Tried With Fire

I. I shall shew what it is to justify a sinner, in general, in the scripture-sense. Justification and sanctification are indeed inseparable. In vain do they pretend to be justified who are not sanctified; and in vain do they fear they are not justified, who are sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, 1 Cor. 6.11. But yet they are distinct benefits, not to be confounded, nor taken for one and the same. Justification is not the making of a person just and righteous, by infusing grace or holiness into him. But it is a discharging him from guilt, and declaring or pronouncing him righteous. So it is a law-term taken from courts of judicature, wherein a person is accused, tried, and after trial absolved. Thus the scripture opposeth it to accusation and condemnation, Rom. 8.33,34. 'Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth: Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, wh...

Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Romans 3:24 As soon as a repenting sinner is justified, remember, he is justified for all his sins. Here stands a guilty man. The moment he believes in Christ, he receives his pardon at once and his sins are no longer his. They are cast into the depths of the sea. They are laid upon the shoulders of Christ and they are gone. The man stands a guiltless man in the sight of God, accepted in the beloved. “What?” you say. “Do you mean that literally?” Yes I do. That is the doctrine of justification by faith. Man ceases to be regarded by divine justice as a guilty being. The moment he believes on Christ, his guilt is all taken away. But I will go a step further. The moment the man believes in Christ, he ceases to be guilty in God’s esteem! And what is more, he becomes righteous, he becomes meritorious—the moment when Christ takes his sins he takes Christ’s righteousness, so that when God looks upon the...

The following excerpt is from B.B. Warfield's Perfectionism. He is critiquing the work of William Boardman who was the author of The Higher Christian Life . According to Warfield, this movement took off where Oberlin perfectionism left off. One common point of all these perfectionist movements is the separation of justification and sanctification chronologically and the separation of Christians into two classes. Christians who are only justified or carnal Christians and Christians who have received the 2nd blessing or 2nd work of grace. Notice the problem here? So little is Mr. Boardman inclined to sink "the second experience" in the first, that his tendency is to exalt it above it. He speaks of it as "the second and deeper work of grace." He declares plainly that "the second is the higher stage, and more difficult too. It is really harder to overcome sin in the heart, than to break way from the world at first. And it is harder to come to the point of trus...

The peace of the true Christian is not a vague, dreamy feeling, without reason and without foundation. He can show cause for it. He builds upon solid ground. He has peace with God, because he is justified. Without justification it is impossible to have real peace. Conscience forbids it. Sin is a mountain between a man and God, and must be taken away. The sense of guilt lies heavy on the heart, and must be removed. Unpardoned sin will murder peace. The true Christian knows all this well. His peace arises from a consciousness of his sins being forgiven, and his guilt being put away. His house is not built on sandy ground. His well is not a broken cistern, which can hold no water. He has peace with God, because he is justified. He is justified, and his sins are forgiven. However many, and however great, they are cleansed away, pardoned, and wiped out. They are blotted out of the book of God’s remembrance. They are sunk into the depths of the sea. They are cast behind God’s back. They are ...

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  Romans 8:4 Pastor Ryan spoke yesterday on Romans 8:1-4.  The whole sermon was great, but this point stuck with me.  From my notes: In verse 2, God has set us free from the law of sin and death, and yet verse 4, implies a responsibility on our part to walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Is Paul making a contradiction between verse 2 between verse 4? No, because this is descriptive not prescriptive . Paul is describing what the believer look...

Our current adult Sunday school class has been on justification. We've looked at the historical Reformed Protestant and Roman Catholic views and have now moved onto the New Perspectives on Paul (NPP). I confess I was fairly ignorant of this modern deviation from the traditional and (what I would consider) biblical doctrine of justification. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around its logic because it seems so contrary to my understanding of what it means to be saved. One might say that this is a strictly academic discussion and beyond the concern of the average believer in the pew. I probably would have thought the same 5-6 years ago, but no longer. The gospel message is too important to assume. Justification by faith alone in Christ alone is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. If we confuse this doctrine, it can lead to eternal consequences not only for ourselves but for those we're trying to reach. If you don't believe me, consider what Paul wrote in G...

I was listening to R.C. Sproul yesterday when he made this startling statement: "In the final analysis, the only way that any person is ever justified before God is by works.  We are saved by works, and we are saved by works alone.  Don't touch that dial..." What did he say?!   Dr. Sproul goes on to explain: "[W]hen I say that we are justified by works and by works alone, what do I mean by it? I mean that the grounds of my justification and the grounds of your justification are the perfect works of Jesus Christ . We're saved by works but t hey are not our own.  That's why we say we're saved by faith, and we're saved by grace, because the works that save us aren't our works, they're Somebody else's works ." At this point, the light bulb went on in my head. In the garden, God entered a covenant with Adam, the representative of the human race, but that relationship was contingent on Adam's obedience which  must be perfect ....