Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 1:20:31 PM
God has revealed the only way of righteousness in His relationship with Abraham. Genesis 15:6 is quoted 3 times in the New Testament to enforce the origin of the doctrine, to refute the Jewish perversions of a works based righteousness [Romans 9:30-33] and to encourage believers with the truth.
We all are helplessly lost because we like to think our reason makes us arbiters of truth. We do not agree with Jeremiah the prophet that the ‘heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?’ We think we can know truth apart from the revelation of God and apart from a renewed heart.
Paul condemns autonomous reason…’for in the wisdom of God, man through his wisdom did not know God…but when we were dead in sin, God made us alive…for by grace we are saved through faith.’
The doctrine of Justification by Faith sets Biblical Christianity apart from the doctrines of men. Paul did not invent this doctrine…’For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” [Genesis 15:6 quoted in Romans 4:3]
So what does it mean to be justified by faith? What saith the Scriptures?
Romans 4:
‘Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness…’
James 2:
‘Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.’
Galatians 3:
‘Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.’
It is crucial that Christians hold to the apostolic teaching. We are justified by grace through faith and not of works. But the justified man will pursue those things approved of by God because they are the fruits of saving faith. The church rolls are full of names of those who have professed faith, but think and live in a way that denies their profession. There are no good works to testify of their faith. James tells us that their faith is spurious because good works flow from saving faith.
Faith is not nebulous; it has a specific content, that is, what God has revealed as the way of righteousness. When professing Christians hold to different ways of righteousness other than what God has revealed, they reveal a fatally flawed view of the gospel.
They have a less than Biblical understanding of the depth of our depravity and helplessness before God, the depth of our moral guilt as lawbreakers and the holiness of God as One who will by no means clear the guilty. [Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:18]
How does the Holy God forgive sin? The revealed answer is the cross where the Lamb of God was slain in the place of sinners. But more than that…the Lamb gives His perfect righteousness to all those who believe in Him.
As the apostle says the Jew seeks a sign (show us a sign and we will believe) and the Greek is ever in search of wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To the Jew a stumbling block and to the Greek foolishness, but to the called both Jew and Gentile, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation.