Some Thoughts on Justification and Today’s Dilemma

Josh December 24th, 2006

This is something I wrote some time back:

Undone

As I reflect on This Day, I see that it has been a day of a sad realization. Maybe I’m the last one to have picked up on it. Maybe it has always been so clear to everyone but me. Maybe this is nothing new or surprising to anyone else but me. Maybe I’m only now broken over something that should’ve broken me years ago. What was I doing all this time? Today has been a sudden pulling-of-the-rug-out-from-under-me day. I see some things that should’ve been so blatantly obvious to me for some time now.

Welcome to the New Dark Age

There is a need for a new Reformation. We are in a new kind of a Dark Age. Yet, the same misunderstanding which confused people then is that which is being confused now by people now: JUSTIFICATION. I was at my typical job today, performing my typical functions, and having my typical conversations with my typical co-workers. As always, somehow, the conversation developed into one of theology (As typically seems to be the case when I’m around), doctrine, and Scripture. I have co-workers who apparently go to the more “Charismatic” type Evangelical churches. I know that typically these churches hold to, in words anyway, salvation by faith versus by works. Yet, inconsistently so, they also typically believe one can lose his salvation.

Martin Luther, with his zeal to purify and reform the Church of his time, did not realize the magnitude to which his 95 theses would penetrate the lost world. I doubt that many of the Reformers initially had the idea of a concentrated effort to reform the church worldwide. Rather, they began in their own sphere of influence. Jesus said this to His disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). He told them they would be His witness from within to without. Like a pebble piercing the waves of a pool of water, so would the gospel spread outward from within. Of course, in the time of the Reformation, God’s hand would have men strategically placed in diverse areas to reform His Bride, the Church.

We find ourselves in such a position once again. The doctrine of Justification has been muddied and confused. Unlike the time of the Reformers, though, there is not just one centralized mammoth of a beast to confront. Rather, from the Romanist church, to the thousands of so-called evangelical churches spread throughout America and abroad, we have a scattered sort of people deceived into thinking justification is by way of works. The Roman church still holds to her justification via the works of the church, but she, the whore of Babylon, has tweaked the language. Thus, hoping to avoid another “fall out” like that of the Reformation. The newest (although it cannot really be called new for it is still the same old lie which Paul called “another gospel) muddying of the doctrine of justification is found in churches within different denominations. They would claim to hold to Sola Fide (that is, Faith Alone), yet by their teachings on sanctification nullify such a notion. They teach, some knowingly others ignorantly, a system of keeping one’s salvation by their own merit and their own ability and their own works.

Though I’ve heard such mumbling before, the particular conversation cited earlier seemed to give me a swift “slap in the face” back to the reality of the widespread ignorance which pervades our friends, families, and churches. It has forced me to recognize the urgency of snuffing out such damnable lies. Woe is me…For I am not ignorant of God’s truth, but I live amongst a people who are ignorant of it. How long will I let those who know me not hear the truth? Here am I, Lord. Send me. There has been a great disconnect between the true doctrine as preached by Paul, the Apostles, the Reformers, the Puritans, and that pernicious doctrine taught by most today. The misunderstanding is several-fold and too many to be exhausted in one writing: The misunderstanding that simply because one professes Christ he must, then, actually be possessing Christ. This can lead to two different ends: 1) an erroneous belief that there are two kinds of Christians: growing Christian or carnal Christian. 2) that one can gain salvation at one point, but lose it at another. Either/Both are lethal. In some circles there is a teaching that obtaining salvation is one thing, but the filling of the Spirit is the next level of Spiritual Christian maturity. This neither clarifies nor helps one understand the biblical doctrine of justification; in fact, it gravely distorts it!

The belief that one can lose salvation sprouts from a grave misunderstanding of justification. How it is accomplished and to whom it is applied. The Bible teaches that justification was accomplished finally by the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross. Not only that, but His resurrection conquered death for all and everyone who is justified by His death. Leading up to Christ’s death, in order to be the perfect sacrifice, worthy of God’s reception, satisfying God’s requirement, He had to obey the Law in its every facet, negatively and positively. Thus, in doing so, at His death, He fulfilled every aspect of the ceremonial law being the final and ultimate sacrifice for the people whom He’d save. If this was a sacrifice (and it was) then it had a purpose and an intention. It wasn’t merely to make men savable; rather, it was to actually accomplish men’s salvation. Therefore, unless one is a Universalist, he must conclude that there was a particular amount of people for whom Christ died. This doctrine of justification should be foundational for all and any who believe…yet, we find ourselves amongst ignorant people who’ve been relentlessly taught otherwise.

As noted, if one does not grasp the biblical doctrine of justification, then their belief in the security of biblical salvation will wane to insecurity. In fact, to misunderstand biblical justification is tantamount to affirming the “weighing the balance” idea of man’s ultimate standing before God. In other words, when a man stands before God, God will balance his “good” deeds versus his evil deeds. Whichever is heavier wins out. If more good, he gains heaven. If more bad, he slips into hell. This is basically what this particular misunderstanding ultimately leads to. There are multiple more things that would have to be discussed to get into the polemics of this subject. But such is not my intention. My intention is to possibly remind of the urgency which lies before us in proclaiming the true gospel…in words that the common people will understand. They’re so steeped in muddy tradition that the true doctrine of justification is as foreign to them as the meaning of hwydmkeislcxaje is to me!

Just as the gospel was to begin in the Apostles’ backyard and spread to the ends of the earth…just as the Reformers began in their sphere of influence and, by the Sovereign hand of God, worked the reformation outward, it’s time for you an I to begin with those close to us who are ignorant of the foundational doctrine of justification by faith alone. May it be so. Soli Deo Gloria 

 

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