RVPC 10/30/16 1 of 12 The Righteousness God Gives (Romans 1:16-17) 1 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, The righteous shall live by faith. There is one doctrine, one biblical teaching that is more than any other the blood-pumping organ in the chest of Christ s church justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Any local church or any denomination that goes into cardiac arrest on that doctrine, however strong and healthy it once may have been, is on its way to the morgue unless it can be resuscitated by a robust, biblical understanding of that doctrine. This is a doctrine in desperate need of recovery. Lifeway Research and Ligonier Ministries recently collaborated on a yearly study called The State of Theology. This study assesses what Americans, generally, and American evangelicals, specifically believe when it comes to matters of the faith. Their findings related to the doctrine of justification are profoundly troubling. 40% of Americans greed that an individual must contribute his or her own effort for personal salvation. And the evangelical response, the response of those who claim to hold to the gospel, wasn t much better. 36% of self-identified evangelicals agreed that our good deeds partly contribute to earning our place in heaven. 36%! Here s what it means setting aside percentages and statistics and thinking about individuals, about hearts and souls who have missed the heart of the gospel there are far too many professing Christians, self-professed gospel believers who live their lives under the assumption that, in some small way, their eternal salvation depends on their faithfulness and obedience to God. The weight of that misunderstanding will crush a person. It s absolutely devastating. 1 All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.
RVPC 10/30/16 2 of 12 There are only two options when that s what you think it takes to get into heaven minimize the standard of holiness revealed in the law, so that you have a shot at obeying enough to measure up, or throw your arms up in misery and despair. The second option, misery and despair, was the route taken by an Augustinian Monk named Martin Luther. This problem of God s perfect holiness over against his own woeful inability to meet that standard infuriated Luther. Luther wrote that before he knew what our text this morning was really talking about, he hated it! He was angry at God. I ve updated his language a little, but here s what he told his students about the misunderstanding he had about the gospel from these verses, specifically Romans 1:17: I was angry with God, and said, As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners eternally lost in Adam are crushed by all sorts of terror by the ten commandments 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. Without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath. A gospel that threatens sinners? That s no gospel at all. Where did Martin Luther get that from Romans 1:17? Let s look at the text and see, as Luther would eventually see himself that, far from threatening us, the gospel as expressed in Romans 1:17 is the only hope for desperate sinners like you and me. And that truth became the heartbeat of the Protestant Reformation. What I want you to see this morning, to understand and rejoice in this morning, is this: Because God gives us the righteousness of Christ by faith alone, we must put no confidence for salvation in our own works. The only hope for sinners is for God to give us righteousness and he has. That righteousness, received by faith, is the only hope for desperate sinners like you and me. We re looking at only two verses this morning, really one in particular, verse 17.
RVPC 10/30/16 3 of 12 This morning we ll be considering three vital gospel truths: I) There is a God-given righteousness, II) This God-given righteousness is the righteousness of Christ, II) This God-given righteousness is received by faith alone. I. There is a God-given righteousness. Look at verse 16. Romans 1:16 really sets up verse 17. Paul says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Here s what he s saying in a nutshell: I won t hold back, I won t back down, I won t apologize for boldly proclaiming this gospel, because it is through this good news that God saves people. Wouldn t that be a great thing to wake up ready to live by every morning? Paul is 100% committed to this good news, to proclaiming this good news, no matter what. But why is the gospel such good news? That s where verse 17 comes in: For in it [in the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, The righteous shall live by faith. Luther, as I mentioned before, hated that verse. Hated it. See, Luther s problem was that he thought it revealed God s own righteousness. He thought that when Paul says the righteousness of God is revealed, it meant the gospel revealed God s own inherent, incomparable holiness, just like God s moral law as summarized in the ten commandments reveals God s righteousness. But that would make the gospel a new law! Luther thinks. A new list of thou shalt and thou shalt nots! Luther thought that the so-called gospel, the so-called good news was simply this: OBEY. If that s the ladder you had to climb, from sinfulness to righteousness, could you make it to the top? Absolutely not. You couldn t possibly climb that ladder. The first rung would break under the weight of your sin!
RVPC 10/30/16 4 of 12 Let me illustrate this another way. I ve adapted this from the early Reformed theologian Peter Martyr. Think about it like this, It s as if you were in debt and owed 1,000 silver dollars, but you were able to pay only 1,000 copper pennies (that s a pile of pennies!). If that s the case, you re still in debt, and you can t be declared absolved from the debt. It s not because there s anything wrong with the silver dollars you re required to pay back, and your copper pennies are still good money. It s because you don t have the silver dollars. So we say that the law is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12). If you could do what it demands, you would live by it, because the law is given to us as life. But since none of us can obey the law to the letter as laid down by God, nor do we, we are not justified by our works. 2 Here s the point - the price you owe is fair. The Law is good, even as a way to salvation. But if it s the only means by which we may be saved, it s bad news. Because it s impossible for sinners to meet its demands. You must pay what you owe, but you can t. If you could perfectly obey the law, you would receive life for your obedience. Perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience for eternal life (Westminster Larger Catechism Q/A 20). That s the deal, that s way to life by law. Leviticus 18:5, Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD. Romans 10:5, Paul says: For concerning the righteousness that is by the Law, Moses writes: "The man who does these things will live by them. Jesus tells the rich young ruler, pressing home the law to him: If you want to enter life, keep the commandments (Matthew 19:17). It s the flip side of what God told Adam in the garden, in essence: the day that you disobey me, you will die. Every human being owes perfect, personal, perpetual obedience to the law. 2 Vermigli, Predestination and Justification, 96.
RVPC 10/30/16 5 of 12 But there s a problem, and I hope you ve already picked up on the dilemma from the illustration your works, good works though they may be, are imperfect, and because they re imperfect, they aren t worth a plug nickel when it comes to paying this price! So for sinners, the law as a way to life, good though it is, fair though it is, is too rich for your wallet. So what do we need, then? If we owe perfect righteousness, but can t possibly pay what we owe, is there any hope? Yes! That s the good news! There is another kind of righteousness made available to you. God-given righteousness. That s what the phrase the righteousness of God means in our text. Look at what Paul says in Romans 5:17, comparing what Adam earned for all mankind versus what Christ earned for his people: For if, because of one man s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. The free gift of righteousness through the one man, Jesus Christ. Which leads us to the second vital gospel truth, II. This God-given righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. We need righteousness, and no matter how good we are, no matter how impressive our religious resume, we just can t reach that standard. If anyone could have reached the standard, it was Paul. But even he knew he couldn t. Turn to the Book of Philippians, chapter 3. Paul is making the case against those who were imposing circumcision on the believers at Philippi, as if they needed this to be acceptable before God. And here s what he says, middle of v.4 and ff.: If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I
RVPC 10/30/16 6 of 12 counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish See, when it came to righteousness that is according to the law, Paul had a Ph.D in law-keeping. But Paul realized that his Ph.D. in law-keeping was really just the other kind of Ph.D. Did you know there s another kind of Ph.D? It s what a dairy farmer told one of my professors not too long ago. He said I have a Ph.D too piled high and deep! We have some farmers here. I know you know what gets piled high and deep on a farm. That s the word our English translations smooth out with the polite word rubbish. Paul was disgusted with his works, they smelled like the piles high and deep steaming and smelling out on the farm in the summer sun! That s all our good works amount to when it comes to our justification. Paul says, For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Not our own righteousness, but the righteousness that comes by faith in Christ. God-given righteousness. This is the gospel, and it s been a long time in the making. Paul opened the letter to the Romans with these words: Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh (Romans 1:1-3)
RVPC 10/30/16 7 of 12 And he goes on. So promised beforehand through his prophets descended from David this is the great promise of Jeremiah 23:5-6! Speaking of Christ, God says through Jeremiah: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: The Lord is our righteousness. A righteous branch from David. The Lord is our righteousness. That s the promised Messiah, and Paul says, that s what the gospel reveals! The righteousness of Christ! You see, the good news is more that Christ s death in our place. That s only half of the good news. We don t just need a forgiven standing before God, we need a righteous standing before God. If we were to stand in God s court and argue our case based on our good works, the gavel would come down with the un-appealable guilty verdict: GUILTY. Instead, we stand in God s court and Christ s righteousness and Christ s sacrifice in our place brings an un-appealable verdict: NOT GUILTY! And we re not just declared innocent, we re actually declared righteous! That s what Paul means in this final statement, a quotation from Habakuk 2:4: as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Or, as it may also be translated, the one who by faith is righteous shall live (if you re reading from the ESV, you can see that translation in a footnote). But translations mean the same thing at their core. It doesn t mean those who are righteous in and of themselves, faithful, perfectly obedient, shall live It means those who are declared righteous shall live by faith or those who by faith are declared righteous shall live. Righteousness, in the sense being used here in Romans 1:17, is set over against condemnation. For example in 2 Corinthians 3:9, condemnation and righteousness are placed in opposition to one another. They are legal declarations. We need to be declared righteous in God s
RVPC 10/30/16 8 of 12 court, and that happens when we receive the righteousness God gives, the righteousness of Christ. On the one hand, it s just-as-if I d never sinned, but so much more, it s just-as-if I d lived the perfect life that Jesus lived. Christ s active obedience, his perfect law-keeping through life and up to the cross, is credited to you and to me. That s good news for sinners like us! J. Gresham Machen, the founder of one of our sister churches, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church wrote in his dying telegraph to a colleague: I m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ STOP No hope without it STOP Every one of us here this morning, Christian or not, needs to get this point. There is absolutely nothing that we can do, of ourselves, to earn God s favor and forgiveness. Trying to earn God s favor by our good works is the most miserable hamster wheel you could ever run on. Have you ever watched a hamster on a hamster wheel? I had hamsters as a kid, and here s the thing they never get anywhere. That s how it is when we try to earn our own righteousness before God. We just can t do it. Roman Catholicism places people on this hamster wheel because it confuses justification and sanctification. The decree of the Council of Trent on justification declares that justification is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man. See what they ve done? They ve lumped our own progressive renewal and growth in godliness into the meaning of justification. What s more, the Council of Trent declared: If any one says that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice ( righteousness ) of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the love which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and is inherent in them; or even that the grace whereby we are justified is only the favor of God; let him be anathema.
RVPC 10/30/16 9 of 12 Anathema. In other words, if anyone says justification is by faith alone in Christ alone apart from works, let him be cut off, excommunicated, and in Scripture, that means to hand someone over to Satan. And that declaration of the Council of Trent nearly 500 years ago cannot be reversed, because Rome believes that Church councils are infallible. Whatever they decree is just as true and irreversible as Scripture. So, to this day, the official teaching of Rome declares that all who believe and will not change their belief in the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith in Christ apart from works is condemned to hell. Many Roman Catholics are either unaware of this, or will deny that this is what it means, but as it s been said, words have meaning. And that is the word that Rome has declared against the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone. Reformed churches, on the other hand, on the basis of Scripture, confess what is taught in Westminster Larger Catechism Question 70, What is justification? Justification is an act of God s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardons all their sins, accepts and accounts their persons righteous in his sight; not for any thing worked in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone. Received by faith alone. That brings us to our final point, a third vital gospel truth, III. This God-given righteousness is received by faith alone. Here we really seal the point that I want to drive home to you this morning. Because God gives us the righteousness of Christ by faith alone, we must put no confidence for salvation in our own works. In other words: BELIEVE.
RVPC 10/30/16 10 of 12 This God-given righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, is received by faith. It s a righteousness from faith, for faith. The righteousness isn t faith itself it s from faith, for faith, or a clearer way to accurately translate this would be by faith, to faith. Faith lays hold of this righteousness offered by God in the gospel, and that righteousness is given to faith. It s by faith, to faith. It s by faith alone. Our confession teaches, Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification (11.2) That faith is never alone, as it also says. It s not a dead faith that does not bear the fruit of good works in our lives. But as it relates to our justification, to the declaration that we are righteous before God, faith alone lays hold of the righteousness that God offers. Faith has nothing in itself, it looks away from me to another, and says Christ is my righteousness. A year before the titanic sank, an employee of the White Star line boldly said, Not even God himself could sink this ship. All of our self-reliance, all of our self-righteousness, all of our boasting that we have no need for grace rips apart when it come against the perfect standard of God s Law. That s the iceberg that sinks the ship we ve been sailing arrogantly on our self-righteousness. At that point, Only God can save that ship. Faith reaches out like a shipwrecked person reaching out with an empty hand to grasp the raft that has come to rescue him, to save his life. The one who by faith is righteous shall live. How does faith lay hold of Christ? The Westminster Confession says that the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace. This truth was Luther s great breakthrough as he studied Romans 1:17, and this truth became the great heartbeat of the Reformation. Far from threatening death, as Luther once thought, he came to realize that the gospel offers life by faith alone. Here s what he said about this breakthrough:
RVPC 10/30/16 11 of 12 I felt that I was completely born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally different face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. When the amazing grace of the gospel dawned on Luther, the Bible, this book that he had studied so carefully for so long became like a book he d never read before - full of good news he d never noticed! IV. Conclusion As we conclude this morning, I want to read you one beautiful example of how this truth led one of the early Church Fathers to praise the Lord. Justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone may have been recovered in the Reformation, but it wasn t invented 499 years ago. Not only is it biblical, it s also been taught throughout the history of the Church sometimes more clearly, sometimes more consistently, but its always been taught. I want to read something from a very old letter called the Letter to Diognetus. We don t know who wrote it, but it was written somewhere around 200 years after Jesus life on earth. The writer asks: what else but His righteousness could have covered our sins? In whom was it possible for us, the lawless and ungodly, to be justified, except in the Son of God alone? O the sweet exchange, O the incomprehensible work of God, O the unexpected blessings, that the sinfulness of many should be hidden in one righteous person, while the righteousness of One should justify many sinners! 200 years after Jesus death for sinners, this writer is praising God for the sweet exchange. Like Isaiah 53:6 says the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Romans 1:17, as we ve seen, teaches us that the Lord has laid on us the righteousness of his Son. Jesus takes my sins and dies in my place, and I receive his righteousness and live because of his finished work. That s the gospel!
RVPC 10/30/16 12 of 12 These precious truths we ve been learning about this morning truly are the old, old story of Jesus love for you, and for me. But at the same time, the good news of justification by faith alone in Christ alone is new news. How can it be the old, old story and at the same time new news? James Buchanan, an old Scottish theologian and preacher put it like this: The Gospel is older than Luther, but to every succeeding generation, it is still new good news from God as fresh now as when it first sprung from the fountain of Inspiration. It was new to ourselves surprising, startling, and affecting us strangely, as if were almost too good to be true when it first shone like a beam of heaven s own light into our dark and troubled spirits, and filled us with a peace which passes all under standing. It will be equally new to our children, and our children s children, when they come to know that they have sins to be forgiven, and souls to be saved; and to the last sinner who is convinced and converted on the earth, it will still be like good news from a far country. Surprising and startling good news from God. News that we need to remember, and boldly proclaim to others who desperately need to hear it. Because God gives us the righteousness of God by faith, we must put no confidence for salvation in our own works.: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, Paul says, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.