and declared righteous, and as not breaking
the law at all. This is what justification means.
God views us in Christ as those who in their union with Christ
have not broken the law, but fulfilled the law. Therefore,
no penalty can be placed upon them. They are not just pardoned,
but they are reprieved. They are declared innocent, not
guilty. Moreover, though pardon takes
away sin, it does not provide a righteousness, as justification
does. Pardon of sin takes away our
filthy rags, but justification clothes us with a new garment. Furthermore, more needs to be
done for justification than pardon. The blood of Christ was sufficient
to procure pardon. For our justification, we need
Christ's suffering death his holy nature, and the perfect
obedience of his life. All this must be imputed to us
for our justification. Again, though pardon frees from
punishment, it does not give us a title to eternal life. Only the righteous inherit eternal
life. This is why the Bible speaks
of justification of life. Pardon looks to the past and
justification to the future. Now, justification is a sovereign
act of the triune God. It is not, as Andrew Fuller describes
it, a feast on a table and we are invited to take it or leave
it as we wish. That is free willism. That is
not the Bible. Justification is a sovereign
act of the triune God. God alone justifies. God the
Father authored the scheme, reconciling the world to himself on the basis
of his son's ransom. Through this ransom, paid in
the fullness of time, Christ, in the words of Daniel 9.24,
finished transgressions, making an end of sin, making reconciliation
for iniquity, and bringing in an everlasting righteousness.
Daniel prophesied it, Jesus did it. This righteousness was wrought
out by Christ, who thus magnified and made God's law honourable. This act of the Son was graciously
accepted by the Father, who now imputes it freely to all his
people and reckons them righteous on his account. The coefficient
of the Father in forgiving sin, acquitting, discharging, and
justifying the sinner is God the Son, who, as our mediator,
is our head and representative. He has answered the demands of
the law on our behalf and is the author and finisher of our
faith. which, as Gill says, looks unto,
lays hold on, and apprehends that righteousness for justification. Similarly, the work of the Holy
Spirit in justification is evident as he convicts men of the insufficiency
of their own state, sets before them the righteousness of Christ,
and works faith in them. making known God's justifying
sentence to their conscience, bearing witness in their spirit
that they are the justified sons of God. Gill summarizes the work
of the triune God in justification by saying, the Father has contrived
it, the Son has procured it, and the Spirit applies it. Now, the date of justification,
my third point. Christians are greatly divided
on this topic and we must bear one another in love here and
not start condemning our brethren if they cannot distinguish between
time and eternity or feel they can prove us wrong on both aspects. We can be certain of two things.
First, justification is antecedent to the act of believing. It is
before the act of believing. And two, that justification upon
believing is not justification at all. Justification is that
which gives us the right to believe. We do not believe so that we
are given the right to be justified. We have no rights to be justified.
Justified is purely the work of God's grace, and no living
man can work up any belief so that that belief earns him God's
justification. Now, faith is the fruit of justification,
is my first point here. Faith is the fruit of justification. Justification is not the fruit
of faith. We live by faith because we are
justified. The righteousness of Christ is
given to us that faith and repentance might ensue. effects follow causes. Therefore, justification must
be before faith. Second point is, justification
is the object and faith the act which depends on it. Our faith
depends on our justification. Faith is thus the evidence of
justification. Justification is not the evidence
of faith. It's the evidence of things not
seen. Gill says, Christ's righteousness,
justifying me, is my justification before God. And as such, my faith
considers it and says with the Church, surely in the Lord have
I righteousness and strength." That's Isaiah 14.24. Now, my
third point, the elect are justified whilst ungodly, which means before
belief. Here we can quote Romans 5.6
and Romans 4.5. While we were yet without strength,
in due time Christ died for the ungodly. And, but to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is countered for righteousness. Now point D is that federal headship
plays a part in justification. All fallen men are represented
in Adam, whereas all of those who are saved out of fallen man
are represented in Christ, their head. When Christ was justified,
I'm thinking of 1 Timothy 3.16 here, all those for whom he made
satisfaction and brought in a righteousness were justified in him, which
seems to be the meaning of that scripture who was delivered for
our offenses and was raised again for our justification. That's
Romans 4.25. Now point E here is that there
is no contradiction between justification from eternity and justification
by faith. This is a problem. People say
if you are justified from eternity, you cannot be justified through
faith. But whose faith justifies us? It's not our faith, but it's
Christ's faith which is given to his own. We have no faith
of ourselves apart from that which Christ gives us. And Christ
gives faith to all those who are found in him and have been
placed in him, as the scriptures say, before the foundation of
the world. Now, here modern evangelists
have at times great difficulty with the doctrine, and especially
with Gill, as he is now writing about a justification through
the work of Christ on the cross and in his resurrection, rather
than in a definite action before time, which they understand as
being justification from eternity. Such a thought does not trouble
Gill at all as he sees no contradiction involved in what God determined
before time and what Christ achieved in time. Quoting Romans 8.33,
Gill argues that none can lay anything to the charge of God's
elect and this means that they can never do so because he hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. That's Ephesians
1, 4. We were chosen in God. In other
words, our full salvation was established in God then before
time was in eternity. This was the occasion when God
put us in Christ by means of His electing grace. Gill can
thus conclude that, if there is an eternal election of persons
in Christ, there must be an eternal acceptance and justification
of them in him. Since as he always was the beloved
son of his father, in whom he is ever well pleased, so he always
has graciously accepted of and is well pleased with all his
elect in him. if we were placed in Christ in
eternity then God must have accepted us in Christ in eternity and
therefore we can safely say that we are justified by God in eternity
because God only accepts his justified ones. Now, the form
of justification is, again, through imputation, the form it takes.
Imputation is a major topic for study, but here we shall merely
look at its justifying aspects. Gill has five things to say about
imputation in relation to justification. His first point is, as we are
ungodly, and God justifies the ungodly, we have no righteousness
of our own. However, as righteousness is
the qualification for justification, to be justified we must have
another righteousness imputed to us, which can only be the
righteousness of Christ. Second point, justification must
be either by inherent righteousness, that's our own natural righteousness,
or imputed righteousness. We have no inherent righteousness,
but there is a righteousness unto all and upon all them that
believe, Romans 3, 22, which is the very imputed righteousness
of Christ by which we are justified. Third point, Paul tells us in
Philippians that I might be found in Christ not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ. Again, we see it's Christ's faith,
not our faith. This makes Gill conclude that,
now the righteousness of another cannot be made ours, or we be
justified by it any other way than by imputation of it. His fourth point is, just as
Adam's sin became ours by imputation, so Christ's righteousness becomes
ours by imputation too. This was again a theology that
Andrew Fuller and the American New Divinity staunchly denied. They did not believe that our
sins were imputed to Christ and Christ's righteousness imputed
to us. We must have a righteousness
that we earn by our own deeds. And the fifth point is, in the
same way that our sins became Christ's by imputation only,
so his righteousness becomes ours. We read in 2 Corinthians
5.21, 2 Corinthians 5.21, for he who knew no sin was made sin
for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. he died for our sin that we might
live in his righteousness." Now, we'll look at the arguments against
justification from eternity. Most of these have come from
the school which Teratin of Geneva left behind him. We remember
that Calvin was very orthodox. Biza was a bit weaker in orthodoxy
than Calvin. Then came Teratin, who tried
to turn Calvin's theology into a philosophy, but he managed
to remain more or less orthodox. And then came his son, Alphonse
in Geneva and he dropped the teaching of Calvin totally and
Professor B, he was the first person I think to coin the phrase
a moderate Calvinist, a Calvinist that cannot go the whole way. And from that late Geneva school,
not the early reformed Geneva school, from that late Geneva
school came the arguments. Firstly, men cannot be justified
before they exist. They thought that was a clever
way and a philosophical way of getting out of the fact that
our justification is of God alone. Men cannot be justified before
they exist. Ephesians 1.3 tells us, however,
that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ,
and surely justification is a spiritual blessing, before the foundation
of the world, and had grace given them in Christ before the world
began. The second one is 2 Timothy 1.9.
you might as well say that one cannot be elected before one
believes. We know that we are elected,
we are predestined before we believe. Well, we believe too
that we are justified before we believe. all the elect have
a representative being in Christ, and are chosen in him, and have
grace given them in him, and abundant blessings in heavenly
places, all before the foundation of the world." We read this in
Ephesians 1, 3 to 5, and 2 Timothy 1, 9. Justification is a moral, a declaratory act of God and
does not need the physical presence of the subject to make it legitimate. I know in America in certain
cases the accused need not stand before the court. Somebody stands
there and represents him. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ represents
us before the court of God and our presence is not at all necessary. so men can certainly be justified
before they exist. Now these people who disagree
with us, they say men cannot be justified before they sin,
because they've nothing to be justified from. If they haven't
sinned, they're perfect. He's forgetting that all men
fell in Adam, of course. This argument would also deny
that Christ atoned for our sins before they were committed. Christ
died on the cross for my sins 2,000 years before I was born,
but he died effectively for me. It is no more absurd to say that
the elect are justified before they sin as to say that our sins
were imputed to Christ and he died for them and made satisfaction
for them before they were committed. God made provisions to heal before
the plague came. Now thirdly, the decree of justification
in eternity is one thing, but justification itself is another. God's decree and will to elect
certain men is the actual electing of them. God decreed that we
should be made just, and we were made just, just like God decreed,
let there be light, and there was light. God's will is the
activating of it. Furthermore, his will not to
impute sin to them is the non-imputation of sin in their case, just as
his will to impute righteousness to them is the actual imputation
of righteousness to them. Thus, his decree and will to
justify his people is their very justification. God's will is
consistent in itself and not conditioned by external circumstances. Justification does not require
the actual presence in court of the one declared just. God's decree before the foundation
of the world was to elect certain people to everlasting life and
salvation and to justify these people which were settled there
and then. God did not elect anyone theoretically
to justification, but he elected as a matter of fact. Now, the fourth point is that
Romans 8.30 destroys the doctrine of justification from eternity. Remember, that's the passage
where it says, those who are called are justified. So these
people say, ah, we must be called before we are justified. But
when writing to Timothy, Paul says the entire work of salvation
and the calling of the saints have been the believers in Christ
before the world began. Here, in that verse, Paul even
puts salvation before the calling. And so, of course, in eternity,
you cannot say this came first and then that came later. All the blessings of Christ were
given us all in our way of thinking at the same time in eternity. there is no time order in God's
eternal decree of salvation for his own. Now, the fifth point,
if justification from eternity were true, faith could not be
a prerequisite. Now, against this it must be
said that justification by or through faith in no way contradicts
justification from eternity. We must distinguish between the
imminent, eternal acts of God and His transient acts in administrating
His gifts in this world. We must distinguish between what
happens in eternity and how this is manifested in time. God declares
a person to be just by equipping him with justifying faith. whom God calls, he equips, and
that faith is a gift of God. Faith can have no causal influence
on justification, nor does it add anything to its being. In
other words, faith receives the blessing of justification and
the enjoyment of it. So faith is the instrument which
God gives us to accept his justification which is from eternity. Now in Book 3, Chapter 11 of
his Institutes, Calvin explains how it is wrong to believe that
faith is the cause of justification rather than the instrument God
uses to justify us. If our faith were the cause,
Calvin argues, then we would have an imperfect justification
because our faith is imperfect. The power of justification does
not exist in faith, considered in itself, but in receiving Christ. He goes on to say, I say therefore,
again this is Calvin, that faith, which is only the instrument
for receiving justification, is ignorantly confounded with
Christ. who is the material cause as
well as the author and minister of this great blessing. In other words, we believe we
are saved through our faith. We are not saved through Christ
and His imputed faith and righteousness. This disposes of the difficulty
how the term faith is to be understood when treating of justification. Those are again Calvin's words.
Justification, according to Calvin, is synonymous with being accepted
in the beloved according to God's decrees, Ephesians 1, 5-6. and
includes the forgiveness of sins, Romans 4, 6-8. The seventh point is that the
unconverted elect are under condemnation and therefore cannot be justified. You cannot be condemned and justified
at the same time. You cannot be under guilt and
under grace at the same time. Against the argument that a justified
damned person would be a contradiction in terms, Gill points out how
that we are all in Adam. And in Adam, we are all condemned. the wages of sin is death, and
the gift of God is eternal life. But we Christians are not merely
in Adam. We are in Christ, and we are
new creatures in Him. And for those who are in Christ,
there is no condemnation. And so we can actually be condemned,
on the one hand, as being sinners in Adam, and we can be justified
because of our standing in Christ. Christ justifies condemned sinners
and the wages of sin are upon us, physically speaking, until
we die. and not till death overtakes
us, by God's grace, will the old man of sin, who is condemned,
be entirely taken away from us. And then we shall stand in our
new nature completely, physically and spiritually, before Christ
as fully innocent of any sin, because Christ has put away sin
for us. Yes, we are to preach condemnation
to all, but yes, we are to preach justification for those who are
found in Christ Jesus. Now those are the main doctrines
of justification by faith and also the main arguments against
it. And I haven't covered the topic
totally and fully but I trust that you have got some idea of
this great doctrine of justification from eternity. It alone rescues
us from believing that there's still something for us to do
to gain our salvation. It alone saves us from feeling
that we are always under guilt, that we are always under this
yoke, we are always under the law, we are always under Sinai. because when Christ comes into
our hearts, he makes us new, justified people whom God now
considers as the apples of his eye. And when he looks at us,
he looks upon us with Christ within us, and us in union with
his Son and all he can say to us is then, well done my good
and faithful servant because all that is done well is done
by Christ and we are placed in him before the foundations of
the world. Well, I hope I haven't gone on
too long there. It's a deep subject, a difficult
subject, but it's a subject that we are neglecting and perhaps
we find it difficult to understand because we have been neglecting
it now for the last 50 years or so, perhaps. And we are neglecting
it more today than 10 years ago, which I think is a great tragedy.
Would there be any questions there? Sorry about the verse,
but I couldn't sort of start looking for it in mid-talk, as
it were. Any questions? Yes, sir? The verse where it says, if we
confess our sins, he's faithful and just, and forgive us our
sins in conscious of our righteousness. Yes. Yes, well, we saw the three pillars
of justification. Justification in the courts of
God, justification in our conscience, and justification before men
and angels. Now, you have to, and I, all
of us, have to have our conscience purged. And we have to realize
that the sin we do is at enmity with God. And we are also taught
to fight sin in our mortal bodies. Paul also tells us, God forbid
that we should sin. But there is one difference.
When we are sinners without Christ, when we are unjustified sinners,
we live to sin and sin has complete dominion over us. But when we
are placed in Christ, when the elect are placed in Christ, which
I am arguing was before the foundation of the world, then the guilt
of sin is removed from us. Now, the confessing our sins
and our unrighteousness is the act of God speaking to our consciences,
speaking to our hearts and bringing us out of the world. He's telling
us, you are my people, chosen before the foundation of the
earth. For you, and you in particular, I have sent my Son to die. Now
why wallow in your sin? Leave that sin and follow Christ. Now, of course, we do sin because
we're in our old Adam. And here we have Romans 7 and
Romans 8 again. This terrible fight within our
two natures. The sin that I would not do,
that I do. But the fact is, we know that
we should not do that sin. And we know, too, that with this
sin, with this temptation, God always provides us with a means
of escape. And that means of escape is turning
to our Lord Jesus Christ. I do believe that we sin. I do believe that we must seek
forgiveness. I do believe that we must mortify
the old man and his sin. but I do not believe as a Christian
that sin has dominion over me in its condemnation so that I
cannot be again condemned when I am once justified in eternity
in my conscience looking forward to the glorification of my own person when I shall
be justified too before the angels in heaven. We should shun unrighteousness
because Christ has made us righteous. I think that's the thing. Anything else, brother? Like 1 John, our familial relationship
with God has changed. Before we were justified, we
were outside of the covenant, outside of his family. Now we're
part of his family. So when we sin against him, it's
not that we're going to lose our justification or we're not
justified. It's to maintain fellowship or
you know, to our relationship. That's right. Some time ago I
saw that you were quite strict with Sarah because she'd done
something wrong. and Sarah knew that you had every
right to be strict but that didn't stop Sarah from getting a great
big hug from you later and it didn't stop Sarah from giving
you a great big hug too and this is the thing with us, we're in
God's school and God permits us even to sin and he disciplines
us through our sinning and through our nature but it's the disciplining
of a loving father and it's not the disciplining of a judge God
is never going to send his people to jail he's going to discipline
them as a loving father because we are adopted in the Godhead
sure, sin is there but God in his mercy even uses sin so that
we might grow in grace and a knowledge of the truth. I'm not sure this
is apples and oranges or not. I'm trying to relate what you're
saying to many, especially my Presbyterian friends, see the
worship service as a covenant renewal service. Yes. At least by the term, I think
it's seen as not just a reminder of a covenant, but actually a
literal covenant renewal. And I guess I see that as somehow
as in conflict with the idea of a justification from eternity,
that the Hebrews once and for all, his work is done once and
for all. Is there a conflict there? Well,
the Presbyterians sadly, may I sit down now and stop? I'm getting stiff there. The Presbyterians sadly are much
divided on what a government is. as believing families, some believe
that they are actually members of the covenant. Now I find this... What's that distinction again?
Oh, we are under the promises of the covenant. I see. They believe that when the believing
father is baptized, he should also have his family baptized,
because he is saying, as for me and my house, we shall serve
the Lord, and he is placing his children under the covenant promises. Now that is a position I can accept but I cannot accept
that these Presbyterians who believe that all their children
are automatically saved within the covenant This is the distinction
between the Church of England and the Presbyterians. Church
of England have covenant theology but it's the promises of the
covenant which are handed down through baptism. It's not the
real thing. Well sadly there are many Presbyterians
who believe that it's the real thing and this is why they do
not preach the new birth because they presume that all are saved. But I do not recommend that as
a good pattern to go by and I hope no Presbyterian friend will be
disgusted at me because of that. But I've just been to two Presbyterian
churches in Grand Rapids and spoken there and they surely
did not believe that their renewing of the covenant was a sort of
renewing of their salvation. but it was just saying that we
believe that the covenant was to Abraham and to his seed and
to the nations forever. I have another question completely
unrelated to that. I missed, this is probably a
lack of focus at the moment, your point about where, at what
point evangelists confront Gil, where evangelism... has a problem
with where Gil is, and I just missed what that point was. Well,
they believe, wrongly, that Gil will not preach to sinners. You
know, like Philpott in the Gospel Standard, he says that I have
no word for sinners. He has nothing to say to them.
He waits until the Spirit touches their heart, and then he believes
he can speak to them. but they blame Gil for being
like Philpot. Now, Gil wasn't like that at
all. He had a most tender heart for sinners, and he believed
that his duty was to make sinners sensible to the gospel by preaching
to them. He didn't say, who's sensible
here? Hands up, I'll preach to you. Now, the gospel standard
will not preach the gospel to what they call a mixed audience.
an audience of believers and unbelievers. They will only preach
to what they call sensible sinners. Those are sinners who have been
made sensible to the gospel through the work of the Holy Spirit.
But how can you do that? How can you tell who's which?
And Gil says, I preach to all, to every man, everywhere. I preach
the whole gospel to the whole man, everywhere, as the spirit
leads. But these people criticize Gil. They say he's an antinomian,
he's a hypercalvinist. They don't know Gil at all. When
I wrote on Gill, I was accused by a person of being a gospel
standard person before I'd ever known anything about them. and
I'm still classified as a Gospel Standard person, although I believe
the Gospel Standard people are more reformed than the so-called
reformed churches who criticise them. But I cannot accept these
articles which say that the Scriptures are not representative of true
Christian worship. We cannot base our worship on
the scanty evidence of the Scriptures. I believe we can, and I don't
think it's scanty. And they believe the Scriptures
tell us not to preach to mixed audiences. Well, we know Pentecost,
that there were people from all over the place, and they didn't
get sensitive to the Gospel until the Gospel was preached to them.
John 6, thousands of people were insensitive to the gospel. Yes,
yes. Well, we learned that people
like Paul who took up stones, well he didn't take up stones
to throw but he collected the clothing and kept them so that
the others could throw. He was most insensitive to the
gospel and the Lord just struck him down on the road to Damascus.
Which comes back to the question, how can you tell who is a sensitive
sinner? Well, you can't. You can't. We're
not supposed to. That's God's job. I mean, I preach
faithfully. Well, I'm no preacher, but I
mean preachers preach faithfully to the gospel so that people
might be saved. And it's like the call, the Macedonian
call. You know, come over here, I've
reserved certain people there. Now, we don't know which they
were, but Paul goes over, preaches, and he finds out who they were.
It's like the apostles saying, we haven't caught any fish. And Jesus says, throw the net
out to the other side. Well, they pull the net in, that
they get the fish and all the other fish that weren't meant
to be gone they swam away and that's our job to throw out the
gospel net to pull it in but it's God who provides the fish. The thing that Luther clarified
was, correct me, I know you will, I am asking you to, is that,
was it the Latin Vulgate or Jerome's Vulgate that used a term for
justification in the Latin which meant it was a process? And the
enlightenment that came to Luther was that it was was it a Greek
term instead that was used to Fakari which which is a legal
declaration and that's what that was a huge the light shine gloriously
into Luther's heart and life and then from that point on so
that that was just a bad translation or I think you're thinking of, I
think it's pronounced sanctification in Latin. It was this mixture
that we always have of not distinguishing between sanctification and justification. and most people when they think
of justification they think of sanctification as Luther did
but by sanctification they mean the process of themselves climbing
up the ladder and reaching God's divine height But through reading
the Psalms, Luther found out that we're not talking about
sanctification as a progressive thing. We are talking about the
decree of God who decrees to make us justified and that has
nothing to do really with our personal sanctification. Luther was the man that brought
me back to believing that we are made just, we are made righteousness. Because Luther's word, rechtfertig
machen, to make righteous, was that which spoke to me and then
I looked up the Latin and the Greek and I found that it was
truly so that it has to do with the righteousness of Christ imputed
to us whereby we are made righteous. So that is true. It was the breach
between the Roman Catholic faith and the Protestant Reformed biblical
faith. Was that a genuine misunderstanding
by the Catholic divines or was it by design to keep people I couldn't say. I'd have to look
at the text. You see, the Vulgate has been
revised many, many times. And the best one I've seen, I
think, is Jerome's Vulgate. But I haven't that in my head.
I'd have to look. I do believe that... I don't
think that those old translators were wanting purposely to deceive
but I believe because of their own faith and upbringing they
used words as they had learned and not words as they really
mean something along with that do
the Catholics use a terminology that called legal fiction. I
think they do. Oh that's more than I know. Oh
well I know they use the term pro forma which means the same
more or less. But when you were saying during
your lecture earlier that people just cannot believe that this
is true justification but they're at pretending or acting as though
it were. And that brought to mind that
terminology legal fiction they're saying They're saying that it's. Are they saying it's illegal
or is it pretend and if that's the case. How unsettling that
is. If it's something pretend. No doubt the Roman Catholic Church
believes that we must earn our justification by faith super
added, works of super irrigation as they call it. God just doesn't
want us to work normally. He wants us to work super abundantly. so that we might be seen as deserving
his justification and they do combine justification with human
sanctification. A boy came to me a few weeks
ago, he was studying theology, and he wanted to know about how
he should walk in faith. And he kept saying he wanted
to climb the ladder. And I said, have you been reading
Thomas Aquinas and people like that? He said, yes. I said, but
there are no ladders to climb. I told him we've got to put our
hand in Christ and walk on with him and trust Christ day by day
and there are no ladders to climb. He believed that we could go
from one degree of justification to another but no, degree is
God's act, justification is God's act entirely. But aren't we Roman
Catholic in many ways? I was talking to a Baptist minister
some time ago, and he distinguished between those who are in the
family of God, those who are in the Bride of Christ, those
who are in the Baptist Bride, and what was the next one? Those who are in the Kingdom
of God. And he had a whole range of Christians, some of them at
the bottom being still apostate, some being in error, and some
being pure in faith but not in action, and some being pure in
faith and action. And I said, well that's not Baptist
theology. Did he provide some biblical
basis for that? Did he give you any? Well actually
I feel that these people were influenced by the Freemasons
and the Mormons because the leaders of these people were Freemasons
and they have all this secret climbing up of ladders and I'm
sure they got it there. They didn't get it from the Bible.
I don't know. Mike. justified and in christ before
we're even born or anything what well it's not before because
before is time i know the bible says before the foundation of
the world but that's just to try to adopt the idea to our
ideas i mean we're born already justified and in christ or well
well i wouldn't say that okay i would say that um our justification
is signed and sealed in eternity and whether we are born in the
year 2000 or 1000 or 550 it doesn't alter the fact that we are elect
in Christ Jesus that we are in union with him. Now I think your
problem is when do we get converted then? Yes, that's right. Well, it's
the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ which saved you
but this is in the fullness of time when infinity and eternity
impinged on time spreading out through all time and all eternity. so that the action of your being
your being found in christ is this idea of god justifying you
in your conscience and in your heart in other words he