JUSTIFIED BY FAITH

PART I

GALATIANS 2:11-16

MARCH 8, 1998

 

How far can we stray from the truth of the gospel and still have a viable faith?  I think such a question is one that we must consider in our day.  For in every generation there are movements, usually many of them, to stray from the purity of the gospel of grace in Christ.  What we see in the epistle of Galatians is that if we begin to stray just a little from the gospel, then we have taken up with "another gospel," which is no gospel at all.  If we leave the foundation for saving faith, justification through Jesus Christ by faith, then we abandon the gospel--regardless of how pious or religious we may appear.

 

A few years ago the British and French embarked upon a project to build what they called "the Chunnel."  It is an underground tunnel that crosses the English Channel.  Construction workers began on both sides of the Channel.  After several years of drilling and installations, the fateful day came when they met under the depths of the English Channel and the rock forming its base.  Suppose that one of the construction teams got careless and varied in their drilling by an inch or two.  Would they have met?  No, instead, they would have passed each other by, failing to accomplish the dream of the Chunnel.  Accuracy in the path they pursued was the only way of successfully reaching their goal.

 

Down the centuries, there have been many people and movements that have sought to swerve away from the "straight and narrow" path of the gospel as it presses on into eternity.  Those who vary from one side to the other ultimately have failed to walk in the only way to God.  The solitary revelation of this gospel is found in the Word of God.  It bears testimony over and over to the centrality of justification for sinners before a holy God through the righteousness of Jesus Christ received by faith.

 

The doctrine of "justification by faith" has for centuries been called 'the article by which the church rises and falls'.  If this doctrine is so important, then it need not surprise us that the Adversary has sown seeds of distortion and confusion through the centuries.  The devil will not object to our great organizations and massive structures in Christianity.  But he will battle our proclaiming the only truth that sets men free.

 

So what does "justification" mean?  The root of the word means "righteousness."  So it certainly has something to do with our 'right standing before God'.  If we need to be justified, then it goes without saying that our spiritual condition as humans is one of unrighteousness.  Our standing with God is not right--neither judicially nor morally.  He is the Judge of the universe.  It is to Him who created us before whom we must answer and be judged.  With God's righteousness expressed in the moral law being the standard, none of us has enough personal righteousness to commend ourselves to God.  Our nature as sinners keeps us at enmity with God.  Our practice of sin continues to offend the holiness of God.  We are in need of being put into a right standing with God.

 

Being a Christian means that you have a new righteousness, one that has been given to you by God through Christ as a gift of grace.  When giving a definition of a Christian, Martin Luther wrote, "A Christian is not he who hath no sin, but he to whom God imputeth not his sin, through faith in Christ" [Galatians, 72].  This imputation of righteousness is part of the doctrine of justification.  It is not some extraneous issue for theologians to debate.  But it is at the very heart of our understanding and applying the gospel  in our own lives.  The 1689 London Baptist Confession puts it like this:

God freely justifies the persons whom He effectually calls.  He does this, not by infusing righteousness into them [the Roman Catholic view], but by pardoning their sins and by accounting them, and accepting them, as righteous.  This He does for Christ's sake alone, and not for anything wrought in them or done by them.  The righteousness which is imputed to them, that is, reckoned to their account, is neither their faith nor the act of believing nor any other obedience to the gospel which they have rendered, but Christ's obedience alone.  Christ's obedience is twofold--His active obedience rendered to the entire divine law, and His passive obedience rendered in His death.  Those thus justified receive and rest by faith upon Christ's righteousness; and this faith they have, not of themselves, but as the gift of God [chapter 11, paragraph 1].

In his book, The Gospel of the Reformation, Bill Webster lists the key points from several New Testament passages describing the righteousness that justifies [pp. 56-57].

It is a righteousness that comes from God

It is an objective, completed righteousness

It is a righteousness accomplished outside of and apart from man 

It is a gift 

It is given apart from works 

It is imputed 

It is given to the ungodly 

It is received by faith 

It is the Person and obedience of Christ in His work of [propitiation]

It is given as a result of union with Christ

It is this righteousness in justification received by faith alone in Jesus Christ that is the heart of the gospel.  From it we cannot waver.  Concerning it we cannot offer an alternative.  In it alone can we be declared righteous before God.  We will look more at justification's meaning in coming weeks, but for now, let's concentrate upon the importance of justification to the church.  We have no other gospel than the gospel of grace through the justifying work of Christ received by faith alone.  We must guard the treasure of the gospel entrusted to us (2:7).  Why is this an issue that must concern us as Christians today?

 

I. Possibility of deviations

 

If we did not have the New Testament record of the numerous attempts to distort the gospel, then we might not think such deviations could occur in our own day.  But the New Testament bears sufficient witness to gospel deviations.  Some involve a denial of Christ's deity, other's His humanity, other's the necessity of His death, still others the efficacious nature of His death and justification by faith alone.  The centuries are littered with scores of gospel deviations that have deceived multitudes and influenced generations.  Deviations can slide in under the effectiveness of a charismatic personality.  Or they can gain ground by preying upon the ignorance of the masses concerning biblical truth.  They can appeal to emotional heart-strings within men and pluck away with gospel-error.  In all of this, we must wake up to the possibility of deviations in the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

In our own day, it seems that the message of the cross has become only a quaint line in gospel presentations, but not the message.  Instead, sinners are called upon to 'make a decision', 'pray the prayer', 'walk the aisle', 'invite Jesus into your heart', 'open your heart's door', 'repeat this prayer after me', etc.  Such distortions add to the message of faith alone in Jesus Christ.  According to what we see illustrated in our text, any distortion of the gospel demands correction.

 

1.  Demands correction  (v. 11)

 

We find one of the most unusual and tense events in the New Testament in our text.  The great apostle and one of the church's pillars, Peter, is confronted and rebuked publicly by the latecomer, Paul.  "But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned."  Paul's use of language here shows that this was not a passing rage of emotion on his part, but that the actions of Peter clearly condemned him.  There was no way around it.  Peter was in the wrong!

 

But what did he do that was so wrong?  Paul explains, "For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision."  Peter had experienced the clear revelation from God that he was to call no man unclean because of his race or nationality (Acts 10).  Nor was he to call any foods unclean in a ceremonial sense.  So, with this in mind, Peter engaged in warm fellowship with the Gentiles in Antioch, perhaps even eating things that he formerly would not have eaten.  All was well until some zealous Jews who professed Christianity came from Jerusalem and began to scrutinize Peter's associations with the Gentiles.  Rather than standing firm upon the purity of the gospel of grace and the liberty that was his in Christ, he acquiesced to these Pharisaic-minded men from Jerusalem.  He held himself "aloof" from the Gentile believers, that is, he gradually separated himself from having any kind of association with them.

 

What was Peter communicating?  He was showing by his actions that the work of the cross was not sufficient to give a person a right standing with God.  Something else must be added to the work of Christ, namely, the strict practices of ceremonial Judaism.  Though Peter was not teaching a false gospel, he was convoluting it by his practice.  For the gospel is not just something we speak but it must be something we live out in our daily lives.  Peter's life was contradicting what he had clearly preached with his lips.  He had deviated from the gospel of faith alone in Jesus Christ.  He was implying that these Gentile Christians were second-class in their faith at best, or still unrighteous before God, at the worst.

 

Paul's action shows that deviations demand correction.  When the gospel is being polluted or confused or convoluted or distorted, we must not sit on our hands and shut our mouths!  Paul stood alone at this point, for even Barnabas had been swept away by the Pharisaic influence in which Peter engaged.  So for Paul, even if it meant standing alone, he was not going to be silent while the church in Antioch succumbed to the bondage of legalism, slipping away from the purity of justification by faith alone.

 

Historically, there have been others who have taken such a lonely, yet bold stand.  Athanasius, in the 4th century, stood contra munda, 'against the world', in the face of Arian's denial of the deity of Jesus Christ.  In the 16th century, Martin Luther faced the papal court, ecclesiastical rulers, and even political rulers of his day to declare the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.  You and I must never think that our voices are unimportant in the stand for the gospel.  The gospel is too precious for us to be silent in the face of deviations.  Let us be bold as lions for the Lord's sake in standing for "the truth of the gospel."

 

2.  Requires examination  (v. 12)

 

But to do this will require examination.  I do not mean that we are to spend our time examining everyone else.  Let us begin with examining our own position and convictions concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Paul points out that Peter had drifted into hypocrisy.  It was so blatant that even other believers followed suit.  "And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy."  The Apostle does not accuse Peter of shifting his beliefs or changing his convictions.  He did not do this.  Not for one moment did Peter verbally deny the doctrine of justification by faith alone.  But he did in his actions or application of the gospel.  So Paul called this "hypocrisy."  The word literally means, "to answer from under," because it came from the realm of the Greek theater and the actors who answered from under the masks they wore to represent their character.  So what happens in hypocrisy is that a person hides his true convictions; he plays a part that is really not himself.  Peter's problem was that though he believed firmly in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, he was not acting like it.  He was acting as though he believed that something must be added to the work of Christ to give us a right standing with God.  His influence served as a tidewater rushing forth and sweeping others out to a sea of deviation.  With grief, Paul declared, "Even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy."  Though he had not gotten as enmeshed in it as the visitors from Jerusalem and Peter, along with the other Jewish Christians in Antioch, Barnabas was 'swept off his balance' of right thinking.  He was confused by seeing someone like Peter cowering to the Pharisaic influence.

 

Paul's rebuke served as a strong examination of Peter so that he saw his error and repented.  Later, at the Acts 15 Jerusalem Council, there is no better witness to the gospel of grace than Peter!  He testified of the bondage that was wrought by the law as a means of justification.  Instead, he questions the whole rationale of "placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear....But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are" (Acts 15: 10-11).  Peter had taken time to think through on his outward communications and saw that he must stand with lips and life upon the gospel of grace alone.

 

What kind of gospel do you communicate with your life?  Are you a legalist, trying to 'make yourself right' with God, even though you profess to have trusted in the merits of Christ alone for your salvation?  Then you are communicating a distorted gospel.  A you a libertine, who plays freely with sin as though the gospel has no power to transform a sinner?  Then you are distorting the gospel.  Do you have a narrow, sectarian spirit that requires everyone else to dot every 'I' with you and cross every 'T' your way?  Then you have distorted the gospel by communicating that something other than faith in Christ alone is necessary for us to be justified before God.

 

We must regularly examine what we are communicating with lips and life concerning the gospel.

 

II. Reality of substitutions

 

We must also face the reality that there are many who will substitute works of personal righteousness for the gospel of grace.  Indeed, this is one of the most damnable matters facing the souls of many.  For plenty will substitute their activities at church, their good deeds, their membership in a particular church, their adherence to the Golden Rule, etc. for justification by faith alone.  Why does this happen when the Scripture is very clear on what constitutes the gospel and saving faith?

 

1.  Justification contrary to popular opinion (v. 12)

 

Justification goes against the grain of popular opinion.  The Jewish influence, which Paul explains in this passage, was seen in those who required adherence to ceremonial eating and fellowship practices.  Jews had a list of things they could not eat, particularly the kinds of things that were common fare among the Gentiles.  Nor could they associate with those who were "ceremonially unclean," lest they make themselves unclean.  Peter had been delivered from this kind of bondage (Acts 10). But when the Pharisaic Christians from Jerusalem came to Antioch, "he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision."  Peter's fear arose because he was crossing the barrier of popular opinion.  The Jewish Christians were having trouble swallowing the fact that the Gentile Christians were on equal footing with them, in spite of the fact that they were ceremonially unclean and also uncircumcised.  But the gospel does not coalesce to popular opinion.  It stands upon divine revelation.

 

How often in our own day we find Christians slipping into the reality of substituting something for the solitary work of Jesus Christ and faith in Him for salvation!  But that is natural to man.  Justification by faith alone goes against the grain of human thinking.  James Buchanan explains:

The grand characteristic of all human systems, as distinguished from the divine method of Justification, is self-righteousness or self-sufficiency, in one or other of its manifold forms, which are all, more or less, opposed to dependence upon the grace of God:  and this radical error manifests itself universally amongst men,--either in reliance on the general goodness of their character and moral conduct,--or in their observance of religious forms and ceremonies, as a compensation for any shortcoming in moral obedience,--or in their possession of peculiar privileges, viewed as special tokens of Gods' favour [The Doctrine of Justification, 65].

If a man can devise any kind of scheme to keep from casting himself wholly upon the grace of God in Christ, he will do it!  That is, he will do it until he comes to the place of realizing his impotence before God in producing enough righteousness to give him merit for salvation.  In spite of the warning and clear teaching of Scripture, "since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified," people still try to justify themselves before God.  That in itself is a mark of rebellion against God!  It is a sign of rank unbelief to claim some merit before God for one's own works.  It is only the "alien righteousness" of Jesus Christ that can give us a right standing before God.

 

2.  Hypocrisy by weak, human vessels  (v. 13)

 

The motivation to offer carnal substitutes for the work of Christ comes often due to hypocrisy in professing believers.  It is a shocking situation which we see in our text, that one who had walked with Jesus Christ and had endured much for the sake of the gospel of grace, was slipping into hypocrisy!  "And the rest of the Jews joined him [Peter] in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy."  Peter knew better.  He had been reproved  before by the Lord for his spiritual slipping.

 

On one occasion, right after declaring Messianic-truth, Peter dared to rebuke the Lord for talking about dying!  The Lord said, "Get behind Me Satan!  You are not savoring the things of God!"  Peter had fallen prey to the influence of the enemy instead of understanding the plan of God.

 

The most prominent time of Peter falling headlong was when he denied that he knew the Lord.  It even came after a clear warning by Christ that before the rooster crowed twice, he would deny Christ three times.  He played the hypocrite at that point, appearing not to know Christ or serve Him, when in reality he had a great love for Christ.

 

Now Peter slips again.  He allows the influence of the men from Jerusalem to get his eyes off of his convictions and firm beliefs.  He began to play the part of a man who was not at liberty in Christ; a man who still believed that adherence to the ceremonial law was essential to salvation.  Peter did not believe this, but he acted like it.  This was hypocrisy.  And it came about because Peter was a weak, human vessel.

 

Before we slam Peter for his hypocrisy, let us evaluate our own lives.  How many times have we understood something from the Word of God, only to slip into the more popular view espoused by others?  It may be a college student who really does believe in the infallibility of Scripture, but he is in a classroom of fellow students who do not.  So he just blends into the woodwork and appears to have the same kind of false belief.

 

Or how about the language we use in describing salvation?  There are all kinds of popular terms that are in vogue today among evangelicals, but they do not have biblical foundation.  Yet we find ourselves accommodating weak but popular teaching by joining in with them.  We may tell a person that he needs to "accept Christ."  Yet the Bible never tells us to accept Jesus Christ, but to believe in Him or trust in Him or receive Him.  Instead, He accepts us on the basis of His merits!  We are not doing Him any favors by finally deciding to accept Him.  What we need is acceptance by Him and that comes only through His imputed righteousness!

 

We are weak vessels.  So we must pay close attention to our doctrine and our practice as believers.  Let's never assume that we understand everything there is to know about Christianity!  Let's scrutinize ourselves in light of the Word of God.  And let us pray for great usefulness by the Lord for the sake of the gospel.  By the way, the Lord uses weak vessels!  Peter was not washed up at this point.  But he recovered (Acts 15) and stood firm in the faith.  He learned from his experience of slipping due to weakness.  Let us also learn from our weaknesses how we must cast ourselves upon the great Rock of our salvation.

 

III. Verity of justification

 

Paul stood upon the verity of justification.  The word "verity" comes from the Latin veritas or truth.  It refers to a principle that is always true.  In this case, that principle or doctrine is justification.  It is not something that is true for some but not true for others in regard to their salvation.  It is always true!  There is no other way to have a right standing with God except through the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is applied to the sinner in justification by faith.

 

1.  The "straight and narrow"  (v. 14)

 

Jesus used the language of the "straight way and narrow gate that leads to life" in the Sermon on the Mount.  It is not a crooked and broad way, but a straight and narrow way that brings a sinner out of bondage into the liberty of being a child of God through faith in Christ alone.  The Jewish Christians were confusing this sense of the straight and narrow in the minds of the Gentile believers.  For Paul pointed out that they "were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel."  The word literally carries the idea that Peter and the others 'were not walking correctly when it came to the gospel; they were failing to walk in a straight fashion'.  We might say that they were talking out of both sides of their mouths.

 

The gospel was at stake in Antioch.  It was no time to be concerned about hurting someone's feelings or stepping on someone's toes.  Men's souls for eternity were hanging in the balance by this foolish straying from "the truth of the gospel."  So Paul reminded Peter and all who were present that we are not justified by the works of the Law but only through faith in Christ Jesus.

 

I remind all of us that this straight and narrow way to God has never changed.  There is no updated version for the 21st century that avoids dealing with our sin and enmity with God.  There is no new offer of salvation that is simply a decision a person makes without the cross of Christ.  We are told in many circles to be "seeker-sensitive," that is, we are not to be offensive so that every sinner is comfortable in our midst.  And we are not to call people sinners either!  Until we are uncomfortable with the fact of our sinfulness, then the work of the cross seems quite unnecessary, perhaps even barbaric.  But when we see our helpless condition before God and our separation from Him due to our sin, then we can but call out for His great mercy and pardon through Jesus Christ!  Then we will flee to Christ alone for the righteousness needed to stand before God.  Then we will plead for the justifying work of the cross to be applied to our sin-stained lives, removing our enmity with God, and giving us a new righteousness before Him.

 

2.  A divine doctrine  (vv. 14-15)

 

For this doctrine of justification is a divine doctrine.  It is too wonderful to have been conceived by the mind of mere men.  To think that God Himself became a man, fulfilled all the righteousness demanded by the Law on our behalf, then bore our transgressions and iniquity on the cross so that we might be declared righteous in God's eyes; that is a divine doctrine!  It is this same truth received by faith that saves those who are "Jews by nature" and also "sinners from among the Gentiles."

 

Paul quizzes Peter on getting away from this divine doctrine of justification.  "If you, being a Jew, live like Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"  Once Peter was liberated by the heavenly vision recorded in Acts 10, he began to live " in the manner" of the Gentiles (Greek ethnikos).  He saw that he had no need to be encumbered by the rituals, dietary laws, and ceremonies of Judaism.  And he lived like this, i.e., until his incident in Antioch.  Then he quickly began to put on the mask of hypocrisy which gave the Gentiles the impression that they must embrace the practices of Judaism in order to be pleasing to God.

 

Paul would say, "NO!"  If you have been declared righteous by the merits of Jesus Christ, then you cannot add anything to your account before God by your own works of righteousness.  How can you add to what Christ has done?  How can you be any more righteous than Jesus Christ, in whose righteousness you stand before God?

 

Perhaps some of you are slipping into the pitfall of trying to do something to put yourself into a better position before God.  Would you agree with me that Jesus Christ has enough righteousness to be pleasing to the Father?  If you have His righteousness, if it is credited to your account by imputation, then will that be adequate for you to have a right standing with God?  Will God want to add anything to the perfect and complete righteousness of His Son?  "My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus' blood and righteousness.  I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' Name."

 

3.  Only claim to righteousness  (v. 16)

 

Our only claim to righteousness is in Christ alone.  The sixteenth verse has the translation of two words as "but."  Nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified."  That word, "but," is better expressed as "but only":  nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but only through faith in Christ Jesus.  We have no other claim to righteousness but that procured by Jesus Christ through His obedience to the Law on our behalf and His propitiatory, God-satisfying death in our stead.

 

Paul was saying that his claim to righteousness was not in his heritage as a Jew nor in all of the traditions in which he had been raised.  But he had abandoned himself wholly to Jesus Christ and the sufficiency of His righteousness imputed to his account before God.  Is Jesus Christ your only claim to righteousness?  Are you trying to cling to something else to put you in a right position before God?  Then hear the clear teaching of God's Word.  You are not justified by your own works of the Law.  It is only through faith in Jesus Christ without the addition of your own righteousness, that can declare you, a sinner, as legally just before a holy, righteous God.

 

Conclusion

 

We have just introduced a few things about justification by faith today.  Hopefully, we have seen its importance for our eternal souls.  It is so important a truth that Paul was willing to stake everything on it.  He was willing to correct the erring Peter when he wavered from this doctrine's purity.  He had also abandoned all of the works of righteousness which he lived in for years, counting them as mere refuse for the sake of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

 

Have you forsaken all of your own attempts to put yourself right with God?  Have you embraced Jesus Christ by faith, having received His imputed righteousness as your very own?  Have you received by faith the satisfaction of Jesus Christ in the judicial act of His death for you in the face of God's judgment?

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