Justification by Faith
This is part III of an exegetical sermon on Romans 1:16-17 titled, Justification by Faith and looks at the meanings of the words justification, revealed, and faith in how they relate to the gospel. Special attention is paid to Martin Luther’s understanding on this verse. This is a classical Reformed presentation of the doctrine of justification by faith. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on May 22nd, 2005 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.
.
.
The Resolved Church | www.theresolved.com
(619) 393-1990 | contact@theresolved.com
All Rights Reserved © The Resolved Church
Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided you not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.
The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
May 22nd, 2005
“Justification by Faith”
Romans 1:16-17
Introduction
Tonight we come to what is considered by many to be the most important verse in the whole Bible. Romans 3:26 competes a being one of the most important but it very well may be this verse.
If any of you have heard the story of Martin Luther of the 16th century or maybe you’ve seen the movie, “Luther” then this is the text which ignited his sole and set the Reformation in motion.
Martin Luther later said the doctrine here in this verse is the one by which the church stands or falls. I’ll take it one step further and say it’s the doctrine by which you will stand or fall.
Let’s read the text and pray over it.
Okay, to start off our approach to the third week on this two verses let’s rehearse in our minds what we’ve learned so far about the book of Romans leading up to this point.
Romans a book about God, how God is made to look great. How God is glorious and humans are not. How God is glorious in saving humans through Jesus Christ. We’ve been spending few weeks in verses 16-17 of the first chapter. This is the last verse of the introduction where Paul is making his thesis for the entire book. So, the subject of vs.17 is what Paul, the human author, will be arguing for the entire book.
Verse 16 is all about the word “gospel.” So far we have learned this about the gospel…
The Gospel is Jesus. Jesus’ person, Jesus’ work, and Jesus’ message concerning himself. We have learned the Gospel is sufficiently powerful for future salvation. We have learned the gospel is powerful because it can keep believers believing until that salvation. And we have learned the result of the gospel is that we will not be shamed.
Last week we focused on both the universal and particular aspects of the gospel. As the universal gospel is it for all or any who believe. As the particular gospel, it saves particular peoples, like Jews and Gentiles and those within their ethnicities.
We learned that Jews are significant because they point to the fact that ultimately it’s God who does some choosing. God chooses a Jewish messiah and God chooses to save all kinds of people through that messiah. God chooses to bring glory to himself by doing things this way. So we ended last week by saying that ultimately salvation, through and through has to do with God’s sovereign choice or pleasure.
The Question Being Answered
That brings us to verse 17, which begins with “for” (one of those important connective words). Theology is built on the word “for.” So “for” here says to us that what Paul is about to tells us is how believing in the gospel is powerful to salvation.
Paul’s answer here in verse 17 is “justification by faith.” If you wanted to pose this sermon as a question you could say it’s meant to answer the question, “How can believing in the gospel actually save a believer?”
So let us re-read verse 17 (read twice). “For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed by faith for faith as it is written…”
Okay. We’re going to be rigorous. That’s what it means to be exegetical. To rigorously read out the meaning word by word. First we looked at the word “For” now “the righteousness of God.” And right away we have a problem.
This is a puzzling phrase, “the righteousness of God.” It’s puzzling because for the most part we are in large detached from a concern for the righteousness of God. We don’t really care a whole lot of whether or not God looks righteous or not. For most that’s not even on their radar unless they are attacking God or saying he doesn’t exist because bad things happen. But most are not even concerned with how right God is in his being…how deep the fountain of his justice flows from.
This verse was the gateway for Luther into paradise because he understood the hell of the phrase the righteousness of God requires. God’s righteousness is perfection, utter holiness and any departure is an extreme offense and malignment.
Today I believe we as Christians in the last couple decades at least, have so emphasized the love of God (which doesn’t even show up until the 5th chapter of Romans) that we have ended up sacrificing the righteousness of God. At the expense of the righteousness of God we have made up a loving God who no longer cares about his honor and his glory and his holy just and right character.
Now I want us to enter into paradise…that this verse would be a freedom and a joy to us. But I don’t think that can happen unless we have a fear for the righteousness of God.
“Righteousness of God”
So my plan tonight, to be straight with you, is to scare you. Before we can even begin to understand this verse and the astounding claim it makes we MUST understand the righteousness of God. We must know that our souls hang over the pit of hell and we live our lives in the face of a God who is angry. Yes…God is angry with us. We are as Jonathan Edwards said…”sinners in the hands of an angry God” if God is truly a righteous and true God.
Our concern at The Resolved Church is to be God-centered in everything. His glory is our #1 concern. We refuse to shy away from the hell-fire and brimstone truths of Scripture which uphold and honor the glory of God. We believe the more we make of God and the less we make of ourselves the more we will truly be satisfied.
All week I thought about how I might communicate the righteousness of God to you. I thought about explaining how all peoples of the earth have a sense of right and wrong…and that it flows out of God.
But that just seemed so detached. Felt just philosophical. I thought about talking about sin. About defining it and how it is an infraction upon God’s glory offending an infinite being and thus deserving an infinite response. I thought about talking on how sin is a stench in God’s nostrils that he detests and that is gross and heinous. But Paul is going to spend the next two chapters talking about that.
So what have decided to do is turn to a very descriptive passage in Scripture which demonstrates how holy and upright God is and what he requires. So turn to Isaiah chapter 6. The picture of God in Isaiah 6 is one of a perfect and holy, righteous being.
Before we read this I want to say some things about the word “righteousness” then hopefully we will be able to read this passage and see the connection between it and the righteousness of God in Romans.
The word “righteousness” in Romans in reference to God is a term of perfection. The word in the Greek original that we translate as “righteousness” in English is, “dikaiosune.” Dikaiosune is the same thing justice. We just don’t have a word for it English. We don’t have a justiceness. That’s not a word, so instead we say righteousness. It is a term describing the state or character of a person. It is a legal term. The picture is one of a courtroom. One of a judge and a guilty party.
The title of today’s sermon is justification by faith and its concern is justice. What is just or right. How can one be right before God? What we are talking about is a concern of one’s standing. When we say justification what we are saying is righteousification. But that isn’t a word either.
So just get this. Whenever we see the word righteousness of God we should think of standing. Right standing before a right God.
Okay so Isaiah 6. The picture of God. His rightness or holiness or perfection… Let’s read Isaiah 6:1-7. God is righteous. Friends, family…. know God is righteous. And be scared for your soul like Isaiah.
God is righteous and that brings us to Romans 1:17 and why Luther hated it and why if we have a view of God’s righteousness this verse will seem very problematic and very puzzling.
So let me read Romans 1:17 again paraphrased in a wrong way but in the way that Luther first saw it and in the way that we should first see it if we are at all concerned about the righteousness of God. “For in it the righteousness of God is made known to humans so that by doing works of faith and works of faith and works of faith we will live eternally.”
Do you see it? Why martin Luther hated this verse? Because when he read it he understood that God was righteous and requires righteousness and when he read the word faith he read acts of faith. Thus no matter how much faith he acted out there was no peace in his soul because he understood the righteousness of God.
Now I pray that in this moment God would allow us to enter paradise. I want to show you that gate that Luther discovered and the one I pray that my soul would know. Luther beat and beat and beat upon this text. Listen to his own account.
“I had indeed been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was not the cold blood about the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1 [:17], “In it the righteousness of God is revealed,” that had stood in my way. For I hated that word “righteousness of God,” which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they call it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.
Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.
At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. (Martin Luther: Selections, pp. 11-12).”
Look at our verse with me, Romans 1:17. If we understand that the righteousness of God here in Romans as saying that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God, that’s the righteousness of God shown in Isaiah 6…then this verse cannot make any sense because when the righteousness of God is unveiled everybody dies, because like Isaiah and his people, we too are all unclean sinners…so woe (that’s a death curse) woe unto us. But the gospel is about how God saves. So then we ask what righteousness of God is being referred to?
Let’s look at two words in hopes that we might discover it.
By Faith Revealed
Luther says he gave heed to the context. What comes before and what comes after the word “righteousness.” What do you see? He noticed two words, “by faith.” The question is in which way the righteousness of God is revealed? Is it revealed in a way that we see the righteousness of God or is it something else?
Lets look at these two words. When we look at the word “by,” what we are looking at is means. That was last week’s sermon. Salvation is the goal and there is a certain way or means by which God saves. This verse, this week is the “how.” How God actually does it. The answer is by faith.
The English here is frustrating. Luther studied this in the Greek text, the language the New Testament was originally written in, and in fact he translated the whole Greek New Testament into English.
What Luther saw in the Greek is that the word faith and the word believe here are the same Greek word. Believe is the verb. Faith is the noun. “Pistos” and “pisteou.” We just don’t have an English word like faithing.
So faithing or believing becomes the means (remember last week we talked about means and ends). The word “by” indicates means. Or as Jonathan Edwards say the thing “fit” for the communication of God’s righteousness to the believer. The thing which is fitting or fits.
Justification or righteousness by faith is the fitting thing. This is the gospel. That God gives us righteousness! HIS! And he gives it to us. Freely! No work!
This is where this text hits us. Where the words “by faith” hit us (the context Luther referred to).
Because we as a people, as human beings are programmed to do works. But we cannot do any one thing or do enough things to get God’s righteousness. Which is why Isaiah 64:6 says, “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” The gospel as that righteousness is alien to us and God gives it to people despite their hatred of Him and His glory.
Ahh. It is paradise. All that God is. His holiness and perfection becomes our through the gospel. Through Jesus we are made right with God. And it does not just end there…
It would be very easy for us to form a theology at this point that pictures Christianity as this thing in which one believes and they get righteousness and you put it in your back pocket for a rainy day.
But the Bible will not allow us to do that. It won’t let us because of two things more that Paul says here in verse 17.
One, “from faith to faith” and two, “the just/righteous will live by faith.”
Look at the phrase from faith to faith. Now remember verse 16 with me, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation…now put that next to faith to faith. What this tells us is that what happens is that the gospel (Jesus) is powerful to save me because the righteousness of God is not only given by faith but itself gives faith.
The gospel keeps believers believing! From faith to faith to faith. This is the “will live” of the quote from Habakkuk, “the just will live by faith.” It’s the second reason I spoke of. Will live is future. That future salvation of verse 16, unto salvation.
The gospel is the righteousness of God given and lived out by faith today, tomorrow and into glory. The quote from Habakkuk is sort of an extra umph of support.
In Habakkuk, righteousness belongs to the person. The righteous man will live. Thus we understand the righteousness of God in view here is one given to man.
So those are the two reasons why Scripture will not allow considering faith as something that solely occurred in the past. One, faith is for faith. And two, true faith is the one that keep giving one faith so that one may live…and will live and live forever.
Conclusion
I want to conclude tonight in a couple ways. First I want to summarize and then I want to leave you with some charges.
So first a summary. The title of this sermon is “Justification By Faith.” It is the answer to the question: how can believing in the gospel can save a believer?”
Here is the answer of Romans 1:17. Believing in the gospel, in Jesus and his work, saves believers because through that believing God gives his perfect righteousness to unrighteous human beings freely. It is freely, not on the basis of anything humans do. And the righteousness God gives is a righteousness that keeps giving faith. And that continued faith will enable a person to live unto salvation from the justice or righteousness of God whose anger will be unleashed against all unrighteousness.
Now there may be lingering questions…perhaps about the righteousness of God unleashed against those who do not receive his gift of righteousness through faith. Or maybe how Jesus and his work is sufficient grounds for God to give us righteousness.
But that is where we are going. We’ll deal with them in up and coming weeks. Chapters 2-3 are about our unrighteousness and God’s wrath and chapters 4-5 are about Christ righteousness being given to us.
So I will just let Paul explain those things when we get there.
Since faith is the only way we get the righteousness God requires I want to tell you to have it. Simply put faith is a trust or reliance or a confidence or a sufficiency. It’s a charge to believe in the gospel. 2 Timothy 3:16 says God’s word is sufficient for teaching, correcting, rebuking and training in righteousness. So I want to pray that it does it’s work and grants us that which it calls us to.
The gospel is our only hope. To simply believe is sufficient. So accept the truth of God’s word. Feel the weight and the fear and the importance of God’s righteousness. Then apply it to your life. At every turn, every problem, every day live in light of God’s righteousness and that righteousness that given to you.
Believers are justified by faith. So give up on trying to earn righteousness. Our righteous works are as Isaiah says…filthy rags. Put no confidence in your works and quit trying to impress God, you only reap wrath for yourself.
Give up thinking you can be a good Christian. There is no such thing. We stand over the pit of hell and with only the righteousness of God we will be delivered. Let us put all our hope all our faith in the righteousness of God as it is revealed in the gospel of Christ.
Let us rejoice in justification. Love that term with a holy fear. Love Christ and the gospel. May your justification be your food and your delight for everyday. Trust in the righteousness of God alone for everything.
Preach to your sinful soul the gospel the gospel the gospel. Look forward to a salvation. Have faith to live live and live unto a day when we will see God seated on the throne and will not respond with a plead of death but will plead the righteousness of God and live.
Oh let us enter into paradise daily through the righteousness of God. Let’s pray.
