Good morning, friends. Let's pray, shall we? Our great God and Father, we praise You for
this new day and we praise You for such a glorious gospel. Speak to us today through Your Word, we ask,
that we might enjoy the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus and that
we might reformed as that light chases away the darkness of our sin, our doubt, our ignorance. And so transform us and help us to enjoy You
and glorify You. In Jesus' name. Amen. It was the evening of Friday, the 18th of
April, 1521 in the city of Worms, where Martin Luther, a mere monk, was brought before Charles
V, Holy Roman Emperor, Lord of Spain, Burgundy, Austria, southern and northern Italy, The
Netherlands. Now it had started getting dark, so the torches
were lit, and it was packed and stiflingly hot in the room. Luther was told he had been summoned in order
to recant his teachings. And he answered, "I am bound by the Scriptures
I've quoted. My conscience is captive to the Word of God." Until this point his voice had been quite
low and subdued, but it began to rise. And he said, "I cannot and I will not retract
anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen." At that point, Luther seemed to be standing
against the whole world. An official immediately blasted him for his
arrogance in believing that he was the only one to know the truth, and then two soldiers
grabbed him and escorted him from the hall amid cries from those in the hall, "To the
pyre with him!" And the emperor declared, "Luther is an obstinate,
schismatic, and manifest heretic who should therefore be burned." Now Luther escaped within twenty four hours,
but the question is, what had he discovered that made him so unflinching in the face of
being burned alive. And we want to understand that what convictions
were beginning to drive him. I want to back up a moment so you can see
what Luther was brought up with. He was brought up with an understanding of
justification that went back to the theologian Augustine. And Augustine had said, "If you want to understand
justification, you need to turn to the book of Romans." Fine. He said you need to turn to Romans chapter
5 verse 5, where Paul says, "God has poured His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit
He has given us." It's a beautiful truth, but it's not justification. But as Augustine saw it, this is what happens
in justification. God pours His love into our hearts, internally
transforming us, so that I become more and more loving towards God and neighbor, more
and more righteous, more and more just-ified. And on the basis of that internal transformation,
I become more and more inherently worthy of heaven. Now, it sounded lovely when a great theologian
like Augustine said it. But what do you think that does to you if
you really believe that? Well, what clearly happened over the next
few centuries was that Europe became a place increasingly terrified of sudden death and
facing judgment, because as the judges said at the trial of Joan of Arc in 1431. They said, "This woman sins when she says
she's certain of being received into paradise, for on this earthly journey no pilgrim can
know whether they are worthy of glory or of punishment." When John writes, "I write these things, so
that you may know you have eternal life," the judges said, "No pilgrim can know." And that judgment made complete sense within
the logic of the system. If you can only enter heaven because we have,
yes by God's enabling grace, but become personally worthy of heaven, by that line of reasoning,
I can have as much confidence in heaven as I have of my own sinlessness. And therefore walking to his university back
from his parents, the twenty-one-year-old student, Martin Luther in 1505, caught in
that summer thunderstorm, the lightning bolt crashed close to him, and he was physically
smashed to the ground. And as the air was expelled from his lungs
as he hit the ground, the words came out as a scream. And listen closely to what the words are. The words came out, "Saint Anne, help me! I'll become a monk." Terrified of sudden death because he had no
knowledge of Christ's sufficient gracious salvation, he had no assurance of salvation. And here's the thing that is even more terrifying
than that. Notice who he cried to. Martin Luther had never spoken to God in his
life and wouldn't do so for another five years. He didn't dare. And so he prays to St. Anne, the mother of
Mary, thinking, "If I put in a good word with her, she'll put in a good word with Mary,
who'll put in a good word with Jesus, who'll put in a good with the Father." Poor man! Isn't this tragic religiosity? He couldn't even cry out to God because he
had no assurance of how he stood with Him. And he thinks entering a monastery to earn
his salvation is going to help, which is what he did. He became a monk, and for the next ten years
or so he, through his monkery, thought to climb the ladder to heaven. He'd spend up to six hours at a time confessing
his sins and given how structured his monastic life was, if you spend six hours in the confessional,
that means you've missed the next service, which means you need to confess that as well. And so he got quite behind. He deliberately tried to make sure that he
could sleep in freezing cold, wearing rough clothing, doing all he could by how he looked
and talked and behaved to placate God by his behavior. Did he feel better after that? No. He said, "Though I lived as a monk without
reproach, I felt as a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. And I could not believe that God was placated
by my satisfaction. I did not love, I hated God." Because he saw if God is the sort of monstrous
being who forces you to try to earn your salvation, then He's a tough, cruel employer. The sort of God that the more you try to buy
Him off, the further you find yourself from actually fulfilling the law and loving the
Lord your God. The more you try to earn salvation, the less
you can fulfill the law, he found. And he started wrestling with Romans 1:17. This was the verse that annoyed him, especially. Because Romans 1:17 had in it a phrase he
hated. "In the gospel," writes Paul, "the righteousness
of God is revealed." And Luther thought, "Okay, the righteousness
of God. What is that?" The righteousness of God describes how God
is righteous, which is awful news for me because I'm unrighteous. So if God's righteous, that must mean He's
going to judge me because I'm unrighteous. But Paul says that's good news. Now, this is the cruelty of Scripture," he
said. "Even the good news means I will be punished
because God is righteous and I'm not." And then hammering away at the text in his
cell, he wrote, "I began to understand by attention to the context that the righteousness
of God is that by which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith. And here I felt I was altogether born again
and had entered paradise itself through open gates." In that tower experience, Luther discovered
a different God who relates to us in a different way, a God who loves us first before we ever
love Him. He saw the righteousness of God is something
that God shares with us. The righteousness of God is something He shares
with the unrighteous, with failures like you and me. And he then sought to explain that to the
world. But before we get into the nature of that
discovery, I want us to see first of all that Luther's first battle and the first key to
reforming the church was the battle for Scripture, that what Romans and the rest of Scripture
said trumped what the church was teaching. Now when Luther began his protest, Luther
was addressing a church in Rome, get this, that affirmed Scripture's authority and inspiration. So what's the problem? "Scripture is authoritative and inspired,"
they said. What was it then about Luther's method that
was so different and so offensive to the Roman Church? Well, Luther had the audacity to say Scripture
alone is the supreme and inerrant authority. So where popes and councils can go wrong,
Scripture alone does not. Scripture alone is the church's ultimate authority,
sufficient for faith and practice. And so Luther said, "The saints could err
in their writings and the sin in their lives, but the Scriptures cannot err, and that establishes
and outlines the Reformation's theological method in contrast to the Roman Catholic method. The Reformers and their heirs today hold that
Scripture is our chief, supreme, and ultimate authority. And here's the thing, there would be no Reformation
without that doctrine. And you can see this if we contrast Martin
Luther with that belief with Erasmus of Rotterdam, the great humanist scholar who'd produced
the edition of the Greek New Testament that Luther had been reading when he came to his
great discovery. So Erasmus was critical, but why is Erasmus
not counted as the first Reformer? He was the one who made the Greek New Testament
available. He provides the coals for the Reformation. Yes, he did, but Erasmus' possession of the
Scriptures and his very deep study of them changed little for the man because of how
he treated the Scriptures. He buried them under convenient assertions
of vagueness. He gave the Scriptures, or accorded them,
very little practical, let alone governing authority. And therefore for Erasmus, the Bible was just
one voice among many. And so it could be squeezed, tailored, adjusted
to fit his own vision of what Christianity was, which was basically, "Follow Christ. Christ is the example." And to break out of that suffocating scheme
where Scripture simply did not have the authority to change him, it took Luther's attitude that
Scripture is the only sure foundation for belief. The Bible had to be acknowledged as the supreme
authority, allowed to contradict and overrule all other claims. Because if that didn't happen, then Scripture's
message would itself be hijacked if it's not supreme. In other words, a simple reverence for the
Bible, an acknowledgment that Scripture has some authority, would never have been enough
to bring about the Reformation. Without sola Scriptura, the church would remain
trapped by its own teachings. Scripture could not be the liberating, supreme
authority speaking change to the church. That was Luther's first battle. The second was over the content of Scripture
and what it taught about justification. Now when Luther came to explain his discovery,
he'd been in Romans when he'd been discovering it, but actually when he first came to explain
this discovery, it was to an Old Testament text he turned, to Song of Songs, where he
wanted to use an illustration brought from the Song of Songs of the lover and his beloved. He used an illustration to help us understand
the gospel. The story he told went like this: "There was a poor girl, full of shame and
debt. In fact, she was a prostitute. She can never, by her behavior, make herself
the queen. But then one day the king comes out of his
own love and woos her and brings her to his wedding day. And at that wedding moment, she says to him,
'All that I am I give to you. And all that I have, I share with you.' And so, she shares with him all her debts. He's so wealthy, his wealth swallows them
up. And he turns to her and says, 'My darling! All that I am I give to you, and all that
I have I share with you.' And with that, in that moment that poor girl,
in that moment she is the queen. Her status has just changed. It's not that she knows the Queen's English. It's not that she knows how to behave in the
court well yet. She's not learned that, but by status she
is the queen." And so said Luther this is the great marriage
swap, the joyful exchange that the sinner has with Jesus Christ, our great great bridegroom
takes all our sin, all our death, all our judgment upon Himself when we're united to
Him in this marital union, and he drowns all that in His blood. And then He gives to us, clothes us like the
king his queen with all His righteousness, all His wealth, all that is His, the bridegroom
shares with His bride. And so, said Luther, "The sinner can confidently
display her sins in the face of death and hell and say, 'If I've sinned, my Christ who
is mine has not sinned. And all mine is now His, all my sin and all
His, His righteousness is now mine.'" And so the believing sinner, the Christian
like that poor girl who is at the same time a queen by status but not queenly by nature,
so the Christian is at the same time a sinner still in themselves but righteous by status. And this is a doctrine that is so much stronger
than mere forgiveness, so much richer. We give that simple illustration. "What is justification? It's just as if I'd never sinned," which is
half true. And that's what I thought justification was
when I was a young believer, that I thought what happened was Christ gives me a blank
slate. I'm a sinner, He forgives me, but then I sin
again pretty quickly. So is it then that I go in and out of His
favor, and I dirty myself up again with sin, and I need to be re-justified? What I hadn't grasped is that joyful exchange,
that not only do I give Christ my sin; He gives to me all His righteousness. Now, justification is a legal term. It fits into the idea that man stands before
God the judge in a cosmic courtroom. Now, this is how we use the word "justify,"
isn't it? It's not a word we use very often, but let's
imagine. Let's say at the coffee break later, one of
you, you know who you are, causes a scene. And we're going to assume there is a good
reason for this, but it doesn't look like it. And so after you've caused a scene, I come
up to you and say, "Could you justify what you just did there?" What am I asking you to do? I'm not asking you to go back and improve
your behavior, am I? I'm asking you to give an assessment of your
behavior. That is what "to justify" means. Justification is an assessment, a verdict,
a pronouncement. Just as the bridegroom says those words of
promise to his bride and by those words, her status changes. This is what justification is. We are justified when God announces the verdict
that we have a righteous status before Him, and therefore in the Bible the righteous person
is not the person who has no sin, the righteous person is not the one who's done plenty of
good works; the righteous person is the sinner on whom God has pronounced the verdict "righteous." Would you turn with me to Romans chapter 4
to see this? Here are the sort of words no human would
imagine writing left to their own devices. Paul writes, Romans chapter 4 verse 1, "What
then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, well
then he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted
to him as righteousness.' Now to the one who works, his wages aren't
counted as a gift, if you work, they're his due." And here's the verse. That is you need to see it in black and white
in Scripture. It's so incredible to read. "To the one who does not work, but believes
in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." That's incredible language! To the one who does not work, but believes
in the one who, not justifies the one who sorts themselves out, not justifies the one
who's been through some process of internal transformation. No, God who justifies the wicked. This is our God. And this person's faith is counted as righteousness. Verse 6, "Just as David also speaking of the
blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works," and he quotes Psalm 32,
"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered; blessed
is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin." Yes, we look at ourselves, believers, every
day and know there is so much sin inside me, but blessed is the man against whom the Lord
will not count his sin. So the blessed person is not the person who
has no sin. The blessed person is the one whose sins are
not counted against them. It's legal language. It means, to use Luther's shocking phrase,
believers are simul justus et peccator, "simultaneously just, righteous with the righteousness of
Christ and sinners in themselves." And you know, there is no support for the
use of the word "justification" as a process. That misunderstanding arose because of a bad
translation of the Greek New Testament into the Latin that the Roman Church was relying
on. Because there is a perfectly good set of words
that the New Testament could have used, if it wanted, to speak of making us righteous
inherently, rather than God declaring us righteous when we're not in ourselves. This truth, the fact that justification does
not mean an internal change, is now being acknowledged by many Roman Catholic scholars. Luther's jaw would have been on the floor. Listen to this, in the Catholic magazine This
Rock, that refers to Christ. Not Christ, the rock is not Christ, but Peter. Leslie Rumble writes, "Now it is quite true
that Paul made use of a word, which in the Greek language had the technical meaning of
legal acquittal, and if the word can have no other meaning than that, one would scarcely
dispute the interpretation of justification as implying no more than 'to be counted as
righteous' or 'not guilty in the sight of God.' But alas, Luther had not the advantages of
modern scholarship." Ah, modern scholarship! It'll get you where you want to go. "Luther belonged to an age," writes Rumble,
"when it was thought that the real meaning of the New Testament could be best ascertained
by discovering the exact sense of the Greek language in which the books were originally
written." Oh, Luther! But while acknowledging that the meaning of
the words of the New Testament support Luther's understanding, Rumble rejects this saying,
"No, the whole religious outlook takes precedence over the fine print." So religion goes with them, even if the words
of the Bible don't. See again how sola Scriptura needs to be driving
change. Now one of the main charges that was thrown
against this understanding of justification by faith alone was this. The Reformers were asked, "Look, if you say
that people are saved, justified by God's grace alone, by faith alone, why all these
calls to holy living in Scripture? Why are believers going to bother with holy
living? If they know they're going to walk into heaven,
Christians are going to say, 'Let us continue in sin that grace may abound. I like sinning, God likes forgiving. We're all happy.'" And that was what many Roman Catholics wondered
when they heard the Reformers' message. And that criticism works if the gospel I preach
is "Have free heaven by this thing called grace," and it's all free. And if I preach a message that says, "Look,
you can have heaven for free. Just say yes." And everyone's thinking, "Well, I don't want
hell for me. I want heaven for me, so I'll tick the 'Yes,
please heaven' box, because I want good things for me." The mess goes away if the gospel I preach
is, "I have no life to offer you, but Christ alone, and I preach Christ." Because you cannot separate justification
and Christian living. You can't abstract these things from the person
of Christ. You can't pull apart justification and sanctification
because God doesn't have such a thing as justification or righteousness that He can throw out from
heaven, "Here, have a bit of eternal life. Have some righteousness." There is no such thing, rather God the Father
has His Son Jesus Christ, and He gives us Christ, and in Him we have the righteousness
of that perfect bridegroom. And when we are in Him, we will be filled
with His Spirit who will transform us into His image. He gives us His son, Jesus Christ. That is the only gospel we must preach. I do not offer abstract eternal life, abstract
"Have heaven for free." I offer Jesus Christ. In Him, the righteousness of God. In Him, eternal life. And walking in His ways, walking with Him,
you will know freedom and joy and life. But walk away from Him, and you will not know
those things. And that means the charge that we will just
carry on sinning simply doesn't work if preachers offer Christ. I offer no life apart from Him, for there
is none to be had. And Martin Luther put it perfectly. He said, "Through faith in Christ, Christ's
righteousness becomes our righteousness. All that He has becomes ours, or rather, He
Himself becomes ours. For that's what the bride gets from her bridegroom. She gets Him. He's the reward." Justification was the matter of the Reformation. Through justification by grace alone, through
faith alone in Christ, God was glorified as utterly merciful and good, as supremely holy
and compassionate. And therefore, people began to see, "Here's
a God in whom I can find comfort and delight. Here is not One who simply approves those
who've sorted themselves out." And so the glory of God, given who this God
is, became the root of true satisfaction and joy for believers because they'd seen God
revealed for who He is in the gospel. And the glory of God then became their guiding
light and their ultimate goal. Here's how Luther, remember the man who once
said he hated God, this is how he came to speak of God and His glory and love. He said, "The love of God does not find, it
creates that which is pleasing to it. The love of God loves sinners, evil persons,
fools, weaklings. And rather than seeking its own good, the
love of God flows forth and bestows good, and therefore sinners are attractive because
they are loved. They're not loved because they try to make
themselves attractive." Does this matter today, this doctrine of justification? Friends, you will never love God, our churches
will not be filled with believers who lean into the Christian life without this, because
you will never love God unless you know He loves you first. You will never enjoy Him unless you know you
have a security to enjoy Him in. And therefore justification by faith alone,
dear brothers and sisters, is the foundation stone of healthy Christian living, of healthy
Christian living. See, it's not the case you can be in a conference
like this and you can feel there's a sweet gospel for the person next to me who seems
quite sorted, but if you knew the depths of my own depravity and dirtiness, you'd understand
God must be for them, but this gospel cannot reach to me. And if you know any of that, here's Luther's
advice to a friend who was struggling with assurance. Luther wrote, "When the devil throws up your
sins to you and declares you deserve death and hell, we ought to speak like this, 'Devil,
I admit I deserve death and hell. What of it? Does this mean I shall be sentenced to eternal
damnation? By no means! For I know One who's suffered and made satisfaction
in my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
and where He is, there I shall be also. For no sin is greater than the blood of this
Lamb, and we are clothed in Him.'" Justification by faith alone means that we
who are aware that we are a sea of failures, we can approach a most holy God with absolute
honesty about who we are. And at the same time, we can approach Him
with absolute boldness because of Christ and not our own performance, to approach God with
honesty and boldness. Nothing else can give you that. And how about the world? I often hear people say, "Is this not a message
that simply doesn't work today because people don't feel guilty anymore." Right? Everyone thinks they're good inside. "I'm not guilty. I'm not a bad person, therefore I have no
need for forgiveness." So is this a gospel that simply doesn't apply
to our culture anymore? Far from it. It is deep in our blood today, as you see
in every advertisement, that the more attractive we make ourselves, the more we'll be loved. And what Luther found to his delight was with
God it is the other way round. Where yes, all the world says, "Make yourself
more successful, more attractive, better, and then you'll be more loved and accepted." No, God does not love people because they've
sorted themselves out. He loves sinners, failures, and that love
makes them flourish. As Luther put it, "Sinners are attractive
because they are loved; they're not loved because they make themselves attractive." This is still a gospel that our world desperately
needs. Let's pray with boldness now. Father, we praise You for this gospel. We thank You that You should be so merciful
to clothe us who are so consistently sinful, with the very righteousness of Your beautiful
Son. And we pray, would You give us a clarity on
these truths and press into them. And may we see the light of the gospel of
the glory of Jesus scattering the darkness again. In Jesus' strong name we pray it. Amen.
