Bible Class in Minneapolis 29.11.2017

Let's begin this Bible class this evening by joining all together and saying the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

So as we've heard this year and this fall especially, we're commemorating the 500th year of the Reformation, and we've been having a series of lessons on Luther and various central teachings of Luther. This is a series of four lessons, and this is the last of the series. The first one was a general overview of the life of Luther. Then it was Lutheran sola scriptura, or scripture alone. Then it was Lutheran general priesthood. And now this is the last one: Lutheran sola fide, or alone by faith.

LLC has produced videos that could be used for Bible class, but since I've been studying Luther for many years, and it's one of my favorite topics, I figure I prefer to do my own. Helps me to dig in a little bit more and use what I've learned. So, sorry for not showing the video, but bear with me with my own personal lesson.

So Lutheran sola fide. So it's also known as justification for the law of the world. Justification by faith or righteous. We would say often righteousness by faith. Actually, justification by faith alone is merely just a shorthand for a longer sentence: justification by the righteousness of Christ alone.

So when studying Luther and the Reformation, you often come across these solas. Sola is the Latin word for alone. And depending on the sources, there's up to five different solas. Sometimes there's less, but you see up to five of them.

So starting from the top on the left: scripture alone, sola scriptura; Christ alone, solus Christus; grace alone, sola gratia; faith alone, sola fide, which is our topic this evening; and then glory alone goes to God, which is soli Deo gloria.

So often you hear the phrase said in sermons, and it's not just the word. It's the word that's said in sermons: Our salvation is alone by grace, alone by faith, alone through the merits of Christ Jesus. So that is three of the solas: sola Christus, sola fide, and sola gratia.

Well, this slide that I pulled from another presentation only has four of the five. The one of glory alone, the one that goes to God, is the one that is missing.

So the principles of the Reformation, and this one says sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia, and sola Christus. So looking at three of them: first one sola scriptura, which is the content or sometimes called the form, or formless. Okay. We'll look at that in the following slide. And it's the authority of the Bible. The Bible has the authority over the Pope, over the Church, and over tradition. So authority is only in the Bible, not in the Pope or not in the Church. And you'll see on the following slide also tradition.

Sola gratia, or alone by grace, is the means of salvation. So how are we saved? It is a gift. Grace means something that you receive that you haven't earned. You haven't done anything for it. It's a sheer gift. So it's a gift from God. It's not from any human effort that we have done or any human being has done in order to try to please God.

And then the last one, which is the topic of this evening, is sola fide. And salvation from sin and perdition comes by faith alone, not through or by any human works.

So this was such a startling concept to the Catholic Church, that basically Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. And in church councils of the Catholic Church, they still debated and argued this issue decades and centuries later. And even in some of the ecumenical councils, even up into the last few decades, they have still been grinding their teeth over this concept. It's a pill that they cannot swallow, even yet today.

So it's a watershed, but it's also a kingpin or a cornerstone of our faith.

So when we look at the Reformation, we can look at it as two principles: the form principle, and then the content principle.

So in an earlier sermon about a month ago, actually on Reformation Day, I mentioned this in my sermon, and I said it's compared to like a, the form is like the picture frame. It gives the context of the situation, the frame, which is called the form. Well, you'll see another illustration here shortly. But then the material principle is the content within the picture frame, that picture itself.

And so form or formal principle, and then material principle. If you do any research on the Reformation and on Luther and his theology, you come across this time and time and time again. So it's very standard and commonplace. It's very standard and commonplace terminology.

So formal cause. So if a person were planning an addition or renovation at our place, first of all, what you do is you contact an architect to come up with blueprints for what you want to build. Or an artist, he wants to make a sculpture. He has this idea, the blueprint, the design idea in his head.

So the formal cause is the design, the idea, the blueprint. So the sculpture's idea or the pattern. So, as I said, that's like the picture frame.

Then we have the material cause or the material principle, which is the substance itself. And that's the material out of which something is then made. Thinking of an artist, he needs to get stone to actually begin to chisel that stone to make it into some sort of sculpture.

So first of all, blueprint, and then the actual material for making the final product. Sounds very philosophical and esoteric. But bear with me, that's very common terminology in Reformation studies and Reformation theology.

So what does this mean for theology of Martin Luther? Well, the formal cause are issues regarding authority, the authority of the Bible, sola scriptura. So that's the picture frame. That's the structure. That's the framework within which our faith is based.

Then the material, what's the content? What's the actual picture? It is the issues regarding justification.

Well, look at this word. What does justification mean? Because it's a very important word. And the Latin word is sola fide, alone by faith.

So a couple more slides before we start getting into the material. So the material, what's the content? We start getting into the actual meat of the presentation.

So here's just another slide illustrating what sola fide means. Only faith is needed for justification.

So a very big word, justification. We will splice it and dice it. And hopefully by the end of this presentation, we'll have a very good understanding and concept of what this word means.

In fact, some of the Bible translators, when they're making new Bible translations, they want to get rid of this word justification. They said it's such a difficult, unfamiliar word that nobody knows what it means. Well, let's use a more secular word. But this is a very, very important word.

So good works are not needed for justification. The Catholics say that we are saved by faith plus works. Those two together. There's got to be some human effort in there. Equals salvation.

Well, Luther says in Lutheran theology, well, it's not only Lutheran theology, but it's based on the Bible, we are saved alone by faith. No works of whatever kind are needed or can be used in order to become acceptable.

Sorry, if there's any works involved, it's wrong doctrine. Pure and simple. Alone. Sola fide. Alone by faith. Alone by grace. Sola gratia. Solus Christus. Alone by the merits of Christ Jesus. Alone, alone, alone.

If you remember anything from this presentation, it's alone only. So I can't impress it enough.

So we are saved by faith alone in Christ Jesus. It's through his person and his work. Nothing more, nothing less.

And then he is quoted from Acts chapter 4 verse 12. In his name is there only salvation. In no other name.

So in the name and in the works and in the merits of Christ Jesus alone is there salvation.

So just quickly about sola scriptura before we move on into our presentation. So the authority of the Bible. Sola scriptura. The Bible alone is our authority and not councils or leaders of the church. The Bible is above tradition. The Bible is above everything. The Bible is here and everything else is below.

Okay, we are just going to look basically right now at the far left box here. And we are going to look at some quotes by Luther and the importance he puts on this concept: sola fide or justification by faith or righteousness by faith.

And he called it the doctrine of justification, the belief that determines whether the church stands or whether it falls.

If this doctrinal point is in place, correct and pure, the church will stand. If this doctrinal point is impure, the church will fall. It is so important. It is so important.

So, and Luther said this in many forms and fashions time and time and time and time and time again. There are oodles of quotes we can find on it.

So here, let's look at a few quotes what Luther says.

If this article or doctrinal point remains pure on the battlefield, the Christian church also remains pure and in good harmony. And it will be without any sects or divisions or heresies.

But if it does not remain pure, it is not possible that any error or fanatical spirit, or wrong teachings can be resisted or fended off.

And this is from one of the Lutheran confessional writings called the Formula of Concord.

So that wasn't actually written by Luther, but it was written by one of his colleagues around the time of his death or soon after his death.

So that wasn't exact words of Luther, but let's find some exact words of Luther.

So if we lose the doctrine of justification, or righteousness by faith, or sola fide, we lose everything.

So everything basically is included in this doctrine, in this doctrinal point.

Hence, it is the most necessary and important thing that we teach and repeat, and repeat this doctrine daily.

So we're dealing with no light material here. It's very important.

The doctrine of justification must be learned diligently, for in it are included all other doctrines.

This one doctrinal point includes all the other doctrines basically summarized in the Bible.

For in it are included all other doctrines of our faith.

If this doctrine is sound, all the other doctrines will be sound as well.

Therefore, when we teach that men are justified through Christ, and that Christ is our victor over sin, death and the eternal condemnation, we are testifying at the same time that He, Christ, is God by nature.

And then, going on. Again, I could go on, but I'm just going to read a sampling. I got oodles of them, but here's another one.

Of this article, nothing can be yielded or conceded, even though heaven or earth or anything else would fall to ruin. Let them fall to ruin, but don't let this point of doctrine be corrupted or tainted or marred or changed.

I'm ad-libbing here at the end. Again, small called articles written by Luther.

And on this article, all that we teach and practice is based. Everything we teach and everything that we preach and everything that our faith life is based on is founded on the truth.

And so, I'm going to read this one. This doctrine of justification by faith.

So, everything is based upon this doctrine of justification. That is why we must be very certain of this doctrine and not doubt. Otherwise, everything is lost.

Okay. A very complicated word. A very religious word. A word that many people nowadays would rather not try to deal with because it's so old-fashioned or uncommon in today's vernacular, but an important word.

Righteousness.

So, there's various forms and uses of this word. There's the word righteous. Coming from this word righteous is righteousness. And to make one righteous is to a person becomes justified. That's where we get justification.

We talk about justification by faith or we talk about righteousness of faith. We use these interchangeably.

So, these are the number of times that it's used just in the letter to Romans. The word righteous is used seven times. And the Greek word is dikaios. The word righteousness. The word righteous is used 33 times. And the word justified, the verb, is used 15 times.

So, Luther, he was a scholar of the Bible. And after receiving his doctorate in theology, he came to Wittenberg and began to lecture on the Bible at Wittenberg University. And had a series of lessons or lectures on various books of the Bible.

But it was probably 15 or so, he began to study and research and lecture on the Psalms. And this word righteous and righteousness came up time and time again.

And he was so afraid of this word that he almost quit his lecturing and his research and his preaching. He felt like just basically closing the Bible.

Because, as we'll look at this next slide, God is righteous. And if we look at that arrow, a curved arrow, human beings are the opposite of righteous, which is unrighteous.

So, God is righteous. He is perfect. He is blameless. He is holy.

And as a righteous God, and the word righteous, righteousness comes from the word right or correct. Everything God does is correct. There's no error whatsoever in anything that God does. He's perfect.

But because he's a righteous God, he also demands of every one of us: In order to get to heaven, we must be righteous as well. In other words, we must be perfect.

We could take a poll. Who is perfect? Hopefully no hands go up. Because no one is perfect. We'll look at this shortly.

So, he felt like closing the Bible and quitting his lecturing and quitting his research. And he was just frightful, afraid of that word righteousness.

But then it dawned on him, and especially when he was reading the Romans, a letter to the Romans, chapter one, that just, for those who are justified, shall live by faith. Aha! A light bulb went off.

This justification, this material, this substance that can make a person acceptable to God, cannot be found from? There's not found one cell in our bodies that would be pleasing unto God, that we could as if offer as some sort of gift, as taking up one step toward God, and God takes 95 steps toward us. That one step nullifies everything.

You can't take any, I'm using that as any sort of human effort, as an illustration.

So, no, no human effort whatsoever is pleasing unto God.

If we're trying to base our salvation on heaven upon it. Absolutely nothing.

This applies to the world as defined in chapter three, chapter two.

So, resulting from man's sin, he realized, Aha! There's something that's out there which is pleasing to God, and all we have to do is be able to reach out and grab it and bring it somehow into ourselves.

And that is what will make us acceptable to God.

So, this is just a shortened version of what I'm going to read, but here he says, and this is right at the end of his life, one of the last writings that Luther wrote. He's looking back at his life and all he had researched and all he had studied and kind of like his last will and testament.

He says, I saw the connection between the justice of God, so God is just, he is demanding, he is holy, and he demands perfection from him. Anyone who wants to get to heaven.

So, I now begin to see this connection between the justice of God and the statement that the just shall live by faith. Aha.

Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which, through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith.

Thereupon, I felt myself to be reborn.

Well, he wasn't reborn in this aha moment, but it turned on a light bulb to him.

I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through the open doors into paradise.

Now the entire scriptures took on a new meaning, whereas before the justice of God had filled me with hate.

And now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in great love.

This passage of Paul became to me as if the gate and the door to heaven.

So, before I go on, I've got a little quote I want to read here.

We've often recalled about the 1970s and 1980s here in America, and sometimes we're told that let's not go back there, let's not recall those years, and so on and so forth.

But the only reason why I'm saying this is there was a statement in the SRT yearbook in the year 2000.

And there was an emphasis in the late 1970s, right at the culmination, at the end of that period of difficult times in Finland, that they thought that we need to emphasize and stress the importance of righteousness by faith.

And so at the speaker's meeting in 1978 in Finland, in Gajani, Erikki Varma was asked to write a presentation entitled Righteousness by Faith.

And so this presentation then was republished in the yearbook, as I mentioned, in the year 2000.

And now Voitto Savola, some of you may know his name, some may not, but he's passed away, died of cancer some years ago.

But he wrote a little preface before that introduction in the yearbook.

And he's trying to frame it and why this topic was so important at that time.

So Voitto Savola wrote a little introduction to that introduction in explaining the importance of that topic.

So this was at the end of the 1970s in Finland.

And he says, During that year and those years, the entire decade of the 1970s, numerous caretaking meetings had been held in the various congregations.

And there were many serious errors associated with the central matters of faith and faith life that had become apparent.

And Voitto Savola says that the concept, or the understanding of this righteousness of faith, had become almost as if lost or completely dim and foggy in their minds.

Even though the sentence, the topic had been mentioned in sermons and articles and so on and so forth, even during those years.

And therefore, they began to write and publish articles and have presentations on this topic.

But he says, There was a strange phenomenon that began to appear.

And there was, to some degree, a demand to fulfill the measure of a so-called good Christian.

I don't know if there's such a thing as a good Christian.

But there began to appear in some people's vocabulary that now these are the so-called good Christians.

And these are the so-called not-so-good Christians.

I don't know if we can find basis for that in the Bible.

But anyways, people were beginning to talk like that.

In addition, the instruction of some brothers stressed or emphasized more righteousness of life issues rather than righteousness of faith.

Nevertheless, the congregation was, during these years, longing for nourishing words of grace.

That's what their soul was longing for, and that's what a soul lives for.

You can believe, just as you are, just as you find yourself, alone through the merits of Christ Jesus, sins forgiven, in Jesus' name and blood.

Just feeling no better or feeling no worse.

So that's what the soul was longing for, and souls were longing for.

So, that's why they had that presentation at that period of time in Finland.

So, what does righteousness mean? I tried to illustrate it in some degree already.

It means, in a general sense, conforming to the moral law.

So, it's a straight arrow. It's not a crooked arrow. It's a perfectly straight arrow.

You conform to that straight arrow, and you are right or you are correct.

So, that's just in the secular sense. Conforming perfectly to moral law.

Well, righteousness could be speaking about God, because God is a righteous God, right?

And why is God righteous? His mind is perfect. It is correct. He never does anything wrong.

All of his judgments, all of his decisions, they're always correct.

And as a just God, he would demand, he would demand perfection from anyone who wants to get to heaven.

You have to be just in order to get to heaven.

Here in the temple.

So, as a just God, he does not accept anything that's imperfect. He does not accept anything that is unholy.

So, okay.

The Bible talks about righteous Noah. The Bible talks about righteous Lot.

The Bible talks about righteous, or Abraham said that don't destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

If you find, it started at 50 and eventually lowered the number down to 10.

It couldn't even find 10 righteous souls.

But Abraham is living with this notion that there's got to be at least some righteous people who are righteous people.

There's got to be some people out there.

So, the Bible gives indication that a person can be righteous.

Well, let's work through this term a little bit. Is this possible?

There was righteous Lot, righteous Noah.

So, it must be possible in some form or fashion, somehow.

Well, if the person is righteous, it means that God accepts or approves that person.

So, the question is, how do we gain approval before God?

So, that's what we're looking at.

In order to get to heaven, you have to be approved, gain approval, acceptance before God.

So, that's the bottom line. That's what we're talking about.

Justification. How is that a person made just, made heaven acceptable? How does he become approved before God?

So, if a person is a righteous person, it means that God approves that person.

So, God demands a straight A report card.

I've used this illustration before.

But, it needs to be straight A's. No A minuses. No B pluses.

It's got to be A, A, A, A, 100% on every assignment, every test you ever do.

You get even 199, sorry, the doors to heaven shut and the doors to hell swing wide open.

It's got to be 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, period. On every class you take.

So, let's flesh this out a little bit.

Well, Adam and Eve fell into sin.

And as a result of the fall into sin, God looked down from heaven to see if he could find any righteous souls.

What did he find?

Well, maybe we can read from Romans.

It's not a very flattering explanation, but this is the explanation of the Bible.

Bear with me and Romans chapter 3.

It's kind of a sad report card, but so it is.

As it is written, there is no one who is righteous. No, not one.

So God looked down from heaven to see if he could find any righteous person.

Not one single person. Not one. Not one.

There's no one who even understands. There's no one who even begins to on their own accord seek after God.

They've all gone astray. They're all unprofitable.

There's no one who does good. No, not a single one.

Their throat is like an open grave.

Go open up a grave after the body's been in there for a few months, and what's it going to smell like?

This scent should be pretty overpowering.

So, the throat is like an open grave, a grave that's just been opened, reopened.

With their tongues, they have used deceit.

That's one of the Ten Commandments. Don't bear false witness against your neighbor.

And their tongues constantly use deceit.

And the poison of poisonous snakes is under their lips.

Their mouths are full of cursing, and their mouths are full of bitterness.

So, that's our report card. That's your report card. That's my report card.

That's what God saw when he looked down from heaven.

What kind of report card is that?

In my opinion, it's F, F, F, F, F.

Now what?

In order to get to heaven, you need straight A's?

Can't even have one A minus.

Straight A's.

We look like this.

Black is this book.

Blacker than... Black walls in condemnation is hell.

In hell.

That's what we are.

Every cell of our body, from the crown of our head to the heel of our foot, we're blacker than the black heel of this book.

And in order to get to heaven, we have to be white.

Pure white.

Whiter than this piece of paper.

How in the wide world is it possible, for anyone, to even dream of getting to heaven?

That's the mystery of justification by faith. Sola Fide.

That's why this doctrinal point is so very important.

So, as a result of the fall into sin, no one is righteous, no one does good, no one even seeks good, all has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

All doors of heaven are shut.

Our report card, straight F's.

What is the solution?

It's looking pretty bleak right now.

Hopeless.

But there's got to be some flicker, some spark of hope out there.

And let's see if we can find it.

So, God's solution.

Uh-huh, I'm going to find it.

I'm going to find it.

I'm going to find it.

I'm going to find it.

I'm going to find it.

Uh-huh, a person named Jesus.

God's only son.

The Bible says, 1 Peter 1:19, He is a lamb without blemish or defect.

Uh-huh, something out there is perfect.

Not me, not you, no human being.

But Christ is a lamb that is without blemish or defect.

And Jesus is, in 1 John 5:20, He is the true God and eternal life.

And in Jeremiah, the prophesies of Christ, The Lord is our righteousness.

So, what did Jesus do? What has He done?

John 1:29, Behold, He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So, Jesus came to the world, He came to take away sin.

And how did He do it?

Isaiah says in Isaiah 53:6, The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity, or the sins of all of us.

So, He's like that scapegoat.

And the priest symbolically put his hands upon that scapegoat, symbolically illustrating how all of the sins were loaded upon His back.

He carried them upon His shoulder.

In 2 Corinthians 5:21, For our sake, God made Him to be sin. He who was sinless became sin.

He was sinless, but He became sin in the sense that He was carrying our sins.

So that in Him, Christ Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God.

So, God's plan.

He promised to send His Son.

We're approaching Christmas, and He was born on Christmas Day in Bethlehem.

And Jesus was sinless.

During His life, He fulfilled the law.

He was perfect in His life.

Everything He said, everything He did, even His thought world.

He took the curse, God's curse, upon Him.

Because Adam fell into sin.

He was the first Adam.

The sin and the fall needed to be corrected by a human being.

That was God's plan.

And this human being was Christ Jesus, who was both man and God simultaneously.

So, He took the sin upon Himself, or curse of God upon Himself, and He gave His life on the middle cross of the Golgotha.

So, Paul writes to the Corinthians, Jesus is our perfection.

He is perfect.

He can never be made imperfect.

His perfection can never be marred.

It's impossible.

If it would be, the doors to heaven would shut immediately.

There needs to be found one person who is perfect, unerring, unblemished.

And that is Christ Jesus.

He is our perfection.

He is our sanctification, our holiness.

Jesus Christ is our righteousness.

Jesus is our redemption, or the price that was paid for our sin debt.

So, He is perfect.

Never can be marred or tainted in any form or fashion.

Otherwise, doors to heaven would shut for every human being.

There'd be no hope of heaven for anyone.

So, that's the perfection.

That's the perfectness, perfect gift that's out there.

Well, it's out there somewhere.

Luther calls it alien righteousness, something that's outside of ourselves, or foreign righteousness.

But, does that automatically mean that because Christ died for our sins, the sins of all the world, that automatically every person is a believer?

No.

Christ needs to personally be a believer.

He needs to personally be owned in a person's heart to make that person acceptable to God.

So, where do we find Christ?

Paul says, don't try to go up into heaven.

No, we've got two feet planted on the ground.

People say, I can find Christ through prayer, or I can find Christ through doing good works, being a good member in my church, and helping society, and feeding the poor, and all these are good things, but they're not going to get you to heaven and make you heaven acceptable.

Some people say, well, I had a vision when I was out there in the forest and Christ appeared to me.

Sorry, that isn't the way one receives Christ.

Or also, Christ says, don't try to go down into the depths.

That is to try to raise Christ again up from the deep.

So, what do we do?

We're going to do this.

What does that mean?

People may say, well, I shed so many tears, God has to accept this as a partial payment for my gift of righteousness.

Nope.

No gift is acceptable.

But I feel so deep and so broken up in my heart and I'm feeling such penitence and sorrow.

This has to be acceptable as a partial payment.

Nope.

That's not acceptable.

Not going to do it either.

How about confession?

I've confessed every evil thought that has ever come into my mind.

Luther tried that.

He confessed to Staupitz, the leader of the monastery, for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and still didn't find any peace.

Staupitz has quit already.

Go and find refuge in the wounds of Christ Jesus.

That's where you'll find peace and refuge.

So, we don't find Christ by trying to climb, make a stairway to heaven.

We don't find Christ by having a deep broken heart and shedding tears.

And that's not going to be acceptable as a payment.

But he continues, where do you find Christ?

He is in your mouth.

He is in your heart.

He is that word of faith of which we preach.

So, we need to find fellow believers.

We need to find members of God's kingdom.

For within his own, for two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in your midst.

He who hears you, God says of Jesus, also hears me and who has sent me.

So, he has given us, unto believers, who have by faith the Holy Ghost, the sermon of reconciliation.

Or the authority to preach the gospel of the forgiveness of sins.

So, justification has two sides to it.

Now, it's a legal term, justice, justification.

So, imagine now we're in a courtroom.

And God is sitting there in the place of a judge.

And he's an all-seeing, all-knowing, and a demanding judge.

And we need to somehow become pleasing or acceptable to him.

Because we're guilty.

We got a straight F report card.

And there's no way to raise those grades with our own efforts.

Maybe raise it to a D- or a D or a D+, but no way are we going to get them up to a straight A.

So, somehow we need a straight A report card.

So, God had a plan.

Aha! One person who is my son, who is perfect, and has paid the price, and has lived a perfect life, and has shed his blood, and has prepared this gift, which will be presented to the judge, and the judge will say, acquitted, not guilty.

Because he has stepped into our shoes.

Well, that isn't alone going to do it.

Or O.J. Simpson was acquitted, right?

But I think he's walking around, in my mind, he's still guilty.

So, not only did he need to be acquitted, let go free, but that guilt and all that shame and sin needs to be removed, washed away.

It needs to disappear and go bye-bye.

So, it's the removal of sin because Christ bears our curse.

As we read in prophet Isaiah, in chapter 53, upon his shoulders, everything was borne.

And then, something needs to be imputed into us, inserted into our soul and heart.

And that is the gift of righteousness prepared by Christ Jesus.

So, we call it imputation, or crediting to our account that righteousness, because the merits of Christ Jesus.

So, his righteousness is now counted to be our righteousness.

So, his righteousness is now our righteousness.

And God looks down from heaven, and he's almost as looking through my eyeglasses here, and the eyeglasses are Christ Jesus.

When he looks through these eyeglasses, metaphorically, he sees nothing but pure righteousness.

Holy, blameless, spotless.

Why?

Because they're going through the merits, he's looking through the merits of Christ Jesus, and sees us pure and holy, and heaven acceptable.

So, we looked at this one earlier from 2 Corinthians 5:21.

We break that verse down.

For our sake, one, God made him to be sin, he sinned who knew no sin.

So, he took his sins upon himself.

And then, secondly, so that in him, Christ Jesus, we might become righteous before God.

So, we talk about the great exchange, and we're kind of running out of time, so I've got to wrap it up here in five minutes.

I wish I had another half hour, but time for coffee pretty soon.

So, the great exchange.

Here on this side is we as sons of Adam.

We are lost.

We would merit nothing but death.

We have nothing but sin.

We are under the law.

We experience condemnation.

We live in the flesh.

We are like slaves, and we are in bondage.

But then in Christ, we become saved.

We have the hope of everlasting life.

We own his righteousness.

It's all by his grace.

We are then justified.

We live in the Spirit.

And we are his sons, and we experience freedom.

So, Luther calls this the great exchange.

And, let me read.

He calls it like a wedding, or pictures it like a wedding.

And, let me find my notes here.

Where in the world did they go?

Here they are.

And, he says, I'm going to read this to you.

And, I'm going to read this to you.

Here they are.

Through faith in Christ, his righteousness becomes our righteousness.

And all that he has, that Christ has, becomes ours.

So, Christ gives everything he owns to us.

But then there is also the reversal as well.

And he himself becomes ours.

But then, here is what happens to us, to him.

He swallows up all our sins in a moment.

For it is impossible that sin would exist in Christ.

In another place he says, Everything that belonged to Christ now belongs to me.

Everything that belonged to me, my sinfulness, wretchedness, now is given over and belongs to Christ.

So that, so in the promise Christ declared, your sin is mine, says Christ, and my innocence, says Christ, is now yours.

So we call this the wonderful exchange, the wedding exchange.

Our sins are now not ours, but they are Christ's.

And Christ's righteousness is not Christ's, but it is ours.

So that is the mystery of the justification by faith.

But, the truth is, that the truth is not Christ's, but it is ours.

So we call this the wonderful exchange, the wedding exchange.

And Christ's righteousness is not Christ's, but it is ours.

So we call this the wonderful exchange, the wedding exchange.

So that is the mystery of the justification by faith.

But, does it continue? Or it does continue?

Does that mean, once a believer, always a believer?

We've been hearing this, that there's some out there who say, that they have this profession, that they have this wrong understanding and belief, that once a believer, always a believer.

Then maybe we can chat about it.

So, here's what Luther said, Simul justus et peccator.

Simul, I'll teach you a little Latin.

Simul justus et peccator.

We are simultaneously, at the same time, justified, or have an acceptable, and at the same time, we're a sinner.

We still have this old Adam, this corrupt portion, which has not made repentance, and it never will make repentance.

It won't happen.

One elder believer, lady, met a believing minister on the roadside in Finland, who cares where it happened, but they happened to meet each other, and the minister happened to ask that believing minister that, how is it going? How is it going in your life of faith?

And she said, well, she said, on the one hand, I'm so wretched, I'm so evil, that there is not found even one in hell, that is more evil than I am.

But she says, at the same time, through the merits of Christ Jesus in faith, in heaven, there is not found one who is more holy, not even any other. Not even any angels in heaven.

So this is that dichotomy. That's the paradox.

Simultaneously, we're evil, yet holy.

We are simultaneously unrighteous, yet righteous.

And that's why we have this battle.

We have this battle against the threefold enemy, the devil, the world, and our own flesh.

And we need to hear the gospel, time and time again.

Sin attaches and makes the journey slow.

And therefore, we live by grace, alone through the merits of Christ Jesus.

And we need to hear that reassurance.

Son and daughter, be of good cheer, just as you are, just as you find yourself.

Lift your gaze from looking into your deep, dark, cold, evil heart, and raise it, and behold the Lamb of God, who has come to take away the sins of the world.

He is our righteous God.

He is our righteousness.

He is our redemption.

He is our perfection.

He is our sanctification, our holiness.

And that's where we place our hope and trust, and refuge, even this evening.

You can believe in Jesus' name, and Jesus' blood, sins forgiven.

You can believe unto peace, freedom, and joy.

There would be a time for any quick comments or questions, if you wish.

Yes?

Give him a mic.

Give him a mic.

I don't have my hearing aids in, so, sorry.

Is it possible, is it possible to have faith without having penitence for your sins?

When you're disobedient, you realize it, and you're penitent for your sins, but you mention about...

So, you're talking about conversion from unbelief into the world?

No, I'm talking about when you were talking about we can't reach up and pull...

I'm talking about new birth, or finding Christ originally, yeah.

I mean, I'm using that as an illustration.

We cannot make our salvation dependent on anything of our own.

You can shed all the tears you want, but that's not going to lessen the debt from $100 down to $99, because of all the tears you shed.

I'm trying to use that as an illustration, that it's all in Christ's work, and nothing of our own.

Zip, zero, nada.

So, they're kind of, in a way, illustrations as well.

I mean, that's straight from the Bible, but I'm trying to illustrate it as well.

Good question.

But, you know, just thinking of our life of faith, I mean, yeah, when we're troubled, whether it's in a great amount or a lesser amount, because you feel unsettled, you know, then you want to find peace and refuge, right?

And then that will lead you to talk to another brother and sister of faith, and I can't sleep at night, and I'm worried about this, and I'm tossing and turning, and I need to find rest and solitude.

Well, it doesn't have to be a huge, deep remorse, but, you know, the Bible says all that is needed is, the only amount is that you're sorry.

Good question.

Any more?

No, sir.

If not, the Lord bless us and keep us, the Lord make His face shine upon us, and be gracious unto us.

The Lord lift up His countenance upon us and give us peace.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Amen.