Justification by Faith

We live at a time when fewer and fewer people are in tune with and versed in Bible terminology. Words like “sanctification,” “redemption,” “righteousness,” “reconciliation,” and “salvation” in their biblical uses have become a foreign language to many folks. So it is with the words “justify” or “justification.”

These words all have basic meanings, but they also have specialized uses in the context of God’s plan of human redemption. “Justify,” for example, is a legal or judicial term that means “not guilty.” It is an acquittal – a verdict of innocence declared by the court to one who has been indicted for a crime.

In the Bible it has this same sense but is used in the context of men who have sinned against God. And that includes all of us. The Bible says we all have sinned; that none of us is righteous (Rom 3:9-10, 23). It also tells us that this sin has separated us from God and fellowship with God forever – unless we are justified (see Isaiah 59:1-2; 1 John 1:5-7; Ephesians 2:1-3)

Justified, in this setting, retains its essential meaning of “not guilty.” To be restored to fellowship with God man must be acquitted of his transgressions of God’s law. God is light, in him is no darkness, and to be reconciled to him the darkness of sin must be removed from man’s soul.

Justification is one of the major themes of Paul’s letter to the Romans. There the apostle says sinners are “freely justified by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). He adds later that man is “justified by faith,” which he defines at the beginning of the letter as “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 5:1; 16:26).

This is the point James makes in his epistle when he uses the word “works” to denote the “obedience of faith.” He says: “Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.” The context of these “works” is the obedience of Abraham to God’s commandment to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. As Abraham obeyed God so must we to be counted righteous by justification (James 2:21-24).

The importance of obedience is stressed by Paul’s point that justification comes by “grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). Sinners enter Christ Jesus when by faith they are baptized into him (Galatians 3:26-27). Those who are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death, where his blood was shed. They then arise from that baptism a new creature who walks in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4; see 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Only by justification through the obedience of faith can men have peace with God (Romans 5:1). Have you by faith been baptized into Christ?

Back to the Bible

Hardly anyone would deny that religious beliefs and practices of the twenty-first century are radically different from those of the days of Jesus and the apostles. Few people find a problem with this. Most would likely say it is a good thing – that man, society, and religion must change with the times.

What is assumed in all of this is that as the material surroundings of man change through scientific discoveries and inventions by man there is also a change in man and his needs. The fact is that both the body and soul of man need what they have always needed. We know about the body’s need for food, shelter, clothing, and safety; that’s as it has always been. But what is not as well known are the needs of the soul. Here things get complicated. Only God who created man knows the soul and can determine its needs. He himself tells us: “I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23).

For this reason God has left man a revelation of his mind in the Bible to direct him in ways he calls “righteousness.” One of Jesus’ apostles said of man’s attitude toward God: “He that fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34). “Righteousness” is simply doing what is “right,” and it is God who determines that. What is good for the soul, according to God, is what’s right. That’s why God has given his word in the Bible. There man can learn what is right. The parents of John the Baptist were said to be “righteous before God” because they walked “in all his commandments and ordinances” (Luke 1:6).

This is why it is the goal of the Kirkwood Church of Christ to go back to the Bible for all our beliefs and practices. We seek to learn what the Bible says about how to be saved and then teach it and follow it. From the Bible we learn how the first-century church worshipped; we can then imitate that in our assemblies each first day of the week. We study the Bible to find out how the church Jesus built was organized on a local level, what kind of work they did as a body, and what name they carried and honored.

What we have found is that to be saved sinners believed in Jesus as God’s Son, reject and repudiated sin by repentance, confessed their faith, and were baptized into Christ and his death (John 20:30-31; Acts 2:38; Romans 10:9-10; Galatians 3:26-27; Romans 6:3-4). When they assembled to worship on the first day of the week they observed the Lord’s Supper, sang hymns and made melody in their hearts without the accompaniment of mechanical instruments of music, prayed, studied and edified one another, and gave as they were prospered (Acts 20:7; Acts 2:42; Ephesians 5:19; 1 Corinthians 14; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2).

To oversee this work they appointed elders in every church who were known as bishops and pastors (Acts 14:23; Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1-3). Their oversight was limited to that local church and they led the church in the works of evangelism, edification, benevolence, and discipline of its members (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 4:11-16; Acts 6:1-6; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). In all of this they wore and bore the name of Christ (Acts 11:26; Romans 16:16).

In this way we can restore and duplicate today the church Jesus built in the first century. Yes, it is simple and uncomplicated, but it meets the demands of the soul that God created in his own image (see Genesis 1:26-27).

You Can Fall from Grace

“For by grace have you been saved through faith” is one of the most universally held doctrines of the Bible (Ephesians 2:8-9) – accepted by almost every religious denomination. It is likewise one of most commonly misunderstood statements in scripture. Some have construed it to mean that sinners are saved by “faith alone” – a reformation doctrine taught nowhere in the Bible. Others have just a wrongly interpreted the expression to teach “grace alone” – a Calvinistic doctrine that asserts that once a man has been saved he can never again be lost.

John Calvin taught that in salvation an irresistible grace by God’s Spirit captures the souls of those God predetermined to be saved and that they can in no way free themselves from his divine grip. The entire epistle to the Galatians is an assault against this view – asserting that they had turned from the gospel of Christ to a different gospel (Galatians 1:6-7), that they that do this shall be accursed, and that as a result of this change they had been “severed from Christ” and “are fallen away from grace” (Galatians 1:8-9; 5:4). They fell from grace because they sought salvation by the law of Moses – a system of salvation that demands perfect works (Galatians 2:16; 3:10-11).

The epistle to the Hebrews also discusses brethren who had been saved by the gospel and then fell away. The writer describes the Hebrews as Christians “who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift,” who “were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,” and who had “tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.” Then, he says, they “fell away” (Hebrews 6:4-6).

He had warned them earlier that Israel had fallen away from God through unbelief and that they themselves needed to “take heed…lest haply there shall be in any one of you and evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God” (Hebrews 3:7-12). These brethren did fall, he says, and face a more severe punishment than physical death because they had “trodden under foot the Son of God, and had counted the blood of the covenant wherewith they had been sanctified an unholy thing, and had done despite unto the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:28-29).

Simon the Sorcerer is an example of a sinner who was enlightened by the power of the gospel and, along with other Samaritans, was baptized into Christ. Later he fell away when he was enticed by the lust for power to purchase the gift of the apostles. Peter reproved him, spelled out the sinfulness of is heart, described him and his money as fit to perish, and demanded that he repent and pray for forgiveness (Acts 8:13-24). The Bible warns that some will depart from the faith, and a number of men are singled out as false teachers who had erred from the truth, made shipwreck of the faith, and had turned the grace of God in lasciviousness (see 1 Timothy 1:19-20; 4:1-3; 2 Timothy 2:16-18; Jude 3-4; Acts 20:29-30)

“Take heed,” Paul warns, “lest ye fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). Yes, Christians can fall from grace, and they must receive God’s warnings and seek to faithful, obedient members of his church (see Revelation 2:10).

The Necessity of Obedience

Obedience, in any realm, involves three elements. One, it recognizes authority, whether a child to his parents, a citizens to his government, or a servant to his master. Two, it includes listening to learn what is required. And, three, it demands submission to what is commanded.

All of these elements are true of Bible obedience. The Greek word for obedience in our New Testaments combines a prefix, hupo, which means “under,” with the word, akouo, which means “to hear.” Together the word means “to come under what one hears.”

This is so apparent in the command for children to “obey your parents in the Lord” (Eph 6:1). Parents are the authorities in the family. God has authorized them to teach and train their children in the nurture and admonition of his word. Children are to recognize that authority, listen to what the parents say, and then submit to or bring their lives under that instruction.

Sinners need to grasp this truth about their relationship to God the Creator. All men have been made in God’s image and must recognize his authority over his creation (Genesis 1:26-27). Accepting that authority, they must open their hearts and ears to hear and understand what God has taught. Beyond that, they must submit to his teaching.

This learning process begins with the view that Jesus has “all authority,” and that they must confess him as Lord (see Matthew 28:18; Romans 10:9-10). It follows with the wisdom to “hear these words of mine,” as Jesus taught in the story of the “wise” and “foolish” men (Matthew 7:24-27). The “wise man,” though, is not only he that “hears” these words but he that “doeth them” – meaning to submit to the teaching of Jesus.

The importance of this is that salvation is conditioned upon obedience. “Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Jesus, as the Hebrew writer says, is the “author of eternal salvation” to “all them that obey him” (Hebrews 5:9). And he will render vengeance to “them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:8).

The sinner who thinks he can merely call on the name of the Lord by faith alone has missed the significant element of obedience in baptism that puts him into Christ where he becomes a child of God and a new creature (see Galatians 3:26-27; Romans 6:3-4). There, as a result of the obedience of faith (see Romans 1:5; 16:26), he has forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life (Acts 2:38; 1 Peter 1:3-5).

The Kingdom Has Come

A major theme of the Old Testament anticipates the coming of the Messiah, who is to be the prophet and priest and king of an eternal kingdom. As prophet he would reveal God’s plan for human redemption, as priest he would offer himself as a sacrifice to redeem the world from sin, and as king he would establish and reign over God’s kingdom. And all this came to pass when Jesus, the Word who was God, became flesh and dwelt on earth. “All of this,” we say, yet many deny that the kingdom has yet arrived. To them, the time of the kingdom is at Jesus’ second coming. This, however, is to deny the clear teaching of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament.

Jesus, when he came the first time, announced: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom is at hand” (Mark 1:15). “At hand” means near. It was so near that Jesus said to his disciples and others standing near by: “There are some here of them that stand by, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1). The kingdom was not to be of this world like kingdoms of men; it was to be a rule of the king within the hearts of men; it was to come when men with honest and good hearts responded to the gospel and were born of the water and the Spirit (see John 18:36; John 17:20- 21; Luke 8:11-15; John 3:3-5).

This kingdom came after the death of Jesus when sinners were purchased by the blood of Christ in obedience to the gospel message proclaimed on the first day of Pentecost after Jesus was raised from the dead. The Lamb of God, Jesus, was slain and by his blood purchased men of every tribe and tongue and nation and made them to be a kingdom (Revelation 5:9-10). This is the same body of people who were purchased by the blood of Christ and became the church of the Lord (Acts 20:28). Obedient believers, saints and faithful brethren, are called the church at Corinth, but were said to be translated into the kingdom at Colossae (see 1 Corinthians 1:2; Colossians 1:13).

This transformation of sinners is also called a birth of the water and the Spirit – a reference to the response of baptism that sinners make to the message of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the apostles. This baptism by faith puts one into Christ and into his death, where his blood was shed. There, one becomes a new creature (see Galatians 3:26-27; Romans 6:3; 2 Corinthians 5:17). When buried with Christ in baptism, sinners die to sin and arise to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4).

This happened on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit filled all the apostles (Acts 2:1-4). The Holy Spirit guided the apostles into the truth, and they preached the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus – who was made both Lord and Christ. The message of the Spirit pricked the sinners’ hearts and they asked what to do. The answer was to repent and be baptized “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:22-38). They that gladly received the message of the Spirit were baptized – being born of the water and the Spirit. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching, subjecting themselves to the rule of Christ, and living as faithful citizens under that rule. That was the beginning of the kingdom. It is a spiritual body of citizens, not a world empire yet to come.

The Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation, as all New Testament books, was written for churches in the first century to describe and deal with the problems they faced. Revelation differs in that it is written in visions and symbols, but the message was still a contemporary one.

The writer, John, tells us, for example, that the events described in the book were “shortly to come to pass” and that the “time is at hand.” He makes this point to his readers at the beginning (1:1, 3) and at the end of the book (22:6, 10).

The apostle then addresses the book and its message to “seven churches that are of Asia” (1:4). The Spirit told him: “What thou seest, write in a book and send it to the seven churches: unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamum, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea” (1:11).

After penning a letter to each of the seven churches, he begins in visions and pictorial language to write about how these churches were suffering persecution, being imprisoned, and even put to death “for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” In the fifth seal he describes the blood of these martyred brethren, which was under the altar of sacrifice crying out to God to avenge their cause with wrath against their adversary (1:9; 6:9-11).

He describes their enemy as a beast come out of the sea who had received his power and authority from Satan. This enemy is helped by a beast coming up out of the earth – a beast with horns of a lamb but the voice of the Satanic dragon. These represent an evil power in the first century that was persecuting and putting to death all who would not receive its mark and bow before it (Chapter 13).

Some would identify this as the persecuting power of the Jews and others say it is the evil opposition of Rome. Regardless of its identity, it was a wicked enemy that the churches of the first century faced. The book ends with the defeat of this adversary and the victory of the martyred saints who reign with Christ (Chapters 19-20).

The point of the book is clear: God’s faithful children will find victory in Jesus – even if they die for their faith at the hands of ungodly men who serve Satan in an effort to destroy the church of the Lord.

The message of the book is likewise simple: the glorified Jesus, pictured among the seven lampstands, declares to the saints in tribulation, “Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades” (1:17-18). Jesus suffered and died but was victorious over death, and has the keys of victory for those in him.

Revelation does not describe modern nations and events, but struggles brethren of the first century endured and overcame through Christ.