All right, 1 Corinthians chapter
1. Let's bow and have a word of prayer before we begin. Gracious
Heavenly Father, we again come to you this morning humbled by
the things that we've sung this morning, Father, in these hymns,
these beautiful words that's been written by your people in
the joy and in the sorrows and in the things of life. and in
the exaltation of Christ and their salvation, and how they've
passed those things down to us, and we even to this day continue
to sing these joys of all the salvation of Christ. And Father,
we're just so thankful that we have this opportunity to gather
together and worship you, and to lift up these songs, to share
your word, to fellowship with one another, to be together,
Lord, just in common belief and faith. And Lord, what a true
blessing it really is. I'm thankful for all the ones
you've gathered here today. And we ask, Lord, that today
that you might edify your people through the word of God, through
the singing, through the fellowship. As each has been given gifts,
Lord, we pray that you would work through them and in them,
Lord, to edify the body of Christ as we are gathered here today.
Father, Lord, I pray now that as I bring this message, I ask
Lord that you might enable me to speak the truth. Father, I
pray that it might be exalting to Christ. I pray, Lord, that
it'll be helpful to your people. And Lord, I just pray that there
will be no opinions of myself injected into this, that you
might keep me from error and help me, Lord, to exalt your
name and to present your truth the way that you have written
it and the way you meant it to be understood. And Father, we
pray for the Holy Spirit to come and to give understanding because
even if the truth is spoken correctly, without the Holy Spirit, we would
not be able to understand. It needs to be revealed, and
we need you to do that. And so we ask your presence among
us today as we're gathered here, and it's in Jesus' name we pray,
amen. We began looking last week at
the, the prominence or the preeminence or the importance, the central
aspect of Christ in our salvation. All of our salvation, and again,
we talked last week about how salvation is an eternal salvation. It's from eternity to eternity. And as that salvation from eternity
to eternity is played out, as it dips its way into time, we
see that every aspect is centered on the Lord Jesus Christ. We have heard of those who only
talk about the eternal aspect of salvation and yet they don't
speak much about the experiential aspects of salvation and so they
place all the prominence on the eternal aspect of salvation,
but they don't ever preach or teach or share or present anything
of the experiential part of salvation. And then we have others who all
they talk about is the experiential part of salvation, and they don't
preach and teach what is presented in the scriptures as far as eternal
salvation. And then we have those that even
at that, they may preach eternal salvation and they may talk about
experiential salvation, but yet they divide that where they put
eternal salvation in the hands of God, but experiential salvation
in the hands of man. And so eternal salvation is by
grace alone, and the experiential salvation is by their works. And so we have a lot of crazy
understandings out there. wrong teachings of scripture.
We find, and that's kind of my hope and prayer in this series
on the preeminence of Christ and salvation, is that we might
see that every aspect, whether it's the eternal aspect or the
experiential aspect of salvation, that all of that is not by anything
that we do, but is centered on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ
alone. and that he received the glory. And so we began last week looking
at 1 Corinthians, and I began up in verse 23 and read down to
31. Now I'm not gonna read all that
again this week, I'm just gonna read 30 and 31 to remind us of
why we're preaching what we're preaching, why we preach what
we preach, why we hold to what we hold, about eternal and experiential
salvation, but I do want to remind you the context that we talked
about leading into this last week, and that Paul was making
very clear that this teaching of Christ being the only thing
Christ being the only portion, Christ being the only effector,
Christ being the center of all of our salvation is foolishness
and a stumbling block to people. That it's, to them, it's just
foolishness. And that only God and His wisdom
can ever come up with something Like this, and so we've seen
how God had taken the foolish things of the world and the base
things and has confounded the wise and used these base things
to exalt him as we see verse 29, that no flesh should glory
in his presence. But we read in verse 30, it says,
but of him, speaking of Christ, are ye, excuse me, of God, but
of God, are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Our wisdom, our
righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption is found in
Jesus Christ. He is our, and then you apply
those words. If there's wisdom to be had,
it's gonna be in Christ Jesus. He's gonna have to give us that
wisdom. It's a revealed wisdom. It's a given wisdom. Men aren't
wise because they are schooled in an education in some facility. Men aren't wise because they're
gray-haired. I know a lot of gray-haired men
that aren't wise. You know, just because someone
has age on them doesn't necessarily mean they've aged to wisdom.
I know young men who are wise in and of themselves. And that's
because God is the one who gives wisdom. Not worldly wisdom, but
spiritual wisdom. And so Christ is for us wisdom. He's our righteousness. We don't
have any righteousness. There's none righteous, no not
one. All of us are as filthy rag. All of our righteousness,
righteousness, righteousness, I can't say it. All of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags before God. And so we are not righteous.
We have been given, not given as far as He has made us ourselves,
where we ourselves now are righteous. No, He has imputed or laid upon
us an imputed righteousness, an accounted righteousness. God
views us righteous because Christ's righteousness. And so He is our
righteousness and He is our sanctification. We've been set apart in Christ.
The whole reason that God has done any of this for us is because
we have been sanctified, set apart for the use of God in Christ
Jesus. Now a lot of people want to put
sanctification, and we'll get to that down the road as we get
to sanctification, but a lot of people want to put sanctification
as this thing of making yourself holy by means and things that
you do, that people are getting holier and holier the longer
they go down the road of Christianity. And that's just not scriptural.
That's not scriptural. And I'm sure I'll get a lot of
comments about that. But anyway, that's just not what
the Word of God says. The Word of God says that we
have already been sanctified. And it's in Christ Jesus that
we're sanctified. It's a done thing. Now again,
I don't, again, we'll get to that when I get to sanctification,
but you know, yes, we do grow in the grace and knowledge of
Jesus Christ, but brethren, we are already sanctified in Christ
Jesus. And then as we looked at last
week, he is our redemption. Now, why is all this taking place? Why has God, uh, made sure, or
put us in Christ Jesus, and made Him all those things for us. Verse 31, that according as it
is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And so, as we've seen in these
verses, we find three things that we're gonna find evident
in this whole series, and that is number one, salvation, whether
eternal or experiential, is the work of God alone. Number two,
that the whole of salvation is in or by the Lord Jesus Christ,
whether it be eternal or whether it be experiential. And number
three, that the reason for all of that is that we might, as
it says right here, glory in the Lord alone. that no flesh
will glory or no flesh will be able to glory in his presence.
So that's the reason why we find or why God has designed, ordained,
predestinated, purposed this salvation to be this way. And
again, like I said, I go back to these false views of these
things. Even those who believe in eternal
salvation, they are doctrines of grace believers. They are
believers of election. They are believers of predestination.
But yet, for the ones who believe that then in time, all of that's
left up to chance by men's words. And that in and of itself has
not been predestinated. Here again, we have room to glory
when we come before the Lord and all of our works are laid
bare. Well, the reason that I had this
much works is because I did it. I chose to do it. I studied my
Bible more. I prayed more, I gave more, I
served more, I whatever, you know. And so we have room to
glory in our experiential salvation. And so the Lord said he's not
gonna allow any flesh to glorify, because he's gonna take it all
out of our hands. And those who come to the throne of God and they think
that their experiential salvation was by their own free will, The
Lord is gonna say wood, hay, and stubble. It's just all it's
gonna be. It's not gonna be anything. You
know, so that's the three things that we're gonna find in this.
Now, we began last week seeing that as we begin our trek through
salvation, we find that election comes before anything, that God
has elected a people, and in that election, He loved the people
for himself, gave those people to Christ. Christ was a center
figure in election because he elected a people, loved the people
to give to Christ. And that's where they are found.
They are found in Him. They are found eternally in Him. I would say that they are eternally
in Christ Jesus. Now, there's the argument of,
well, if God gave them to Christ, then there had to be a point
when they were given. And so, when was that point given
to them? Well, it definitely wasn't in
time because we learned that they were in Christ before the
foundation of the world. So I don't know how it all works,
to be honest with you, brothers and sisters. I don't know how
that works, but I do know this, that it was in eternity that
it happened. Okay, so it wasn't in time that it happened, it
was in eternity that it happened. And God gave them people to Christ. Now, whether or not God is speaking
here in terms that we can understand, for us to know and to understand
some things on a level that we can understand. And he says that,
you know, we were given to Christ. It sounds like it started at
a time, but it could have very possibly been for all times they
were given. They've been given to Christ for all eternity. But
all I know is that it was before time that we were given to Christ,
it was before time that we were loved, and that love has been
an everlasting love. So it's somehow, some way, some
reason, God has done that and has done that before every time
began. And so our election is centered
on the Lord Jesus Christ because that choosing, that electing,
that purposing of people, that decreeing of people, that all
is dependent upon the Lord Jesus Christ, of them being in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'm just gonna say on a side
note for anybody that's wanting to argue this point, to say,
well, just because it happened before the foundation of the
world, doesn't necessarily mean they've been eternally loved
or eternally in Christ Jesus. Well, let me ask you this. The
Bible says that God decreed, that God purposed, that had to
happen at a point, or has it always been decreed or always
been purposed? So if you're gonna exclude the being put in or the
loved, in eternity and say that it had to be at a point, you
got to put decree and purpose because there was a purpose that
there was an eternal covenant made. And if you want to say that,
well, there's always been an eternal covenant because it's
eternal. Well, the Bible says it's actually the term that the
Bible uses is an everlasting covenant. It doesn't say an eternal
covenant. We use that term, but we think
it's interchangeable, but the Hebrews calls it an everlasting
covenant. And I don't mean to get so sidetracked
on this this morning, but there is some issues that we need to
think biblically on instead of traditionally on, instead of
how we hear things going around about that. But, you know, if
we take away his loving us and taking away of us being in Christ
and saying, well, that had to, it hasn't been eternal, otherwise
we would be eternal. Well, the Bible doesn't say that,
but it does say that our life is eternal and it was in Christ
Jesus before the foundation of the world. So whatever our life
is as the children of God, it is eternal. I mean, I can't deny
that the Bible says that. I'm not saying that we in the
flesh have been eternal, that we existed somewhere and don't
have knowledge of that, although I don't know, we've not been
revealed that. But all I know is the Bible does reveal that
our life has been hid with God in Christ, and that that life
is life in Him, and in Him is life, and that life has been
given to us, so whenever we're born again, we receive His life,
and that life is eternal. So His life and our life are
the same life, and that life is eternal. And so that has existed. before the foundation of the
world. Why? Because we were elect in Christ Jesus before the foundation
of the world. So Christ has been the center point of election.
Do you have something to add, brother? I seen that you were
searching for something. I didn't know if you had something to add. So, election centers upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. The second thing we've seen in
our walk through our salvation is predestination. That predestination
is centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We read several passages
that we were in Christ Jesus and predestinated to be adopted,
we were predestinated to be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so predestination centers upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And as
I mentioned last week again, talking about predestination
in the aspect of salvation, but I do believe that there is predestination
in everything else as well, not just in the adoption or the conforming
to Jesus Christ. That's where some of the other
primitive Baptist brethren get off, is they believe that predestination
only applies to this point of salvation and its eternal aspect
of being conformed and adopted. That's the only thing that they
believe predestination has to do with. They don't believe that
every act and action is predestinated. And so while they do believe
in election, and that's why you gotta be careful and listen to
what you're listening, whenever you're listening to things, be
careful and judge everything according to the scriptures.
Because some things may be sounding alike, but as the old Sesame
Street song goes, one of these things is not like the other,
okay? It's not the same. So let's be
diligent in our study and comparison of God's word. But we found predestination
is centered on the Lord Jesus Christ. And thirdly, last week,
we seen that redemption is found in Christ Jesus. Christ redeemed
us from the curse. We have redemption through his
blood. He entered into the holy place once to make redemption,
eternal redemption for us. He bore our sins on the tree
and redeemed us to God. So we see that redemption was
centered upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this morning I would
like us to look at the aspect of justification. Now, some may
take issue with me where I'm putting justification in the
order of the salvation. I've put election, predestination,
redemption, although redemption is, again, something that Jesus
actually secured by his blood on Calvary in time. If you remember last week, the
redemption was accounted in the holy place in heaven that he
entered into that was not made with hands. And I believe that
that was in time. He was the lamb slain before
the foundation of the world. And so that redemption was accounted
before the foundation of the world. And because that redemption
was accounted before the foundation of the world, I believe that's
why justification also is accounted before the foundation of the
world. And so I put justification after
that redemption, although we know that Christ did come in
time as He had to, to manifest these very things that was already
accounted before the foundation of the world. Remember our passages
in Timothy, we were saved and called with a holy calling before
the foundation of the world, but it says, but in these last
time, but has now been manifest in the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. So we see that Christ was made
manifest in time to fulfill and to secure that which was already
accounted in the book of Acts. eternal decree and the eternal
covenant. And just for a great example
of this, whenever, again, and I give this example a lot whenever
I talk about justification, in a courtroom you can have someone
who comes on behalf of a criminal who is in jail. And you can have
an advocate, you can have a mediator or a substitute come before the
judge and say, you know, hey, I'm gonna give myself in the
place of the criminal and everything. And if that just judge accounts
that person and whatever it is that they bring to the table
as worthy and just to take the place of the person in prison,
And he accounts that as a fair trade, or whatever you want to
call it. And he says, OK, I will account you and your death for
that guy. That guy, at the moment that
that took place, and the judge made that decision and said,
that is the guilty's substitute, as soon as that judge
says equal trade, as soon as that judge says I will accept
this and I will count him not guilty and you guilty, then that
person in that cell is justified of all of what he had done and
all of that is placed upon that man who stands before Even though
that that man is still in jail and does not know that he's been
justified. He's as much justified because
of the substitution the mediatorial ship the Advocacy of the one
who came before the judge to plead the case of the one in
jail it was the one who came before the judge that the judge
placed the grounds on or made the grounds and accepted that
as the payment or the the sufficing of justice for the other person. And so that person doesn't know
about it. They've not even heard it. As far as they know, they're
still in prison. They're in jail. And even whenever
that jailer comes down and opens that gate and says, someone's
taking your place, you're free to go, they still might not believe
it. What? You mean, this don't seem right. You mean somebody took my place?
So their faith ain't even the thing that made them justified,
was it? Then they don't even believe it. And then whenever
they walked out of the jail, they believed it and walked out.
Is that what made them justified? No, what made them justified?
The person that took their place. And when was that declared? The
moment that the judge and the one who has taken the place struck
the deal. That's whenever it took place.
Now, if the eternal covenant is Christ coming in place of
his people that is given to him, and saying, I will take up their
cause. I will be the one who will be
cursed for them. I will be the one who dies for
them, that the full wrath of God will fall upon. I will be
the one who will live a righteous life that will be accredited
to them. I will do that. I will go and
obey the father, and then I will also die at the father's hand.
And the father says, that's just. The just for the unjust. I count
that as righteousness, as justice. I count that as holy. I count
that as good. And so at that point, everyone
for whom Christ is advocating for receives that sentence. That's why I believe in eternal
justification. because Christ has stood as that
lamb slain before the foundation of the world. We were put into
Christ before the foundation of the world in union with him
before the foundation of the world. How can we be in union
with him if he be not our already advocate mediating for us? There's only one mediator between
God and man, and that's the man Jesus Christ. And that man has
been mediating for us in the eternal covenant before the foundation
of the world as the Lamb slain and in time has come and manifested
his mediatorial ship by dying on the cross for us. And so I
don't find where that's a contradiction in scriptures. And so we see
that justification is based on Jesus Christ in eternity and
in time. In eternity in the eternal covenant
in time when he stood on that cross. for us. Now let's read
a few verses that show us that our justification, again, we
still combat a lot of error that's out there, especially among the
doctrines of grace communities that teach that justification
is by our faith alone. Justification is not based upon
our faith alone. That is justification before
God. Justification before God is based solely upon Jesus Christ
alone. His righteousness, His obedience,
His death, His being faithful is what is accounted to us as
righteousness. And I hope to, in these verses
that are before us this morning, I hope to clear up some of the
confusion about that. And hopefully for anybody that's
watching and listening that thinks that I'm a heretic in this aspect,
show you why I believe and why we teach and believe and hold
the way that we do is because we find that scripture must interpretate
what we believe about these things, not Calvin, not Luther, not the
Synod of Dort, not all these creeds and confessions, not John
Gill for the Baptist, it's not these things. So let's read a
few things that tell us that our justification is found in
Christ. So if you would turn with me
to Romans chapter 3. I'm sure everybody knew we were
going to be going to Romans. Romans chapter 3. Look with me at verse 23 and
I'm going to read down through the end. It says, Romans 3.23,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Being
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. So right there, right off the
bat, tells us that we are justified freely by His grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Not by our faith. Not by your faith. Okay? You're justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now,
when we get later into Romans 4 and 5, and we start seeing
justification by faith, those phrases, we have to remember,
here's the context going into those chapters. Paul had already
set up some context here. The context is that you are justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. whom God has set forth to be
a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his
righteousness for the remissions of sin that are passed through
the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time,
his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of
him which believeth in Christ Jesus." Now, at that point, someone
would say, there you go. He's the justifier of him which
believeth. Okay, so you're not justified
unless you believe. Brethren, this phrasing is no
more different than what we see in John 3.16 that says that God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish. It's a statement of fact. The
ones that he's died for is all those who are believing, the
believing ones. That whosoever believeth in Jesus
are the ones that he has justified. That's a statement of fact. We're
a group of people. We are believers, okay? Those
who have yet not to believe, they will be believers, but yet
the whole group that's been justified are the ones who will ever believe
on Jesus Christ. Verse 27, where is the boasting
then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but
by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the
God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Now,
so we see here that if boasting is gonna be excluded, There can't
be any justification because of our faith. But it's because
of what? Because of the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus. That's the only way that it's
excluded in boasting. Now look with me if you would
at, keep your place in Romans. We wanna come back to that book. But I wanna go back to Isaiah
quickly. Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, look at verse 10. It says, Yet
it pleased the Lord to bruise him. This is speaking of the
Lord Jesus here. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath
put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul an offering for
sin. he shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities."
So we see here that justification is centered upon the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous servant. the righteous servant
and what he does or did is what justified the many. Why? Because he bore their iniquities.
Well, we know that he bore their iniquities in the heavenlies,
but he also bore their iniquities on the cross. So there is a entering
in into the Holy of Holies with their iniquities as the lamb
slain before the foundation of the world. And then there is
also Him, as He ascends onto the cross at Golgotha and is
crucified, that He takes on their iniquities and He bears their
iniquities. But in either place, Jesus is the center point of
justification. Nowhere here does it say that
my righteous servant will make a provision for justification
for those who will believe. He never does say that, he said
it is by the righteous servant's work.
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many. Now if you'll notice here though,
you'll see that all of this is God seeing, this is in Isaiah,
God seeing ahead of time what his servant will do. God is seeing
what he will do. And so God has already seen this
and has accounted this before it ever has taken place. But
Jesus still came and manifested that which God determined before
the world began. Look back if you would in Romans
and turn to chapter four. We see that we were justified by the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus. Look at chapter four and verse
25. It said, who was delivered for
our offenses and was raised again for our justification. So here
again, we see our justification revolves around the work of Jesus
Christ. His death, His burial, His resurrection. We were justified by the work
of Jesus Christ. And again, this doesn't say He
was delivered for our offense and was raised again. And if
you believe that, you're justified. It didn't say that. No, it said
the act that Jesus did, who Jesus was and the act that Jesus did
is the justifying cause. Romans chapter five, verse one. Therefore, being justified by
faith. Oh, there you go. People saying,
okay, justification by faith alone. I don't have a problem
with that if you're making sure that you're saying that that's
justification by the faith of Jesus's faith, justification
by his faith alone, not your faith alone. Therefore, being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. by whom we have access by faith
into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience,
patience experience and experience hope, and hope maketh not a shame,
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost, which is given unto us. For when we were yet without
strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good
man, some would even dare to die. But God commended his love
towards us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us, much more than being now justified by his blood, We
shall be saved from wrath through him. So here we see that blood
had to do with justification, not faith on your part, but blood
on Christ's part. We were justified by his blood. Look down at verse 18. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one, the free gift come upon all men
unto justification of life. by the righteousness of one.
So here we see that it is the righteousness of Christ that
is part of the justification of his people, not your faith
in it, but his work alone. Jesus is the center of this justification. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Ain't that what, ain't that saying
the same thing as being justified? To be made righteous? To be made
righteous isn't an imparted thing, it's an imputed thing. And to
be made righteous means that someone has laid the account
of righteous to your account. you who were guilty, you who
were sinful, you who all have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God, your account has been changed from guilty to not
guilty, from unrighteous to righteous, but it's not your righteousness,
it's a foreign righteousness, it's an external righteousness
that is given on your account. Anybody here have PayPal? You
have PayPal, right? Through PayPal, if I wanted to,
I could go, and as long as I knew Beth's PayPal account thing,
I could go to Beth's PayPal and I can donate $1,000 to Beth. Beth's account says that I have,
say she has $100 in her PayPal account, okay? But yet I go and
in her account, I put $1,000. Well now, Beth's account says
she has $1,000. But Beth didn't have $1,000.
Beth is only $100 in PayPal. But now it says $1,000. Why?
Because someone else laid that $1,000 to her account. I'm not
gonna lay $1,000 to your account, Beth. You see how that works? Beth
didn't do anything to earn that $1,000. Beth didn't work to get
that $1,000. And listen, Beth didn't even
have to believe that that $1,000 was there for that $1,000 to
be there. That can't be right. Matter of
fact, she may even call up PayPal. How'd this get here? Where'd
this come from? She may even doubt the fact that
the $1,000 is hers. But guess what? Nothing changed
that. Why? Because someone chose to give
you that righteousness. See brethren, and again, I am
so open for correction on all this stuff, brethren, and anybody
else watching or listening, I'm open for correction on this,
but I can't find anywhere where there is another interpretation
of these things that leaves it to where there will be no glorying
except glorying in the Lord. If justification is left up,
if God cannot declare you just until you believe, even if your
faith is given by God, if it is grounded upon your believing
with God-given faith, you still have room to glory. And so it can't be by that. And
as I'm looking here, I'm seeing justification all through here
is on Christ. It's speaking of Him. The context
is Christ and His words and His rights. As a matter of fact,
here it says, by His obedience. Isn't that being faithful? Isn't
that what obedience is? Is faithfulness to the one who
is over you? Didn't Jesus say that, you know,
I've done all that the father has told me to do. I don't do
anything except the father. That means I'm obeying everything
he tells me to do. I'm not disobeying at all. Well,
that's Christ's faithfulness. He's being faithful to the father
and everything that he's told him to do. That's his faithfulness. So yes, Jesus has faith. Some
people don't believe Jesus has to have faith because he's God.
Well, why does Jesus have to have faith? Because it is that
faithfulness. Faith isn't just a belief in
something that you can't see. Now that's ours. The faith that
we have is that faith that it talks about in Hebrews. But Jesus
is talking about his faith as far as faithfulness. His faithfulness
to accomplish these things. Look, if you would, back in Acts
chapter 13. We'll look at a couple more verses and we'll be done
with the justification part and we'll take a break here. Acts
chapter 13. Don't hear too many messages
out of Acts on justification, but it was preached in Acts. Acts chapter 13 in verse 38,
if you would. Be it known unto you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified
from all things from which ye could not be justified by the
law of Moses." Now notice there he says that all that believe
are justified, not will be justified, but are justified. By Him, all
that believe are justified from all things from which ye could
not be justified by works, by the law of Moses. See, he's comparing
grace and law here. Grace has been given to them.
That's why they believe. And they believe because they've
been justified of God and given that belief. And it does something
that the law could never have done. That justification is something
that cannot be given by the law. Matter of fact, doesn't the scripture
say, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified? What about the law of believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ? That's a law that we try to make
people believe. You just have to believe. Believe.
Like we can command somebody to believe. Believe. Okay. All right. See, there has to
be something that internally causes you to believe. I don't believe something just
because I see it on the outside. Something has to internally change
within my thought process and in my heart to cause me to believe
something. Same thing in the spiritual realm.
Nobody believes until they're born again. And at that point,
if they're already born again, then they've been justified.
Justification ain't waiting for them to believe. It's already
there. And lastly, the last thing I
want to look at on justification and if any of the brothers have
anything to add to this, they're welcome to, but in Galatians
chapter two, I tell you what, there is a couple
of things that I do want to add to this, especially considering
what we're going to see in Galatians and what we've seen in Romans. Galatians chapter two, look with
me down at verse 16. It says, knowing that a man is
not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of
Jesus Christ. By the faith of Jesus Christ,
not faith in Jesus Christ. You go to these modern translations
and you're gonna find faith in Jesus Christ. But if you look
in even the older translation, not just the King James, go to
the older translations that was all based off the same manuscripts,
they translated the exact same. They say faith of Jesus Christ. So it wasn't the King James translators
that made it of, okay? All the ones, all the Bibles
that were made before the King James off the same manuscripts
translated the same way. The faith of Jesus Christ, not
faith in Jesus Christ. And whenever it says the faith
of Jesus Christ, it's not talking about the faith of Jesus Christ
that's given to you. Jesus' faith given to you. No,
it's the faith of Jesus Christ, his faithfulness. Knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,
even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified
by the faith of Christ. And not by the works of the law,
but by the works of the law, or by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. Now, in chapter three, we find
that it says, starting in verse 13, Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing
of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Brethren, I speak after the manner of men, though it be but a man's
covenant, Yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth
thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were
the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as
to many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. So we see here that Christ is
the seed and that the promises are made to the seed and then
everybody that's in the seed receives those promises. Now,
we're told that Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto
him for righteousness. But if we go back to Genesis,
I mean, please go back to Genesis with me. So you can see this
for yourself. I believe it's in Genesis 15. Genesis chapter 15. And starting in verse four, it
says this, and this is where Paul quotes the justification
of Abraham as it pertains to faith, okay? Verse four, and
behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, Abraham, saying,
this shall not be thine heir, speaking of Ishmael, but he that
shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad
and said, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be
able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed, singular, be. Okay? Galatians told us that
the seed was Christ and that it was singular, not many, okay? So this whole discourse is not
about seeds, as far as people, whether it be national or spiritual. Okay, it's talking about one
seed, Christ. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. Verse six, and he, Abraham, believed
in the Lord, and he, Abraham, counted it, the seed, to him,
Abraham, for righteousness. See, Abraham is looking and believing
in the Lord, and he's counting the Lord, the seed, in verse
five, as his righteousness. He's not counting his faith.
The Reformed people read that and say, and he believed in the
Lord and he, the Lord, counted it, the believing, to him, Abraham,
for righteousness. See, they got it backwards. See, the subject of the matter
there, who is the one believing, is Abraham, but what is he believing? He's believing on the Lord, and
he is counting the Lord to him for righteousness. So it's not
Abraham's faith that justified him. It was the faith of Christ
that he counted as his righteousness. So that's the context that you
need to take with you when you go to Romans and Galatians and
the places that talks about Abraham's righteousness. And so justification is centered
upon in every place that we can find it upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Does anybody have any comments
or statements? Yes, brother. Yeah, 1 John 1. Absolutely. Whenever you get down to it,
I mean it's found in so many places throughout the scripture.
And a lot of times we breeze over this. Matter of fact, I'll
be honest with you, I've breezed over this myself and never kind
of tuned into that it was saying that too, but absolutely. It
has been manifested unto us. This eternal life, which was
with the Father, was manifested unto us, shown to us. Amazing,
amazing thing. Again, I don't think you know
to even say that Justification or eternal life hinges upon belief
whether it's the Armenian that says you'll get eternal life
if you believe or if it's the reformed who says you'll get
justification if you believe then in either way Then God has
not made a decision back then He's waiting on a decision now
and all the things that God has done his purpose and decree Has
been made and laid before the foundation of the world and so
it doesn't change Because if you say that you're justified
if you believe or if you're getting eternal life you get eternal
life if you believe then If you don't believe, you won't get
that. But if you've got that to begin with, there ain't no
way it's gonna, see that's, and just for the record, that's why
the predestinarian Baptist, that's why the Baptist in general, the
majority Baptist way back when, that's why they had a split over
this and the Black Rock Address came out and everything is because
the New School Baptist under the influence of William Carey
and under the influence of Andrew Fuller and guys like that, we're
beginning to get this missionary stuff going and that, oh, we
have to reach these people because there's people dying and going
to hell because we're not reaching them. And so we have to make
this wide outreach of missionary efforts to the tribesmen and
all these people over in these countries that are not hearing
the gospel because they're dying and going off into hell because
nobody's come and told them the gospel. Well, that's contrary
to the word of God that says, all that the father gives me
shall come to me. That's contrary to the ones that
says that he shall lose none. That's contrary to the ones that
says that the Holy Spirit will be given to lead them into all
truth. I mean, there's so many scriptures that that would be
contrary to, and that's why the Baptists split back in 17, 1800s. And they went in old school,
new school, and there's been a thousand splits since then,
but that was the main reason why we now have a difference
in the Baptists, like how we believe in the Baptists of, Southern
Baptist and other free will Baptist and all these other, and even
among primitive Baptist, there's some differences in there. But
yeah, they believe that if we don't hurry and get there, then
we're not gonna be able to get the gospel to them and they're
gonna go off into hell and there's gonna be thousands in hell that
could have been saved if we would have got the gospel to them.
See, they believe, At the basis of that, they're saying that
it isn't an eternal salvation, that it is a synergistic, remember
I gave you those words a couple weeks ago? It's a synergistic
salvation. That means that they have to
believe, so basically they believe in gospel regeneration, or they
believe in some sort of belief or faith regeneration. And so,
again, that's contrary to the word of God. Anybody else have
a comment before we take a break? All right, brethren, we'll take
a break. It's 17 after. We'll take about a five or 10
minute break and then we'll come back and we'll look briefly at
the next topic in our salvation.