Present Truth Magazine

Justification by Faith and "The Mark of the Beast"

Part 1: Justification by Faith — the Key to Biblical Clarity

Is the Bible clear and easy to understand? Has the proliferation of divisions within the Protestant movement proved that the Reformers were too optimistic in affirming the clarity of the Bible? If it is clear, why are so many professed Christians so incredibly ignorant of the Bible?

When the Reformers contended that the Bible is clear and easy to understand, they did not mean that it is comprehensively clear. Obviously, there are difficulties and mysteries about certain parts of the Bible that may never become clear in this life. Neither did the Reformers close their eyes to the fact that men of scholarship and mental acumen had failed to understand the Bible. But what they did mean was that the Bible is essentially clear when seen in the light of the great Reformation doctrine of justification by faith.

The formal principle of the Reformation (the Bible alone) and the material principle of the Reformation (justification by faith in Christ alone) stand together. If one is lost, so is the other. Said Luther:

If the article of justification is lost, all Christian doctrine is lost at the same time. . . . it alone makes a person a theologian. . . . For with it comes the Holy Spirit, who enlightens the heart by it and keeps it in the true certain understanding so that it is able precisely and plainly to distinguish and judge all other articles of faith, and forcefully to sustain them. - What Luther Says, ed. E. Pass (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959), Vol.2, pp. 702-714, 715-718.

If these statements by Luther are correct—and we believe they are—this means that there is one great reason why the Bible is not clear in today's church. We have lost sight of the truth of justification by faith! Let this central biblical message be restored to its right place, and the Bible will become essentially clear. (Continued)

Imputed Righteousness: The Rock of Offense

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. —Rom. 4:5.
Christianity is absolutely unique in that it proclaims the gospel of the God who justifies the ungodly. Many from within the church have tried to soften the blow of this scripture and to take away its force.

It was the Reformation which revived the Pauline message of God's grace—a grace which accepts the unacceptable. All Christians believe that Christ died for the ungodly. But many will not accept that God justifies—declares righteous at His tribunal—the man who in himself is not righteous but full of all sin.

Of course, this raises the question of the righteousness of God's verdict. After all, did not God instruct the judges of Israel that they should justify only the righteous and condemn the wicked? (Deut. 25:1). How is it that a Judge who is supremely just can justify the ungodly?

Paul's answer is in the doctrine of imputed righteousness. While it is true that the believer is every whit a sinner in himself—and will in this life continue to fall short of God's glory (Rom. 3:23)—God imputes to him the righteousness of Jesus. It is on this basis that God can declare him righteous and treat him as if he were actually righteous.

The Reformers did not hesitate to talk about this "as if" element of the divine jurisprudence. The doctrine of Christ's substitutionary work demands it. (He was treated as if He were a sinner.) The doctrine of imputed righteousness demands it. (The sinner is treated as if he were the One who lived that sinless life and died on the cross.) Listen to how boldly Luther and Calvin affirmed this "as if."

Luther:

Therefore a man can with confidence boast in Christ and say: "Mine are Christ's living, doing, and speaking, his suffering and dying, mine as much as if I had lived, done, spoken, suffered, and died as he did." — Luther's Works , American ed. (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press; St. Louis: Concordia, 1955 - ), Vol.31, p.297.
This is the inevitable confession of a man who believes in substitution and imputation.

Calvin:

For if righteousness consists in the observance of the law, who will deny that Christ merited favor for us when, by taking that burden upon himself, he reconciled us to God as if all had kept the law.— Institutes , Bk. 2, chap. 17, sec. 5.

We define justification as follows: the sinner received into communion with Christ, is reconciled to God by his grace. While cleansed by Christ's blood, he obtains forgiveness of sins, and clothed with Christ's righteousness as if it were his own he stands confident before the heavenly judgment seat. — Ibid ., Bk. 3, chap. 17, sec. 8.

The "as if" is the inevitable result of believing in the gospel of salvation by substitution and imputation.

Rome fought this concept bitterly. She maintained that God could not declare a man to be righteous unless he was personally righteous; otherwise God would appear to be a liar. 7 From that day to this, Roman Catholic scholars—whether Bellarmine, Newman or Hans Kung—will not accept what even Kung caricatures as "a pasted on 'as if' righteousness." The Reformation defenders replied that if Rome were correct, no one could be justified in this life, for no one is sinless or can be called righteous if the verdict has to rest on his own experience.

The justification of the ungodly through the imputed righteousness of Christ does not mean that God's verdict is a fiction which is based on no reality. Before God, Christ's atonement is a reality which is all-sufficient. It does not need to be supplemented by any other reality. God's verdict of justification is not grounded on any reality within the believing sinner. This is the rock of offense on which Rome stumbled. But not only Rome. It is a rock of offense within Protestantism too. There is the continual temptation to base the meritorious ground of God's verdict of justification upon some reality or moral qualtiy within the believer rather than upon the sinless life and atoning death of Christ that is imputed (reckoned) unto the repentant sinner. This really means injecting something of the subjective element of sanctification into justification, which immediately corrupts the doctrines of both justification and sanctification.

(Continued)

(Link to entire special issue: "Christ Our Righteousness" in pdf)