R.C. Sproul: Sola Fide

I was sitting up here trying to estimate how many times I've spoken in my life and ministry over more than 40 years and how I guess in every one of those occasions I've been introduced by somebody and I just want to thank you Chris because that's the most blessed introduction I've ever had because sitting where I was I didn't hear a single word that you said is that right would that be great guys that would not even have to hear these things I don't remember a conference like this one where every single message has lifted our souls and our spirits to the heavenlies and we have been singularly blessed I want to turn your attention now briefly to Paul's letter to the Galatians to the first chapter I'll be reading verses 1 through 10 where Paul writes Paul an apostle not from men nor through man but through jesus christ and god the father who raised him from the dead and all the brethren who were with me to the churches of Galatia grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father to whom be glory for ever and ever amen after those words of greeting Paul immediately turns to an announced of his own apostolic astonishment as he writes I'm Marvel I'm amazed that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel which is not another but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ but even if we were an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached you let him be a curse let him be on a Tama let him be damned because we said before so now I say again if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received let him be anathema for do I now persuade men or God or do I seek to please men for if I still please men I would not be a bond servant of Christ later on in chapter 2 he adds these words when I saw they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel I said to Peter before them all of you being a Jew live in the manner of gentiles and not as the jews why do you compel gentiles to live as jews we who are jews by nature and not sinners of the gentiles knowing that a may is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified let's pray father if there is any part of your truth which you have spoken to us that every fiber of our being rebels against it is that announcement that by the works of the law no flesh should be or shall be justified for we still seek to justify ourselves despising the work of Jesus for our justification we would say to him O God thank you Jesus very much for your death your perfect act of obedience for the power of your resurrection we like your example but thank you very much we can do the rest on our own well God in every hour we are enticed by the siren song around us to have our ship crashed into the shoals that we would abandon our confidence in a justification that is by faith alone and seek to add to it some other added ingredient not only dilutes it but annihilates give us an understanding of justification by faith alone in our minds but even more so in our bloodstream before we ask it in Jesus name Amen it was said of Martin Luther that in his act of nailing the 95 theses to the church door at Vidhan burg written in latin and not for public consumption but to be discussed behind closed door with the Faculty of his colleagues there at the university that unbeknownst to him and without his permission some zealous students took copies of those theses translated them into the vernacular and within two weeks his theses were made known in every village and hamlet in Germany one scholar described it this way that Luther was like a blind man who climbed the tower of the local church the bell tower and as he ascended the ladder and came near to the top he lost his footing and started to fall from this height and he reached out groping in the darkness for anything to take hold of in his hands grasped a rope and when he held on to the Rope a bell rang that was heard around the world in the 16th century the Christian Church saw the greatest sysm and fragmentation in her history and that which divided all of Christendom was not trifles like the role of the Virgin Mary like the infallibility of the Pope or even the authority of the council's and of tradition but the material cause of the Reformation was the gospel and we've been telling you in these past hours that the essence of the gospel is not your personal testimony the essence of the gospel has to do with definite content an objective content that describes the person and the work of Christ but in addition to that objective content of the gospel there is also the critically important question of how the content of the person and work of Jesus is subjectively appropriated to the sinner and so the New Testament declares that we lay hold of Christ that we gain the benefits of his death and his perfect righteousness and the power of his resurrection by faith and by no other means by faith and by faith alone and when Paul writes to the Galatians and expresses his astonishment that these young Christians had moved away from the gospel so quickly it's not that they moved away from their confidence in the perfect life of Jesus is not that they moved away to a heresy that denied his perfect humanity or his deity it was not that they turned aside to a denial of the substitutionary satisfaction view of the atonement it's not because they departed into the heresy that had infected the Corinthian church of denying the truth of the resurrection this other gospel that threatened to bring the Anathem of God upon these people was not a departure for more that Loxy about the person and work of Christ it was a departure from the biblical teaching of how the benefits of the Ministry of Jesus are appropriated to us for some we're saying that it is not by faith alone but it's by faith plus something else and it was that faith plus something else that stirred the soul of Martin Luther and gave him the courage to stand against the whole world to defend it because he knew that what was at stake was not some sterile abstract theological point of doctrine but what was at stake was the gospel itself you've all heard that in the sixteenth century Luther speaking of the doctrine of justification by faith alone said it the doctrine of Sola fidei is the article upon which the church stands or Falls that is when the church embraces this gospel she stands on that solid rock but when she departs from that gospel she falls and great is the fall thereof perhaps it's not as well known that Luther added to this evaluation of the importance of the doctrine of justification these words he said the doctrine of justification by faith alone is not only the article upon which the church stands or Falls or the article upon which used to inter fall or upon which I stand or fall but it is the head and the cornerstone of the gospel Luther said without Sola fidei the church cannot exist for one hour if that gospel is removed or obscured or denied the church doesn't lie there gasping for a breath or is connected to a ventilator that will keep it alive for a day or a week or a month or a century can exist for one hour without the doctrine of justification by faith alone we dwell in darkness and God is not known before I give a brief exposition of the content of this doctrine of justification by faith alone I just want to mention that what I'm saying here is why it's so important Calvin said justification by faith alone is the hinge upon which everything turns early Packer used the metaphor of the Titan Atlas and he said justification by faith alone is like Atlas if atlas shrugs the whole truth of God crashes to the ground is this I / believe is this zeal and the lips of these theologians who overstate the importance of a theological issue that may be in the final analysis was merely a tempest in a teapot I've heard that said by evangelical leaders in the last 15 years that it was a tempest in a teapot much ado about nothing because in the final analysis we all really believe the same thing Luther didn't believe the same thing I don't believe the same thing and Paul certainly didn't believe the same thing and you hear he says it twice if anybody I don't care who it is if anybody if it's Peter if it's Barnabas if it's the Apostle John teaches you any other gospel than that which you have received let him be cursed let me say it again if anybody preaches any other gospel - even if it's an angel from heaven take that angel and kick him in the seat of his ithi real pants let him be damned talk about being politically incorrect you know I was involved in a big controversy of this about 15 years ago it still goes on and because of that I've probably spoken on this doctrine a hundred times since then and I can give the rest of this lecture and lecture in my sleep so if you'll pardon me hon but I had studied this thing about Paul's letter to the Galatians so many times but you know I always stopped reading after the Anathem at first 9 didn't connect it to verse 10 listen to verse 10 do I now persuade men or God do I seek to please men for if I still please men I would not be a bond servant of Christ did you feel the tension of what Paul is saying there do you think Paul loved controversy do you think Paul loved dissension in the church do you think Paul enjoyed theological disputes that tore the churches apart not if you know him at all but it's a certain point he had to ask himself this question Who am I trying to please here what's all the fuss about and he realized if I try to please men on this matter I'm not going to be able to please God because if I'm a man pleaser you know this is the same apostle who said as much as it is in you live at peace with all men but sometimes that peace is the kind of carnal peace that Neville Chamberlain reached at Munich a peace that heals the daughter of Zion slightly when the false prophets cry peace peace when there is no peace and truth is slain in the streets and Paul realize you say that if I'm going to be a man pleaser I can't be a slave of Jesus when I was involved in this controversy and its most heated period so many years ago I'd lost friend after friend after friend ligand administrators had lost over a million dollars in support I was walking through the parking lot of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale I thought about my length on when after the Reformation and after Luther died and people would become discouraged in the midst of the battle my length on would say to his college sing the forty-sixth they all know what he meant the was actually them to sing the song that Luther wrote based on Psalm 46 a mighty fortress is our God and I started thinking about that hymn and in my memory I got to the last verse let Goods and kindred go this mortal life all so those words were penned from the hand of a man who was tortured for his loyalty to one gospel understand what the fuss was about my favourite way of explaining it is to go back through the end of the Middle Ages to go back to the 16th century and see what the dispute of justification was between Luther and the Magisterial reformers and the doctrine taught by the later medieval Roman Catholic community according to Rome justification is accomplished in the first instance Sasser totally that is through the administration of the sacraments through the priesthood in Rome defined the instrumental cause the means by which all of the benefits of Christ's person work are communicated to the individual that instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism Rome then and now teaches that in the sacrament of baptism the grace of justification is infused or poured into the soul of its recipient ex opera apparat oh by the working of the works by the power of the sacrum imparting to the recipient the grace of justification now of course the one who receives that grace of justification must cooperate with it and assent to it according to Trent cooperate at a Centauri cooperate and assent to this infused grace to such an extent that real righteousness objectively in hairs in the soul and when that person does that that person is in a state of justification until or unless that person kills that grace by the commission of mortal sin you've heard the distinction between mortal sin and venial sin mortal sin is defined as mortal sin because it is so heinous that it kills the grace of justification in the soul now note this in the sixth session of the Council of Trent when Rome clarified her position on that she made it abundantly clear that a person can and often does commit mortal sin without losing faith that his faith remains intact but justification is destroyed you have faith in that case without justification because you've lost your justification through mortal sin that's why if you commit mortal sin you have to become justified again and that occurs through what rome defined as the second plank of justification borrowing language from the nautical world the second plank of justification for those who have made shipwreck of their souls when you commit mortal sin you've crashed your ship and you've destroyed it and that ship is your soul but don't despair if you lose your justification through mortal sin you can get it back you don't go back and get baptized again no you go through a different sacrament the Sacrament of Penance and if you look at the history and if you look at the theology front and center of the whole controversy of indulgences the whole controversy of the Treasury of merit the whole controversy over justification focused on Rome's understanding of the nature and efficacy of the Sacrament of Penance and penance has several parts to it it includes the necessity of confession and act of contrition priestly absolution let me stop there for a second I hear Protestant after Protestants say I don't believe in that Roman Catholic stuff because I don't have to confess my sins and who does the priest think he is to hear my confession and then say to me hey absolve oh i absolve you let me tell you what the Reformation wasn't fought over the confession of sins nor was it fought over priestly absolution in our church we have the prayer of confession and the assurance of pardon because I know that Christians who sin when they confess their sin they they want to get some assurance and we've lost something by not being able to put our hands on the head of a repentance Center and saying you are forgiven in the name of Jesus Rome was never so corrupt as to think that the power of forgiveness rested inherently in the authority of the priests when the priest says to absolve oh i absolve you it was shorthand it was tacitly understood he's saying I'm solving you in the name of your Savior Jesus Christ who has given the power of the keys of the kingdom to his church that wasn't the offense it was the next part but before that sinner who has confessed his sins in a broken and contrite heart can be restored to a state of justification that sinner had to do works of satisfaction works of satisfaction which gained for the penitent sinner would Rome defines as meritum de congroo o congruous merit as distinguished from condign merit let's get this distinction condign merit is merit of such a high and pure degree that it really imposes upon a just God the necessity of reward and Ron doesn't say that when you go and to confession and do your works of satisfaction by giving alms or by saying somebody Hail Marys or our fathers that those works of satisfaction don't give you condign merit that impose a moral obligation upon God to forgive you and to restore you to a state of justification no no no no it's congruous merit which is to say that though it's not necessary for God to restore you to a state of justification it is congruous it is fitting for him to do so or to state it another way if God didn't restore you to justification after you performed these works of satisfaction it would be incongruous of him and he would not be doing the fitting thing so even though they labor the point that Congress nerd isn't the same level as condign merit than they will even say even as recently as the Catholic catechism that even that congruous merit depends upon some grace that came before it to even get that Luther says the gospel is like a lightning bolt that destroys condign and congruous merit altogether we come with nothing in our hands clinging to Christ and to Christ alone now let me say this before I go further that many times in this dispute and debate Protestants are guilty of slandering Roman Catholics they say they setup the conflict like this they'll say we believe in justification by faith Rome believes in justification by works we believe in justification by grace they believe in justification by merit we believe in justification by Christ they believe in by the self that is pure slander in her worst hour Rome never ever taught that she is always consistently repudiated pure Pelagianism and if you go to the six council of trent succession the council trenton get to the canons the first three of them rehearse again their repudiation of pure salvation by works without grace now Rome believes that faith is necessary for salvation for justification again Trent defines it in three terms it says that faith is the Initium the fundamental and the Roddick's of justification which is just a fancy way of saying that faith initiates justification it's the foundation fundamental upon which justification is erected it's the Roddick's of the matter it's the very root of justification so Rome does not think that faith is unnecessary or tangential to justification Rome believes it is a necessary condition to be justified for the sinner to have faith so what's the big deal it's not a sufficient condition you have to have faith put you have to have something added to it I spoke about merit a moment ago made the distinction between chondros merit condign merit there's another kind of merit and the Roman scheme of things super a rogatory merit that's the merit that is performed by a very tiny number of people who have ever lived those are the people who have earned merit above and beyond the call of duty people whose works were so righteous so meritorious that they had for themselves a surplus they had more merit than they needed to get into the kingdom of God and so what happens to that surplus merit that is performed by Mary and Joseph and Saint Francis and st. Thomas that super merit is deposited into the Treasury of the saints there's this huge bank account of merit which is administrated by the church which church holds the keys to the kingdom you know this thing came to pass when Tetzel in a corrupt way was going through Saxony and the neighboring communities telling the peasants that every time a Guilder in the kettle rang a soul from purgatory sprang said that you can get your grandparents out of purgatory and into heaven if you give money to the building of st. Peter's Church well Tetzel was a crass salesman he was distorting what the church was saying the church was saying wait a minute we're not going to give you any time off from purgatory just because you throw a dollar into the pot you have to throw it out of a genuine act of almsgiving and a genuine act to do a work of satisfaction you have to give that by faith and when you do that then the church has the authority to draw from the bountiful treasury of merit and apply the surplus of the merits of the holy mother and of Joseph and James and John to those people who were still in purgatory to reduce the amount of time they have to spend there before they can go to heaven in 1510 Luther made a pilgrimage to Rome it was so important he couldn't wait to go because what he wanted to do more anything else when he went the wrong was to go to the Lateran church which had been the Holy See before st. Peters was finished you know you sit up here and you give these messages and you wonder by nobody's looking at you and any of you remember they're all looking at that screen up there I was doing the same thing with you guys even though I was sitting right there at the Lateran Church there in Rome the most of their most precious relic this sacred steps the soccer Escala that had been brought by Crusaders back from Jerusalem allegedly the steps that Jesus climbed in the midst of his trial in the night in which he was betrayed and so the church had decreed that if a person made a pilgrimage to the Lateran church and went up those sacred stairs on their knees on every step reciting on our Father or Hail Mary that when they got to the top of that staircase they would receive so many indulgences going to be applied to their dead relatives and Luther had his crisis when he went up the stairs one by one on his knees he got up at the top he stood up he muttered who knows if it is true does this really work and that's what forced him to go back and study the Word of God again or he found nothing of purgatory nothing of papal indulgences but the gospel of justification by faith alone I went to Rome several years ago and the tour guide wanted to know where do you want to go you want to go see the Vatican II want to go see say Peters words I said no I want to go to the Lateran Church what's that I said I want to see the sacred stairs where Luther had his crisis experience in 1510 so the bus I mean the tour operation was you crazy nobody asked you to go there that's where I want to go so they took us to the latter in church and I wanted to go up those stairs so I could go up the stairs not so much that Jesus walked up but that Luther walked up you know and or kneeled his way up I couldn't get near them I saw this great big announcement in stone next to the stairs that decreed by the church how many indulgences that pilgrimage up the church up the stairs was worth today I hear people say all that well the church didn't believe that stuff anymore I said if you've been there lately have you read the Catechism that reaffirms Trent that reaffirms the Treasury of merits that reaffirms indulgences that reaffirms categorically the reality of purgatory now who goes to / Kotori purgatory is called the place of purging and it's for people who died not in mortal sin if you die in mortal sin you go to hell you don't go to purgatory purgatory is for people who die with any remaining impurity or blemish on their souls see before you can go to heaven you have to have every residual remnant of sin in your life purged away because God will never pronounce you just until righteousness to use the Latin of Prince in harens unless it in here's within you to be justified you have to first be sanctified so you have to maybe spend two million years if you made use of all the relics that were in Vinton burg by the Elector Frederick the wise you got just under two million dollar or two million years worth of relief from purgatory pilgrimage to Rome could get you even more because some folks spend a long time lot of us you know we die we have enough still sin we still stinketh enough as John said that it might take a few million years to get rid of all of those impurities and then at long last we enter into the joy of our salvation when God allows us into heaven that's the Gospel according to Rome for Luther it wasn't good news it was horrible if I have to wait until every blemish on my soul is eradicated I'll never get there eternity is not long enough for me to be in purgatory to get to heaven because it's only in heaven that were glorified what Luther was saying was know the instrument of justification is not baptism it's faith justification is by faith faith is the instrument that links us to Jesus it is the means by which all of the benefits of his life and death and resurrection are given to you and to me faith has no merit of its own faith is not a good work it is simply a grasping of Christ the phrase justification by faith alone is simply shorthand for the idea that justification is by Christ alone you've already had several heard several references to the idea of imputation that concept is so critical to the biblical doctrine of justification that I'll have all lecture God willing tomorrow on that aspect of the biblical doctrine of justification but for now what Luther understood when he understood that the righteousness of God by which that Paul writes in Romans 1 was not that righteousness above by which God Himself is righteous but that righteousness with God makes available freely to all who believe you can't buy it you can't earn it you can't merit it you don't get the benefits by Jesus by faith plus works by grace plus merit by your efforts plus Christ's but the word upon which Rome choked and choked to death was the German word aligned alone it's by faith alone by grace alone by Christ alone anything else is another gospel which is not another gospel there is only one gospel which is the head and foundation of the church without which the church cannot last for a single hour without which you cannot last for the judgment seat of God for a single second here's the good news before righteousness in hairs in me the very second I put my trust in Christ and in Christ alone despair of my works ever adding anything to my justification they add to my significant but to my justification they had nothing the very second I have real faith which is going to be defined further to you all that Christ is all that Christ has accomplished becomes mine at that second and so I am pronounced just right now and all of my sins past or future are remitted they go away they're in remission they're no longer fatal to me the minute I put my trust in Christ my place in heaven is guaranteed every sin Calvin said is mortal in the sense that it deserves death no sin is mortal in the sense that it can destroy the justification that has been accomplished for you by Christ so that when I die I go immediately to heaven because the moment unjustified at that very moment I have peace with God and access into his presence is the Roman view of justification where the true view of but justification beloved I promise you I will sleep in tomorrow morning because I would be with out but the biblical doctrine of justification is the gospel and this Luther who was tormented by the law who said you asked me do I love God sometimes I hate him when he understood the gospel of justification by faith alone as we've already heard he said the doors of paradise swung open and I walked through let me close with this many years ago back in the 80s we had a ten year program among evangelical scholars affirming the inerrancy of the Bible in one prominent seminary that had been historically evangelical and had as part of their doctrinal statement and affirmation of inerrancy and they decided to remove that statement and they asked me as a representative as the president of the International Council and biblical inerrancy to come and address their faculty on this issue and I went by myself I felt like a lion and the den full of Daniels as I had to do battle with this whole faculty was carried out in a congenial way but I wasn't about to compromise and after the meeting was over the Dean of the Faculty of that school who was a longtime friend of mine walked me to my car and he said RC apart from the theological disputes and consideration here why is this so important to you when I looked at him like he was crazy I said you know and I'm not going to tell you his name and I said blank if I like you gave up the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture I'd do it with tears not with glee and the light like you guys do and I said I'll tell you what you take this away from me you take away my life the only place I know that I find truth for sure is in his word every word that proceeds forth from the word of harmonica I said you guys want to have your cake and eat it too you go in there and you make nonsensical statements like this is the errant Word of God what the Word of God that earth what's wrong with you if it is it's not the Word of God and if it's the Word of God it doesn't I know I only mention that to say that was a parallel experience to my life with what Luther was about yeah Pope Leo said when he heard about this he's just a drunken monk who when he's sober he'll get over this Luther seemed the most stripper UNK in the history of the world he wasn't going to back down it goes to the diet of warps and he says unless I'm convinced by evident reason or by Sacred Scripture by having a reason I will not recant for my conscience is held captive by the Word of God and act against conscience is neither right nor safe here I stand I can do no other god help me why would he do that he said because without the gospel of justification by faith alone I can't exist for a single hour we heard a little bit earlier about forgiveness my conversion experience CJ was an overwhelming experience of the forgiveness of my sin don't try to take that away from me I don't have any merit of any kind all my works there's filthy rags and I know that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified take away justification by faith alone you take away Christ and you take away Christ you take away the gospel and Luther said the gospel has to be contended for in every generation and any time it's preached clearly and boldly it produces conflict but people would rather flee than fight and they'll compromise they'll negotiate when you do that you're pleasing men and you're not a bondservant of Christ there's never been a time even since the sixteenth century where it has been more important for Christians to say together here we stand there is no other gospel god help us let's pray Lord we thank you for the good news of the gospel without which we have no hope we have no peace only doom and judgments we thank you that what it's been necessary for us to be reconciled and to enter into heaven has been accomplished for us by Jesus who really saves us thank you for that amen you

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Length: 58min 35sec (3515 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 02 2015