Word of Salvation – Vol. 29 No. 47 – December 1984
The Best Thing In Life IS Free
Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde, v.d.m. on Rom.3:24
(Belgic Confession Art.23)
Scriptures: Eph.2:1-10; Rom.3:19-31
Suggested Hymns: 94; 66:1,2,3,4,9; 389; 380; Bow 805:1,2,3; 803.
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
In this sermon we (once again) consider the all-important doctrine of justification. It was this doctrine that sparked off the great fires of the Reformation. It was when Luther rediscovered this great truth that everything began to change. Perhaps you will recall those blunt words of his (that I quoted last time): “Most necessary is it, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.”
So this will be an attempt to do just that. The Belgic Confession does the same and devotes two separate articles to the subject – no doubt to highlight its importance. In so doing it uses our text, and surely this is one of the great salvation texts of Scripture. It stands on a par with John 3:16 and it is a text we should know by heart: “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” In these few words we have a perfect outline of the Christian faith and of the way of salvation. It can be divided under three main headings:
(i) a description or a definition of what salvation is;
(ii) the way in which this salvation becomes ours;
(iii) the basis on which this salvation rests.
Or to put it more simply, here in this text we have the what, how and why of salvation:
(i) What is salvation?
It is “being justified”.
(ii) How does this salvation become ours?
“Freely, by His grace.”
(iii) And why is this possible?
“Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
So let’s begin with the “what”.
What is salvation? How would you define it?
The apostle tells us that it is: “being justified”. This is one of those great crucial statements that we must clearly understand. Very simply, justification is primarily a declaration by God. It is a legal or a forensic act. It does not mean that we are made righteous, but rather that God regards us as righteous.
Now here some people have misunderstandings and problems. They say that because they are aware of sin and they still commit sins that therefore they cannot be in a justified state. But anyone who speaks like this shows that he really doesn’t understand this doctrine of justification. Justification does not change us; it is a declaration by God about us. It is not something that results from what we do, but rather something that is done to us. We have only been made righteous in the sense that God regards us as righteous, and pronounces us to be righteous.
So justification is not a ‘feeling’ – we don’t feel justified. Justification is not even an experience. It is not something we do; it is something that God says. It is not something that happens within us; it is something that happens outside of us. Let me just briefly remind you of the three well-known illustrations. A little revision won’t do any harm.
(i) Firstly, justification is a legal act.
It reminds us of a court of law. You’re in the dock, your case has been heard, and the judge hands down the verdict “not guilty”. You have been declared innocent; you have been justified. The judge has pronounced you righteous. That’s justification. It’s not something you do, it’s something the judge says.
(ii) The second illustration comes from the world of finance.
You are in debt; you are so far in the red you can’t possibly hope to get out. But then Jesus comes and gives you more than enough credit. He takes all your bills and stamps them with the words “paid in full” and adds his personal signature. Again it’s not something you do. It’s a transaction that is made for you.
(iii) And then the third illustration comes from the world of fashion.
Those who are justified are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Like the guests at the wedding banquet in the parable, they are given the wedding garment. Again the emphasis is not on what they do, but on what they receive. It is God who clothes His people with the righteousness of Christ.
And so in this whole matter of justification, it’s a question of what God does and not what we do. He justifies us; we don’t justify ourselves.
(i) He is the Judge who declares us “not guilty”.
(ii) He is the one who cancels our debts.
(iii) He is the one who fits us with the proper clothes.
Again, let me stress that although it’s not what we do, but what God does to us and for us, yet all of that has a tremendous impact upon us. These things may happen outside of us, but they affect us to the very core of our being. And here again Luther has a very helpful illustration to explain the doctrine. Justification implies union with Christ and Luther compares that to the union of marriage. Faith unites the soul with Christ, like a bride with the bridegroom.
Now whether you like it or not, marriage involves a legal declaration. When a couple come to church to be married, they are not married until that legal pronouncement has been made. It happens when the minister speaks those solemn words:
“According to the will of God, the law of the land, and the rites of the Reformed Churches of Australia, I now declare and pronounce you, John Smith and Jane Brown, husband and wife, in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
This is not something that the couple does – it is a pronouncement that is made about them. It happens outside of them, but it will affect their lives in the profoundest possible way. After that declaration they will never be the same again.
Now the same is true of justification.
It’s a declaration. God is the marriage celebrant. Christ is the bridegroom and my soul is the bride. When I am justified, God declares that I am now one with Christ and after this declaration my life can never be the same again. What Christ has, becomes mine and what I have become Christ’s. We share our common possessions. I receive Christ’s righteousness, salvation and eternal life. He gets all my sins and trespasses. He takes them all upon Himself as though He has committed them. But as Luther says: “they will be swallowed up and drowned in Him, for His unconquerable righteousness is stronger than all sin.” And then Luther concludes rather vividly: “Is that not a happy household, when Christ, the rich, noble and good bridegroom, takes the poor, despised, wicked little whore in marriage, sets her free from all evil, and decks her with all good things?”
Yes, justification is a declaration that God makes about us, just as a minister makes a declaration about a couple on their wedding day. It’s a simple statement made by somebody else. But it alters the very course of their lives. Their status has changed. Once they were single; now they are married.
The same is true with justification. It changes our status. Once we were sinners; now we are saints. God has made a pronouncement and we will never be the same again.
But the question is: When does this happen? When does God declare us “not guilty”, when does He pronounce our union with Christ? Well, when does the minister make the declaration about the couple? It’s after they’ve exchanged their vows. So God justifies us the moment we take the step of faith. As that very moment we are declared righteous by God. The legal declaration follows the act of commitment: the saying of the vows or the step of faith. From the moment we believe this becomes true of us! We are justified! This can only be a great source of confidence and joy for all truly Christian people.
So that’s the “what” of salvation: that we are justified. Now comes the “how”. How are we justified? “Freely by His grace.” Paul is very anxious to point out that salvation is a gift. So he states it twice over in two words. It is “free” and it is “by grace”.
This word “free” or “freely” is a very interesting word in the New Testament. Jesus uses this word in a statement in John’s Gospel: “They hated me without a cause.” The word translated, “without a cause”, is the very word that the apostle uses here. It stresses the fact that there is nothing in us to deserve the gift of salvation. There is no cause for it as far as we are concerned. It is something that we receive quite freely.
Paul uses the same word again in writing to the Corinthians and later to the Thessalonians: “I preached the Gospel to you without charge”, (2Cor.11:7). “We did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it”, (2Thess.3:8). And then in the very last chapter of the Bible there is still the Lord’s open invitation: “And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes, take the water of life without cost”, (Rev.22:17).
So that’s salvation. We receive it without cost, without paying for it. The best thing in life is free! Praise the Lord! We are justified freely! We receive the wedding garment free of charge and our debts are paid because we cannot pay them ourselves. Also, we are justified by His grace. We are declared righteous not because we are innocent, but by His grace. We are married to Christ not because we are so lovely and attractive but by His grace. God’s grace is His unmerited favour. It is His kindness shown to those who are utterly undeserving.
So, salvation is not just a free gift but a free gift to those who deserve the exact opposite. It’s not the innocent whom God declares righteous, it’s the guilty. It’s not a charming princess whom Christ takes for a bride, but a “poor, despised, wicked, little whore”, to quote Luther once again.
That’s how salvation comes: freely by His grace. And what a liberating thing that is. It’s not something we earn or deserve or work for. And it’s at this point that Christianity is so very different from every form of man-made religion. In other religions man tries to work his way up to God. In Christianity, God reaches down to man and He does it freely by His grace.
And what a pathetic thing it is when you see a man trying to work his way up. What terrible lengths people will go to, to make themselves deserving. I’d like to share with you an awful example of this. I read it in a book about comparative religion. It’s about a Hindu practice in India. The author describes a young man on a hot day lying on a stony path and apparently doing some gymnastic exercises. With his left hand he would reach back as far as possible and pick up a stone from a little heap and then with his right hand put it onto a similar little pile in front of him. The idea was to move 108 pebbles this way one by one. It is a kind of pilgrimage undertaken to win merit with the gods. Throughout the whole exercise you’re not allowed to speak and the pilgrimage could take weeks or perhaps months.
The author noticed several devout people who had chosen this form of penance. One of them was an old widow and she was probably doing it to gain merit that would profit her husband in the other world. And then the writer concludes this section with some very sad words: “Weeks later I saw her still at it, a few kilometres ahead of the spot where we had first discovered her. She seemed so weak that after every twenty metres she remained lying exhausted next to her small pile of stones.”
How tragic religion becomes when it is divorced from the grace of God. How pathetic a man looks when he’s trying to pay his own way. There was the Pharisee who tithed his garden herbs in an attempt to keep the law. There were the Catholics in the days of the Reformation who were paying money for souls to get out of purgatory. And spare a thought for the Jehovah’s Witness who, when he comes to you, has already knocked on 10,001 doors and still isn’t sure whether he’ll survive Armageddon. No wonder an ex-J.W. described himself as “Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave.” And then there’s your average, decent bloke who thinks he’ll make it to heaven by following the Golden Rule. Now all of these people have something in common: they are trying to be justified by observing the law. They don’t know what it means to be “justified freely by His grace.”
How about you? Do you know what that means? Are you relying on anything in yourself or in your family or in your church or in your nationality? All that is excluded. Salvation is a gift that comes to us freely from God without our deserving it in any respect whatsoever.
This now brings us to the third point: Why can God justify us freely by His grace? On what basis does He do it? It is through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. What does the word “redemption” mean? Very simply it is “the deliverance from some evil by the payment of a price”; and that price was called a ransom.
In the ancient world this was a fairly common practice. A price could be paid for a slave and he could be set free. Or a prisoner of war could gain his freedom if someone was prepared to pay the ransom price. Once the ransom had been paid the prisoner or the slave was redeemed; he was set free. And in our own day the same happens, but under more drastic circumstances. When hostages are held, terrorists will often only release them after a hefty sum has been paid. The same is often true in the case of kidnappings. No doubt, you can think of examples but there’s one that stands out in my mind.
During my childhood in the late 50’s the Opera House lottery started in Sydney. If Hobart’s landmark is kept going by gambling, Sydney’s landmark got started by gambling; and very foolishly the media gave full coverage to the people who were “lucky” enough to win that lottery of 100,000 pounds. On one occasion that was a Mr. & Mrs. Thorne who had an 8-year-old son, Graham. Graham was kidnapped and his kidnapper demanded the money that had been won in the lottery. It was not given and a few months later Graham’s body was found buried in the bush a few miles from our home. The ransom was not paid and a life was lost. Later on the murderer was tracked down and brought to justice, but the point is that the boy was never set free. He was not redeemed.
Now all sinners are in the position of that kidnapped boy. They are doomed to death unless a ransom is paid. They are slaves of sin and sin will lead them to death; but for those who are in Christ the ransom has been paid. The ransom was Christ’s shed blood on the cross. He came to give His life a ransom for many. Therefore they have been redeemed, they have been set free. They are no longer slaves of sin; they are no longer prisoners of the devil; no longer are they doomed to death. They are redeemed. The ransom has been paid, and the price was nothing less than the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
Do you see now why it is freely by His grace that we are justified? The price has been paid in full. The ransom money has been paid out. The Bible never says who to, because our main concern is that it has been paid and that we are free. No higher price could have been paid and therefore we do nothing but insult Christ if we still try to pay our own way, no matter how little.
We have been justified. Our debts have been paid. It was all done free of charge. Christ paid the full ransom at great cost to Himself. You don’t have to add your own two cents to your salvation. You don’t have to pay your own way. It’s all been taken care of. You don’t have to be like the old widow with her pebbles, or like the Pharisee with his garden herbs or like the Jehovah’s Witness with his “Watchtower” magazines. God isn’t asking for your contribution when the ransom price was the blood of the spotless lamb.
Just one question in closing: Isn’t all of this going to make people careless about keeping the law? Where is the incentive for good works if salvation is a free gift? Paul asks the same question at the end of Chap.3: “Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather we uphold the law.”
And isn’t that what you would expect from those…
– who have been declared not guilty, by God himself;
– whose debts have been cancelled in full;
– who are clothed with the righteousness of Christ;
– who are married to Christ;
– who were redeemed at such great cost!?
So why do we uphold the law? Why do we want to please God? Because we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus!”
Amen.