INTRODUCTION (Read Romans 3:19-4:1-5)
The Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals states:
SOLA FIDE (Faith Alone)
We reaffirm that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. In justification Christ's righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God's perfect justice.
We deny that justification rests on any merit to be found in us, or upon the grounds of an infusion of Christ's righteousness in us, or that an institution claiming to be a church that denies or condemns sola fide can be recognized as a legitimate church.
It is a characteristic of sinful men to try work for and earn their salvation. We’ve seen this over and over again in our studies of the Bible and by comparing the Word with the opinions of those in false religions. Addressing this issue in the context of those who thought they could be saved by keeping the Law of Moses, Paul says in Romans 3:20, 27-28, “. . . by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin . . .” and in verse 27-28, “Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.”
Paul also addresses this issue in chapter four as we’ll see later. The idea that a person can earn their salvation by good works and/or law-keeping leads to pride and boasting. Anyone who holds this view shows that they do not understand their unregenerate and depraved nature before the holy God of the universe, especially since they think that they can tip the scale towards righteousness and gain their own acceptance before God. Here’s the 64 million dollar question in Romans 4: Is righteousness obtained through works of law or through faith in Jesus Christ? If righteousness is obtained through works, then (1) justification through works of law would be justification through self-righteousness, an earned salvation, and therefore would make God obligated to save. This would then make salvation based upon an actual righteousness possessed by the person, which is biblically speaking, impossible (Rom. 3:10-11; 6:23). This is the view of Roman Catholicism. (2) The second view is that of justification through Jesus Christ, which is a foreign righteousness being applied to your soul; the righteousness of Christ. This is the biblical view. This righteousness is imputed or credited to our spiritual bank account by faith apart from works of law-keeping. This would therefore make salvation a gift of God’s grace alone. And so, according to the Scriptures, we are not actually righteous, we’re still sinners; however God treats us as if we were actually righteous on the basis of Christ’s righteousness and perfection being imputed to our account and our sin being imputed to Him on the cross. This is what has been called in Reformation theology “the great exchange”.
We’ve seen in Romans 3:21 that “apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets”, meaning that God’s righteousness, although proclaimed clearly in the OT Law and prophets, is not credited through being obedient to the OT law. In Romans 3:22, it is specifically said that the basis of this righteousness that comes from God is through faith in Jesus Christ and that the grounds of this righteousness is the shed blood of Christ on behalf of His people. Rom. 3:24 says that this justification is by His grace and that it is a gift received from God. This clearly shows that it cannot be merited (i.e., “by His grace” cf. Rom. 11:6) and cannot be obtained through works of law. We also see from verse 25 that the ground of our justification is the redemption which is found through Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. And so, Paul in verse 28 says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith [in Christ] apart from works of the Law.” Therefore, in verse 27, boasting is absolutely out of the question. There can be no pride in the matter of salvation because it doesn’t depend upon your race (the people group you originate from) or your efforts (what you have done). In these two verses, God crushes the pride of the works-based religionist. And to conclude his entire argument, Paul says that justification by faith didn’t destroy the Mosaic Law but established it through faith in Christ since He was/is the eschatological fulfillment of that version of God’s Law (Matt. 5:17-18). He says, “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.”
Question 2: What the relationship between law-keeping and saving faith? The law of Christ and faith in Christ are not the problem. The problem is the sinful and unlawful use of law. In Romans 7:12, Paul says of the Old Covenant Mosaic Law, “So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” And so all the commandments of God are holy, righteous, and good. Specifically, the law of Christ is the law that New Covenant believers are obligated to obey, and although people desire to know how to please God through obeying Christ’s commands, some cults believe that they have to obey His law to be justified. This problem is illustrated by Paul in 1 Timothy 1:8 where he speaks of this same type of misuse of law, when the Judaizers tried to teach first-century Christians that they had to keep the Old Covenant Law to be justified, “But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully . . .”. Just as the Judaizers tried to use Old Covenant Law keeping as a means for justification, so some today try to use law as a means for justification. What Paul was saying in 1 Timothy 1:8 was that law is good if you use it in the right manner by understanding the purpose for which it is used; which for us today, is to have a guide to know how to be pleasing to Jesus. The problem is when obedience to the law is used as a means of salvation and justification. This was never the purpose of law. No matter which version of law God’s people have been under, whether Mosaic Law or Christ’s law, the purpose of law has never been to justify. Justification by works of law and justification by faith in Christ are directly opposed to one another. It’s not that law and faith are opposed to one another, but seeking to be justified by works of law is opposed to justification through faith in Christ. Some objected that Paul’s position on being justified by faith would nullify the Mosaic Law. The word “nullify” means “to cause to be useless, to abolish, to destroy, to cause to cease, to put an end to.” Paul’s answer to that is a very strong “May it never be!” (Gk. me genoito) He says instead that faith in Christ “establishes” the Law, meaning, that faith in Christ is the fulfillment of what the Old Testament sacrifices and Levitical law pointed to. Christ is the final sacrifice offered in fulfillment of that Old Covenant sacrificial system and so it is in this way that faith in Him establishes the Mosaic Law. Justification through faith in Jesus establishes, confirms, and validates the fact that the Mosaic Law has been established, validated, and confirmed by the age of faith in which Christ inaugurated through His shed blood on the cross. However, faith in Christ does nullify any idea of salvation through any type of law-keeping. But law-keeping itself is not opposed to faith in Christ since by our faith we joyfully do those things that are pleasing to Christ Jesus. And so what useful function does the New Covenant law of Christ have for us today. Well, in summary, it does three things: (1) it testifies, (2) it condemns, and (3) it commands.
- The law of Christ testifies in that bears witness to salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and broadly speaking, the concept of law of any stripe testifies to the fact that we cannot be saved by what we do but must seek God in faith because we can’t perfectly keep the law that we are under (cf. Rom. 3:21). So, the law bears witness to the fact that salvation is never through works of law but through faith in Christ.
- The law of Christ condemns and convicts in that it bears witness of our need for a Savior. And so, broadly speaking, when God’s people have been compared to His laws they always fall short of His standards of holiness and thus they become transgressors, or breakers of whatever law God has placed over them, whether their conscience (Rom. 2:14-15), the Mosaic Law (Ex. 20), or the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21). This exposure to law exposes their sinfulness and shows forth their need for forgiveness. Historically, the Old Covenant Mosaic Law was designed to be a tutor that led to the age of faith that was inaugurated by Christ in the New Covenant wherein the children of Israel were to be taken out the Old Covenant period of immaturity and brought into the New Covenant fulfillment (cf. Gal. 3:24-25; 4:21-31). So, law testifies of our need for salvation through faith in Christ and it also condemns, meaning it exposes our sinfulness for what it is in light of His holiness.
- Finally, the law of Christ commands. Now, as one who has been made alive and has placed his faith in Christ. I can, by God’s grace and through the power of the Spirit obey Christ’s laws. I don’t do it for justification but for sanctification. I don’t desire to keep Christ’s commands to get saved but because I already am saved. I desire to keep Christ’s commands because I want to grow in Christ-likeness and holiness. Christ’s commands show me how I can be pleasing to Him in the New Covenant era by showing me what sin is, what is morally right and holy. And so, in this sense, by the law of Christ testifying, condemning, and commanding, it shows us (1) that faith not only establishes the Mosaic Law, meaning that the first coming of Christ brought in the age of faith and that the Old Covenant Law is not directly binding upon us as a unified Law code, but more than that, the Law of Christ testifies of our need for salvation through God’s grace alone and through faith in Christ alone. (2) The law of Christ condemns the lost sinner for his sinful actions and shows his need for Christ’s righteousness and convicts the believer for his sinful actions, thereby driving that person toward living a more holy life. (3) The law of Christ commands us in that we are given a guide and standard to know what holy living looks like in the New Covenant era.
When we turn our attention to Romans 4 we see that Paul goes further in his argument on justification by faith by using Abraham as an example of justification by faith apart from works before any codified law was given to men by God. We’ll look now at this passage in light of Roman Catholicism.
TEACHING/APPLICATION
NAU Romans 4:1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS." 4 Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,
Paul shows us from the book of Genesis that the doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works is not new but has always been the way of salvation. And by going to the OT to prove what he has already said, he forces his Judaizing opponents to deal with a critical OT verse (Gen. 15:6) to bring the example of Abraham to his defense. By bringing up Abraham, he is forcing the Jews to listen to his argument. This prevents the Jews from writing him off as someone who has defected from Judaism. The Jews would’ve said, “We have Abraham as our father!” to which he would’ve responded, “If you want to use the OT to make your case that’s fine, but if you’re going to boast about Abraham, then listen to how God justified our forefather Abraham by faith alone!” He says, “Look at what Abraham found. Abraham would testify with me that what I’m saying about justification is right. What I have said, Abraham would say namely, that justification is by faith alone.” And so, he provides a hypothetical argument to the objecting Judaizers in verse two, what is known in logic as a “condition contrary to fact.” It’s a hypothetical argument that is not actually the case. He says in verse 2, “if Abraham was justified by works [which isn’t true, but if it were true, then], he has something to boast about . . . before God”. This was what many of the Jews taught, that Abraham was indeed justified by works, and Paul says that if that was the case [which it’s not], then he has grounds for boasting before God. He is setting up his argument this way:
Major Premise – If a person is justified by works the he has something to boast about before God.
Minor Premise - Abraham is justified by works.
Conclusion – Therefore, Abraham has something to boast about before God.
And so, he constructs this hypothetical argument, namely, that if a man is justified by works then he has something to boast about, Abraham was justified before God, therefore, Abraham has cause for boasting. He sets it up in logical form in verse two to show the foolishness of such an argument and show how much more silly this type of argument is when he says at the end of verse two “but not before God”, meaning that no one can boast before God in anything they do. This should end the argument because no one can boast before God. Every person that understands the character of God, especially a Jew living at that time, through having the revelation of the Old Testament understood the holy character of God through the sacrificial system and all the detailed laws and the meticulous ways they were to approach God in the temple and so forth. They should have understood through these things that because God is infinitely holy and man is infinitely sinful, God’s holy character completely rules out any grounds for boasting. Paul says that that Major Premise is flawed, that a person cannot be justified by works because no one boasts before God and in fact Abraham is the irrefutable proof of this.
And so the substance of Paul’s counterargument is in verse 3, “For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD [not in his own works], AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Now, it is important to pay strict attention to the phrase “For what does the Scripture say?” That is a very important question. Let’s not pass over that. Paul, borne along by the Spirit of God drew the attention of his hearers to his ultimate source of authority by asking “. . . . what does the Scripture say?” This should always be our question. It’s not what a creed, confession, church council, doctrinal statement says about the subject, but “ . . . what does the Scripture say?” This should always be the question when it comes to any doctrinal matter. Notice again that Paul establishes the Law by asking this question (i.e., faith doesn’t nullify the Mosaic Law, it establishes it). Consider for example what Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:15-17, “and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings [the OT Law of God] which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” If a Jew read and understood the OT in Paul’s day then he, like Timothy, would’ve been able to see that the OT works of the Law could not lead to salvation. So, a Jew in Paul’s day should have been able to learn from those Scriptures the wisdom of God that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. We often read verses 16-17 to refer to the NT but we often forget that Paul used that phrase to refer to the OT when writing to Timothy. We don’t have two Bibles, the OT and the New as two separate bibles that teach two separate ways of salvation. Paul knew this and this is why he asked the Romans, “ . . . what does the Scripture say?” Again, we need to always ask ourselves this question in any doctrinal controversy or study and also when dealing with any issue of Christian living. We should ask that question often in our life. When we make decisions, when we seek to discern the will of God for our lives, when we want to know how to be pleasing to Jesus, we need to ask, “What does the Scripture say?” It is the authority, and the final court of appeal for capital “T” truth. And so Paul calls the Scriptures to testify to what he has said.
In Romans 4:3, Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 from the Greek translation of the OT called the Septuagint (LXX). This was the common translation of Paul’s day and it was the translation that would’ve been used by the Roman Christians. Now why is Paul’s quoting of this verse so significant? Why this verse? First, it involves Abraham, and they claimed Abraham as their forefather according to the flesh is the spiritual prototype for all Jews. Genesis 15:6 is the first occurrence of the word “believe” in the OT. This faith/belief, being mentioned the first time in the OT is also so important because it pertains to righteousness being imputed to a believer on the basis of faith alone. Paul realizes that this verse is a highly significant text because it is being applied to Abraham as the spiritual father for all Jews and as their spiritual father he was justified on the basis of faith alone. Thus, this verse alone should settle the entire issue.
We’ve learned already that the source of justification/salvation is grace. Because God, in His grace would justify sinners, we have salvation. We’ve seen the ground of our justification, which is the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross. If there’s no person of Christ and no cross, there’s no ground for justification. Now, Paul says that faith is the instrument of justification. It is through or by means of the instrumentality of faith that we are justified. And so we see the source of justification is grace, the ground of our justification is the person and work of Christ on the cross, and the instrument of justification is faith. So, faith is the instrumental cause, that is, the means by which the change is effected. The instrument by which we are brought into a state of justification before God is faith, “Abraham believed . . .” That’s why we say that we are saved by grace alone (the source), through faith alone (i.e., “through” the instrumentality of faith), in Christ alone (the ground of our justification). And here in verse three, Paul is proclaiming that salvation is through faith alone. Faith is the sole instrument of justification. There is no other instrument. This was the heart of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century. These are weighty matters indeed. However, we live in a postmodern age where my generation no longer believes in transcendent absolute truth like the Reformers nor can much of them concentrate for longer than 30 seconds. And so, they don’t want to delve too deeply into doctrinal matters and theological hair-splitting. They believe that hearing a feel-good message is more important than getting into heated debates over things like justification by faith alone because such things aren’t relevant for us today. But my friends, the truth of Sola Fide was why men and women were burned at the stake. Jon Hus, Wm. Tyndale, and thousands of others were killed because of their basic belief of “. . . what does the Scripture say” about this matter of justification.
The doctrine of sola fide stands in direct opposition to Roman Catholicism. The Reformers were called Protestants because they left the Church of Rome and made a formal protest against her doctrine and her practices, of which both were deemed unbiblical and soul damning by the Reformers. The Church of Rome responded to the Protestant Reformation in the 1550s in what was called The Council of Trent. Trent declared this,
CANON IX.-If any one says, that by faith alone the sinner is justified; in such a way as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to obtain the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.
The word anathema is a Greek word used in the NT to mean that a person is eternally condemned to hell as a heretic for believing this particular doctrine. This is the Catholic Church’s official position on the biblical doctrine of justification! Someone may say, “Well, that was a long time ago, and the Catholic Church now considers Protestants ‘separated brethren’ according to Vatican Council II instead of out and out heretics.” It is true that the modern, updated version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church now calls Protestants “separated brethren” but they contradict themselves because they also still uphold the Council of Trent in that document, which consigns to hell anyone who holds to sola fide! If you’ll look at the modern edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it continues to uphold the canons of the Council of Trent because Trent is canon law and canon law cannot be changed according to Catholic dogma.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of justification is what is known as sacerdotal justification. The word, sacerdotal, means that God’s grace is administered through the sacraments by the priest. And so, justification is accomplished through the sacraments as administered by Roman Catholic priests. They will say that justification comes through the sacraments. Again, this is confirmed by Trent,
If anyone says, that by the sacraments of the New Law, grace is not conferred ex opere operato [lit. “by the outward rite itself”] but that faith alone in divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace, let him be anathema.
In other words, Catholicism officially teaches that if anyone says that justifying grace is not conferred through the sacraments in an ex opere operato manner then you are condemned to hell. So, if you’re saying that it’s by faith alone and doesn’t come through the sacraments or comes apart from the sacraments then you’re an accursed heretic! What does ex opere operato mean? It is a Latin term that means “by the work worked” or “by the outward rite itself.” The Council of Trent believed that the sacrament itself, apart from the person performing the sacrament, confers justifying grace to the recipient. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way, “justification is conferred in baptism, the sacrament of faith.” So, according to the Catholic Church, baptism is the sacrament of faith and justification is given to you by the power worked in the waters of baptism itself. It goes on to say, “It [baptism] conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy.” And so Rome teaches that justification in Christ begins in baptism, as an infant. It does not matter that an infant cannot express faith in Christ, they are justified ex opere operato, by the work of the sacrament itself as that priest administers it to the infant apart from any desire from the infant.
Now some may wonder what Rome believes about faith; is faith necessary for justification/salvation in the Roman Catholic system? Yes, Rome does teach that faith is necessary condition for salvation. However, though they teach that faith is a necessary condition for salvation they also teach that it is not sufficient for salvation. That is, faith alone by itself in the work of Christ is not enough for justification. So, according to Rome, faith is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. To help you think about the difference between a necessary condition versus a sufficient condition, think about a fire. Oxygen is a necessary condition for fire but it is not the sufficient condition to have a fire. To have a fire you have to have oxygen as a fuel as well as other combustible material that will combine with oxygen as well as sufficient heat for combustion. If all that were required were mere oxygen for a fire then the entire world would be in flames. And so, oxygen is necessary to have in order to have a fire, but it is not the sufficient condition for having a fire, other things are necessary. In the same way, Rome does not believe that faith alone is sufficient to justify. It must be present, but faith in the work of Christ alone is not sufficient to confer justification because it must be combined with other things like participation in Rome’s sacraments. So faith is necessary for justification, but it is faith plus something else. In essence, it is indeed faith plus some sort of work.
Some of you may remember that back in the early 90s a controversial document came out called “Evangelicals and Catholics Together”. This document created quite a bit of stir because some evangelicals and Catholics came together to hash out some of their doctrinal differences by trying to create unity for the purpose of fighting common social evils such as abortion and euthanasia. In a portion of this document it was said that “both Roman Catholics and evangelicals affirm that salvation is through faith” and some undiscerning Christians read that and said, “Wow, see Roman Catholics do affirm that salvation is by faith” and of course they do, but not faith alone. Faith must have something else with it to confer justification. They have no problem with saying that salvation is by faith, the problem they have is saying that salvation is by faith alone. According to Rome, before a person can be justified, he has to cooperate with the grace of justification so that he actually attains righteousness. So, to be declared righteous before God a person must actually be righteous. The word that is used by Rome is to say that righteousness must be infused into the believer, through the sacraments as he cooperates with God’s grace making sure that he doesn’t put any obstacles in the way of this infused grace. This shows a distinction between what Rome teaches, namely that righteousness is infused into a person for salvation versus what the Bible teaches, that righteousness is imputed/credited to that person on the basis of faith alone. On Rome’s view, when a baby is baptized, justifying grace is infused into his soul. He’s not actually righteous yet, but as he cooperates with the infusion of righteousness into his soul throughout life and doesn’t put any obstacles in the way, then at that point God declares him righteous because he actually is. What gets in the way of this? Well, according to Catholic theology, there are things called mortal sins that can be obstacles to receiving this justifying grace and these sins are called mortal because they are thought to actually destroy or kill the justifying grace infused into the soul. A person can be baptized yet not be justified because he or she has committed mortal sins that have destroyed the grace that has been infused into their soul through faith in Christ and participation in the sacraments. They are sins like adultery, homosexuality, drunkenness, abortion, etc. According to Rome, mortal sins even kill the grace of justification infused in baptism and if you commit a mortal sin then the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance is necessary to restore the grace of justification. Penance includes confession to a priest, priestly absolution to absolve you of your sins, and works of satisfaction, meaning, that there’s something you have to do in order to gain that grace of justification back. And so, for penance to be complete one would have to perform certain actions that will gain a certain amount of merit before God. Do you see the huge difference between the Catholic doctrine as I’ve explained it versus what we believe the Bible to teach about justification by grace alone through faith alone?
Acts of penance are called acts of satisfaction. What biblical word did we talk about earlier that reminds you of that word? (Ans: Propitiation) Our salvation is through the propitiation of Christ, which is the satisfaction of the wrath of God through Jesus’ shed blood in our behalf. But Rome says that through works of penance, you can do works of satisfaction to propitiate your own sins before God so that you can gain back this grace of justification. So, these acts of penance are meritorious; so as to make it fitting for God to restore a person back again to justification. It is through these acts of penance that one gains the merits of Christ and the dead saints from what Rome calls the treasury of merit. This is where all the excess merit of Christ, Mary the mother of Jesus, and the saints is stored and Catholics here on earth have access to this storehouse of merit in order to obtain the grace of justification. And even then, when one dies without being completely pure, or better, fully justified, one must go to purgatory so that they can then be purged of their remaining impurities before they can go to heaven. It’s clear that Rome does not believe in Sola Fide or that justification is by faith alone. And so, they don’t believe Romans 4:3 and Genesis 15:6 either. This is why we love Catholics. Most Roman Catholics don’t understand what I’ve just expressed. They’ve grown up in the tradition of Catholicism and they enjoy the Mass because for many of them it brings a sense of emotion and joy, but they really don’t understand what I’ve just explained to you about the official beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church and they’ve never examined what Rome teaches about justification in light of the Bible.
But the reason why I take the time to explain these things is because this is about the gospel itself. Justification by faith alone is the heart of the gospel itself. This is not a non-important issue. We don’t just say as Christians, “Why don’t we just try to re-unite with Roman Catholics? We don’t we just try to remove this wall between us?” Folks, the only way that’s going to happen is if Rome repents. Rome must repent of its false gospel, this is the only way that unity can take place. Rome doesn’t really believe Romans 4:3, and according to Scripture (remember: “What does the Scripture say?”), faith alone is the instrumental cause of justification; not baptism. Faith alone is sufficient for salvation, not faith plus something else. Faith is all that is needed for justification, “Abraham BELIEVED God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3). It wasn’t faith plus works, it wasn’t faith plus the sacraments, it wasn’t faith plus anything; Abraham was declared righteous on the basis of his faith alone.
The word “credited” in verse 3 is a very important word. It means “to credit to someone’s account, to reckon.” It is an ancient banking and accounting term. It is also used in verse 4, “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works . .”
NAU Romans 4:8 "BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT."
NAU Romans 4:10-11 How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised; 11 and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them,
NAU Romans 4:22-23 Therefore IT WAS ALSO CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS. 23 Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, 24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
An OT parallel in Psalm 32:2 says, “How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!” This is why the word imputation is so important. To impute means “to lay the responsibility or the blame for something on someone” or it can also mean “to credit to a person something that is not his.” So it means both, negatively, to law the blame at someone’s feet or positively, to credit something to a person something that is not his. And so you see the distinction between the infusion of grace versus the imputation of grace. Infusion says that you receive more and more justifying grace through the sacraments until you actually become righteous whereas imputation is the act of God whereby He legally declares you righteous in His sight because He credits Christ’s righteousness to your account on the basis of faith even though you’re still a sinner. Imputation is the act of God whereby He counts or reckons us righteous by legally transferring the righteousness of Christ to our account. It is an accounting term and a legal term. Genesis 15:6 says, “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” We are not actually righteous, we’re still sinners. But the righteousness of Christ is imputed to our account, therefore God treats us as if we have the very righteousness of Christ! However, Rome says that righteousness is infused over time through the sacraments and through my cooperating with God so as to actually eventually become righteous before Him. In other words, Rome would say that God has to analyze the soul, and once He has found that we are righteous in His sight through the sacraments and purgatory, He then declares what is already true. That is the Roman position of justification.
Luther opposed this at the time of the Reformation and said that the sinner was just and at the same time a sinner. Rome said, “No, you can’t be a sinner and just at the same time. You have to actually become righteous through the infusing of God’s grace through works of penance and satisfaction, and then you are declared righteous.” Luther said, “No, it’s imputed to your account . . . a sinner guilty before Him, and He then credits the righteousness of Christ to your account so that at the same time you are just and righteous. You are just because Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to your account but you are still a sinner.” Paul the apostle teaches this very clearly in Romans 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,” God doesn’t justify the just. He doesn’t say, “O.k., now after doing all these works of penance you are actually just and I’m going to declare it so!” No, God does not justify the just, He does exactly what verse 5 says, He “justifies the ungodly.” 2 Cor. 5:19 says the same thing, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting [same Greek word as Rom. 4:4-5 – logizomai] their trespasses against them . . .” They had trespasses, they were guilty, but God doesn’t count it against them because of Christ’s righteousness being credited to them when they were ungodly sinners committing trespasses against God! So at the same time, they were declared both just yet they were sinners.
The Bible teaches what is called synthetic justification and Rome teaches what is known as analytical justification. Synthetic justification says that God adds to us what we do not actually or inherently possess. God adds to our account or credits to us the very righteousness of Christ and declares us just and holy in His sight, although we are actually still sinners. Analytic justification is what Rome teaches, and it says that when God analyzes the sinner, unless God finds righteousness in the sinner, he cannot be justified. So, before God can justify a sinner, he has to be sanctified; and so this doctrine mixes justification with sanctification. Both are seen as a process in Roman Catholic theology. However, Scripture teaches that we do not have righteousness within ourselves but it is something God adds to our condition as sinners and He says “I am going to impute to your account the righteousness of Christ.” He doesn’t find anything righteous in us. This is what the Scripture teaches. To summarize that, justification is a one-time declarative act, not a process. It’s not received through the sacraments, it’s not something declared over time. No, it is a declarative act of God whereby He declares you righteous on the basis of your faith in Christ. Justification is forensic. Forensic means that it is legal, judicial act. It is a legal declaration of God. He says, “I now declare you righteous in my courtroom on the basis of Christ’s righteousness on your behalf.” Justification involves imputation; which is righteousness imputed or credited to my account apart from any works that I or any other sinful person can do. This is not a righteousness of my own but a righteousness that has been credited to me (Phil. 3:9). Justification is synthetic in that God freely adds to me what I didn’t have, not analytic where He says that I’ve already got it, therefore I’m going to declare it to be so.
This absolutely renders any work for salvation as useless. Paul said, “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,” (Phil. 3:8-9) Works are of no value whatsoever. I keep laboring and belaboring the point because it is our sinful, fallen tendency to want to say that we need to work, we need to do something so that we can boast before God to say “I obtained it myself!” This is the heart of all false religion. That’s why people blow themselves up because they want to do something extraordinary to merit their god’s approval. This is what is at the heart of Roman Catholicism with its treasury of merit, wherein the dead saints have “racked-up” excess merit, of which has gone in this treasury so that we can get it from the dead saints and we plead with them in prayer that it would be used on our behalf. It is our sinful proclivity to always try to merit ourselves so that we can boast before God but brethren, no man can boast before God!
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, turn to Luke 18:9-14 to see where Jesus speaks of everything we just looked at but speaks of it in very simple terms. Jesus tells the religious, self-righteous people of His day, “And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 10 "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. [In other words, I thank you that I’ve not committed mortal sins like those wicked sinners. I’m thankful that I’m actually righteous in Your sight!] 12 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' [I’m glad that I’m righteous by the things that I do!] 13 "But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner! [This tax collector was humble and broken over his sin, not even willing to look up to the sky because he was so ashamed of his sinfulness. He begged God for mercy because he saw that there was nothing he could do to earn righteousness before God, nothing! So, he begged God for mercy! And what was the divine Son of God’s assessment of this tax collector?] ' 14 "I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Who was justified? The one who sought justification through works of the Law or the one who was broken, spiritually destitute, and humbled over his sin and came to Christ in repentant faith begging for mercy? Brothers and sisters, you need to understand this doctrine because this is the gospel. There may be a time when you need to get into detail and explain that there are significant differences between a works-based salvation and the biblical view but ultimately, you need to teach that God reckons a man righteous before Him on the basis of a humble, and repentant faith that says, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame” (1 Pet. 3:14-16).
