In What Way Are We justified by Faith?

As the Reformers emphasized, the Bible says that the Christian is justified by faith. Luther even credited his conversion to Habakkuk 2:4: "The righteous shall live by his faith" (and quoted in the New Testament, such as Romans 1:7 and Galatians 3:11). That knowledge liberated huge swaths of Europe from bondage to Rome and its doctrine of justification by "faith and..."

But what do we mean by that? Do we believe that a person with faith is necessarily saved? No, we don't. There are all sorts of faith, such as faith in leaders, or faith in science, and even faith in faith. We hear all the time, "You just have to have faith." Rarely is it specified, faith in what? However, that is not what is meant by justifying faith.

Rather, justifying faith is justifying, not because of its presence, but because of its object. What object? Jesus Christ alone: "In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith" (Galatians 3:26). Notice the proposition Paul uses, "through." That is an instrumental reference. Therefore, justification isn't on the basis of faith, but rather applied by means of faith. It is the finished work of Jesus alone that justifies us. We also see the same instrumental implication in Ephesians 2:8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith." Thus we see again Paul's specifying of faith, not as the basis of justification, but rather the means of the application of Christ's saving blood. That is the Reformation principle of justification by Christ alone through faith alone.

The Presbyterian Theologian James Henley Thornwell explained this principle: "In the narrow sense of that which unites us to Christ and makes us actual partakers of redemption, the term 'condition' is, in our judgment, applicable only to faith. It is clear that the ground of all personal interest in the blessings of the covenant is union with Christ. Union with Christ secures justification, adoption, sanctification, and the whole salvation of the Gospel. The condition, and the sole condition, of union with Christ is faith. The man who believes is saved" ("Theology as a Life in Individuals and in the Church").

Humanist Blasphemy Laws and Freedom of Religion in America

There is a widespread belief and assertion that the United States has complete freedom of religion, with no established religion or church. To that end, the First Amendment to the Constitution is often cited: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It is nowhere near as true as people think that it is.

In some countries, there are blasphemy laws, laws that criminalize speech that supposedly attacks the official religion of that nation. A recent case from Pakistan has been widely publicized. We are also seeing the rise of laws forbidding the criticism of Islam in historically-Christian countries, such as Great Britain.

It is true that the United States has no such blasphemy laws. Does that mean that religious speech is protected in America? While we aren't as far down the road as Great Britain, religious freedom is not what it used to be in the United States.

There is an unstated, unofficial, but established religion in the United States, called variously "humanism," "secularism," "materialism." It is protected by the courts, with all competing religious speech and symbols sterilized from the public forum. Since that state religious doesn't have a god, the courts have not considered it a violation of the First Amendment. However, its opposition has been considered such, as crosses have been removed from property paid for with the tax money of Christians. Now, the First Amendment no longer protects Christians from the government, but rather excludes Christians from public life.

My point here is that America, in spite of its public image, certainly has a form of blasphemy laws of its own. They aren't laws that protect religion, or churches, or God Himself, but rather protect the humanist religion which has been quietly imposed on American society, and is now empowered to silence any opposition to its dominance.

The Deity of the Son Asserted Against Oneness Doctrine

Oneness believers claim that the deity of Jesus was the Father in Heaven, while the Son was His humanity on earth, not existing prior to the incarnation. They explicitly deny the deity of the Son. In other words, Jesus is God, but the Son is not. There are some serious biblical problems with that assertion.

Consider the words of Jesus in John 6:62: "Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?" He doesn't say "where I was," which would allow for the Oneness doctrine. Rather, He explicitly states where the Son was before, which excludes the Oneness doctrine. When was this fulfilled? "When He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven'" (Acts 1:9-11). Here, in the literal, physical fulfillment of Jesus's earlier words, the angels identify Him as Jesus. Therefore, simple logic requires us to equate Jesus with the Son, and, if one is God, then both names must refer to deity.

The Creator-Creature Separation and Christ's Mediatorship

When Adam fell into sin, a separation occurred between him and his Creator: "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear" (Isaiah 59:2; see also Habakkuk 1:13). And since that time, every descendant of Adam (excluding Jesus) has experienced that separation. For the believer, a solution was provided: "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5, see also Galatians 3:20). By means of faith, Jesus reunites the redeemed sinner with His offended Heavenly Father: "Therefore He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant" (Hebrews 9:15).

I mentioned "redeemed sinners" on purpose, because that mediatorship is not available to anyone who has not yet received Christ. Until a person has done so, he experiences God only as an offended Judge, separated still because of sin.

However, the Scriptures tell us that the unbeliever is not unaware of his situation. He knows that God exists, that he is accountable to Him, and that he has offended Him (Romans 1:18-22). The unbeliever knows, but suppresses the knowledge, that he faces only eternal judgment, without the help of a mediator, just like the criminal knows that he faces punishment for his crime if he is without a lawyer. "The least transgression contracts guilt, guilt calls for punishment, and this punishment consists in that banishment from God which is attended, in every dependent being, with spiritual death and the unbroken dominion of sin. To be a sinner once, therefore, is to be a sinner forever, unless some agency should be interposed to arrest the natural and ordinary course of justice and law. Hence the office of Mediator must be, not to make repentance efficacious of pardon, but to make repentance possible" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity").

"The Man of Sin" in Preterist Perspective

"Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God."
- II Thessalonians 2:1-4

Let me say up front that this is a difficult passage to interpret. I immediately grant that sincere brethren will disagree with the interpretation that I will give it here. And I am OK with that. I merely present some thoughts as possible, in the hope that it will provoke thought, not conflict.

The passage above is popular among dispensationalists, who equate "the man of lawlessness" (or "man of sin," KJV) with the so-called anti-Christ. I think that equation is unjustified, even apart from my denial of a personal anti-Christ. They do so simply on the presuppositions of their hermeneutic, not because of solid exegesis.

Let's go point by point. "The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." This is not the second coming. Rather, it is the next historical element in the salvation of God's people, His coming in judgment against their enemies, the apostate Jews, by means of the Romans and the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and the sacrificial system in 70AD. "Our being gathered to Him," not in any supposed "Rapture," but in death or at His Second Advent. Paul is addressing an error here, in which some people were claiming that the resurrection and return of Jesus had already occurred, and the people to whom Paul wrote were left behind (pun intended). In other words, they had their own version of the full-preterist heresy, and Paul felt compelled to refute it. "For that will not come," Paul assures them (and us), "unless the rebellion comes first." What rebellion? While this is often explained as a general apostasy among professing Christians, there is no biblical support for such a thing. Can Jesus fail to keep His people (see Jude 1:24-25)? Rather, this is a rebellion, an apostasy, of the general population of Jews, which began with their rejection and murder of Jesus, and continued in their persecution, and even murder, of the Christians among them. God would judge them for that apostasy, removing their legal protections in the Empire, and bringing down the wrath of Rome upon their heads.

Therefore, it was Judaism that would be removed, allowing the revelation of the man of lawlessness. Under Roman law, the Jews had had certain legal privileges, privileges that extended to Christians, as long as they were considered a sect within Judaism. However, with the reversal of those privileges, the Christians no longer had that protective covering, and were thus exposed to the persecuting power of the Roman emperors, who were, successively, the Man of Lawlessness.

There Can Be No Salvation Which Does Not Result in Good Works

Both Catholics and Mormons caricature the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone as meaning that works don't matter, so that a person can consider himself saved, no matter what profligacy he exhibits in his life. According to their understanding of salvation, assurance of eternal life must remain a carrot hanging on a stick, never received in this life, but rather only spurring a person on in an effort to achieve salvation at death. What a horror!

First, let's note that their attack isn't just on biblical Protestants, but rather on the Scriptures themselves. In them, the believer receives this assurance: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life" (I John 5:13). Not "might have eternal life," or "that you may hope." The Apostle John explicitly states that the true believer can have that assurance in this life.

However, more-generally speaking, can we not see an aspersion cast on the Holy Spirit in these accusations? What does it say about the attitude of these Mormons and Catholics toward the Holy Spirit, if He can reside in a person whose life is given over to wickedness? Is it that the Holy Spirit is wicked? Or is He merely impotent in His influence? Either way, I think such aspersion must cast doubt on the salvation, not of Protestants, but rather of these Mormon and Catholic accusers.

The true Protestant view is stated well by Presbyterian theologian James Henley Thornwell: "It is precisely because faith is the exercise of a renewed soul that it is incompetent to those who cherish the love of sin; true faith includes in it the renunciation of the flesh as well as the reception of the Savior. The very purpose for which it receives Christ is that it may be freed as well from the dominion as from the guilt of sin. Salvation, the blessing to be obtained, means nothing, unless it includes holiness" ("Theology as a Life in Individuals and in the Church").

Reprobation Across the Scriptures: Moses to Jesus

In a brief pericope, Jesus says something shocking: "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:33-37). The shocking thing is to see the Lord Jesus calling people "brood of vipers," not at all the kind of language which we would expect from the effeminate Jesus of popular Christianity. The same phrase is used for the same people by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:7, and a second time by Jesus in Matthew 23:33. 
 

John the Baptist Preaches

When certain words are repeated by two different biblical figures, especially when one is Jesus, and in different circumstances, it should be taken as an indication that they have special significance. What might it be here?

I think the key is the very first declaration of the Gospel in the Bible (Genesis 3:15): "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." While lacking the clarity that would come with later revelation, we see the distinction between the elect, "the seed of the woman," and the reprobate, "the seed of the serpent." 

Look at that second phrase. Do you see the parallel? Are not "brood of vipers" and "seed of the serpent" equivalent? I think that they are. 

Jesus is demonstrating His omniscience in declaring some of those around Him to be reprobates, to be destined from prehistory to follow Satan, and to be under the judgment of God (compare I Peter 2:8). John the Baptist was not omniscient, of course, but appears to have received special insight to recognize the same thing. They both borrow an image from Moses to address a similar spiritual situation, in which wicked people are demonstrating to which division of humanity they belong.

God the Son, Our Savior Upon His Throne

Oneness Pentecostals claim that the Son of God began with the incarnation in the womb of Mary. They distinguish the Son from Jesus, whom they say was the Father before the incarnation. In other words, Jesus is God, but the Son is not. I don't claim to understand that.

However, such a doctrine ignores too much of the Old Testament, in which we see the interaction between the Father and Son in preparation for the incarnation and redemptive work of the Son. The most explicit is Psalm 45:6: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness." The value of this verse is that it is quoted in Hebrews 1:8 with this introduction: "But about the Son He says..." Thus we have inspired commentary telling us that Psalm 45:6 is the Father's comment to the Son, whom He addresses as "God." Oneness claim that it is a prophecy, not an actual address, but they provide no exegetical grounds for that assertion. The assertion is mere circular reasoning, required by their presupposed doctrine. It is not the result of any consideration within the text.

The problem with the Oneness doctrine is that it makes the Son of God just an idea in the Father's mind  in eternity. He wasn't a real person, until He was created in the womb of Mary. Thus, their doctrine boils down to the same doctrine as that of the Arians, that the Christ who walked among men was really just a created creature, not fully God in Himself, as orthodox Christians have always claimed. And that equivalency is actually entertaining, considering the contempt that Oneness express for Arians, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses.

However, they are both wrong. "Christ is a real savior, and not an instrument by which the sinner is enabled to gratify his pride. The Holy Ghost is a real sanctifier, and not an influence by which the energies of men are stimulated, and their better impulses roused into action. The Persons of the glorious Trinity have entered into a real covenant to redeem a Church from the lost multitude of the race, and are not the authors of paltry expedients or abortive efforts to coax men into what they find it impossible directly to effect" (James Henley Thornwell, "Theology as a Life in Individuals and the Church").

The Connection Between Abortionism and Anti-Paedobaptism

The Bible says a lot of things about babies, both before and after birth. For example, they are creations of God (Psalm 139:13), and they are sinners (Psalm 51:5, Psalm 58:3), but they can also be regenerate (Luke 1:15). For the children of believers, we have the additional awareness that our children belong to God, not ourselves (Ezekiel 16:20, I Corinthians 7:14). Our children are very important to God.

Yet, in the face of these biblical truths, we have two egregious offenses against children in today's American society: the refusal to baptize the children of believers and the genocide of unborn children called euphemistically "abortion." (By mentioning them together, I do not mean to imply that they are at all morally equivalent.)

Both arise from an attitude of dismissal toward children as a gift from God (Psalm 127:3). Both as a church and as a society, we despise these gifts from God, and fail in our responsibility for them.