Justification and Divine Integrity; Gal.
The doctrine of the Mosaic Law and
Spirituality
1. Christ fulfilled the Law. (There was a failure at the
time of the Reformation to understand that the Mosaic Law was no longer
mandatory in the church age. Therefore morality and spirituality are confused
and based on legal obedience) Matthew
2. Because Christ fulfilled the Law He is said to be the
end of the Law for believers. Therefore believers in the church age are not
under the Mosaic Law. Romans 10:4 NASB “For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” The word “end” is the Greek
word telos [teloj]. It basically has the idea of completion,
termination or conclusion. So with Christ the Law ends. The phrase “for
righteousness” – eis [e)ij] plus the
accusative of reference, which indicates the Law with reference to
righteousness. Jesus Christ fulfilled all three sections of the Mosaic Law
because He is perfectly righteous. Because He was perfect righteousness when he
paid the penalty for our sins the righteousness and justice of God which comprise
His holiness looked down upon the cross and was satisfied. The word to describe
this is propitiation. God the Father was propitiated by the work of Christ on
the cross. Next: “to everyone who believes.” The only condition is faith alone.
Every single sin in human history was poured out on Jesus Christ on the cross. Because
sin was paid for on the cross the issue no longer is payment for sin; that
would be double jeopardy. The dynamics of this verse foreshadow the whole
doctrine of justification by faith because our sins were imputed to Christ on
the cross and when we trust in Him His perfect righteousness is then imputed to
us who are believers. The believer positionally has
the righteousness of Christ. Christ paid our debt and because of that what is
imputed to our account, instead of a debt against us, is a balance on the plus
side which is His perfect righteousness. Because God the Father looks down at
us and sees the perfect righteousness of Christ He therefore can bless us, not
because of what we do but because of what Christ has done and because of the
perfect righteousness of Christ. The perfect righteousness of God, therefore,
approved of the perfect righteousness in us and therefore the justice of God
could bless us. That is the basis for all blessing in the spiritual life. It is
not our obedience, it is what Christ did. It is what we possess freely as a
result of salvation: the imputation of perfect righteousness. This righteousness
goes to everyone who believes.
Points
of explanation of Romans 10:4: a) Jesus Christ fulfilled every moral and
spiritual requirement of the Mosaic Law. He was perfect in every way and thus He
satisfied the perfect righteousness and justice of God; b) Therefore Because He
fulfilled the Law He is the end, or completes all of the legal requirements of
the Law with reference to righteousness; c) This perfect righteousness is now
freely available to every human being. Romans
3. Though no longer under the Law church age believers
are not lawless or antinomian. Romans 6:1, 2.
4. The new law is accompanied by a new commandment—Ephesians
5. The purpose of this new law is to glorify Christ and
to produce His character in believers by means of the Holy Spirit. Galatians
4:19 NASB “My children, with whom I am again in labor
until Christ is formed in you—” That is talking about the character of Christ
being formed in the believer as a result of first learning doctrine,
transforming his mind, and applying it. That is the point: you have to apply
it. As it transforms our mind it transforms our character, and so what is
revealed in us is the character of Jesus Christ.
6. God the Holy Spirit is the one who glorifies Christ in
the spiritual life. John
Galatians 2:15 NASB
“We {are} Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles;
Paul begins v. 16 with a
conjunction of contrast and emphasis: “nevertheless.” The nasb translates the participle as “knowing,”
which is not that accurate. What we have here is an adverbial participle, the
perfect active participle of the Greek word oida
[o)ida] which has
several meanings related to knowledge: to know, to understand, to perceive, to
have the knowledge as to how to perform a particular activity or to accomplish
some goal. It is different from ginosko
[ginwskw] in that it emphasises this idea of knowledge related
to the performance of a particular activity. Grammatically it is a participle;
a participle helps out the main verb. When we have an adverbial perfect participle,
because it lacks an article, almost always is causal. That is a very important
concept here. Therefore it is best translated “because we know.” That adds a
whole new dimension to the opening of this verse. Now the reason we get the “we”
is that the main verb a little later on is the third person plural, so Paul is
talking to Peter and he says to him, Because we know something.” Who is “we”? Verse 15, “We are Jews by nature.” “We know” back in Genesis
15:7 that we have learned that Abraham was justified by faith alone; he was
declared righteous by faith.
The next word in the Greek
is hoti [o(ti]. Sometimes this word is not even translated into English. Sometimes
it introduces a direct quotation or an indirect quotation. Sometimes it has a
causal idea and other times it introduces a principle and
that is what is going on here. To get our best understanding of this we
could translate it: “Because we know: [colon]” Then the principle is given. They
know a principle of doctrine: a man is not justified by the works of the Law.
That is the principle the Jews know and have learned from the Old Testament. Why?
The Law didn’t come until Moses, five or six hundred years after the death of
Abraham, yet Abraham was justified by faith. So we have a principle: a man is
not justified by the works of the Law.
The word “justified” comes
from the Greek verb dikaioo [dikaiow]. It means to put right with, to cause someone to be
in a right relationship with someone else; it has a very legal connotation
because it was often used in the court room to refer to technical, legal
procedures. That is the background for much of what God says about salvation:
this legal relationship between man and God. The noun is dikaiosune [dikaiosunh], which has two meanings: righteousness and justice. These
are two closely connected terms. We will just translate it as a legal term “to
be declared righteous.” That is the best way to understand justification. It is
a legal concept, not an experiential concept. This is important because at
salvation we don’t lose the sin nature; we are still sinners. Every sin an
unbeliever can commit, the believer can still do. The difference is that
because the believer has trusted in Christ as his saviour he has been freed
from the bondage to the sin nature. Romans chapter six says that as an
unbeliever we were enslaved to the sin nature, but now we are no longer slaves
to unrighteousness, we are to be slaves to righteousness. As an unbeliever all
one can do is unrighteousness, no matter how good it is, how altruistic or
helpful or beneficial, because it does not flow from the power of God the Holy
Spirit. So we will translate this: “Nevertheless because we know a man is not
declared righteous by the works of the Law.” In the Greek
that phrase is important because it is anarthrous, i.e. it lacks a definite
article. The lack of the definite article here is emphasising the
quality of the noun. So “the works of the Law” is literally “works of Law.” The
point is that this can still be translated with the definite article but the
Greek emphasises the quality of these works. Paul by a very subtle point, by
removing the article, it emphasising that it doesn’t matter how good our works
are, no matter how much quality we may think they possess, they are nothing in
God’s eyes.
Principle: Man is not
declared righteous on the basis of good deeds or the works of the Law “but
through faith in Christ Jesus.” Once we have that phrase we saw in Romans, dia plus the genitive which means “through.”
Faith is always the channel by which we appropriate salvation. Then we have an
objective genitive, which is an unusual construction, focusing on the object of
faith which is Jesus Christ: “through faith in Christ Jesus.” Then there is a
shift in tone here: “even we [you and me, Peter] have believed in Christ Jesus,”
i.e. because we knew this principle we did something: we believed, we trusted. Belief
means to trust. It doesn’t mean to commit your life to Christ; it doesn’t mean
inviting Jesus into your life or heart; it means to trust Christ as your
saviour. It is faith alone, to rely exclusively on something.
Next: “and not by the
works of the Law.” Three times Paul makes this point. God the Holy Spirit does
not want us to miss out on this. Repetition, repetition; get the point: it is
not by the works of the Law; morality doesn’t do anything for us. The spiritual
life is beyond morality; morality is for unbelievers. Morality is wonderful and
it provides stability in a nation, but morality has no spiritual value. The
spiritual life is a life that is produced exclusively by means of the power of
God the Holy Spirit. Hence: “by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.”
Corrected and expanded
translation: “Because we [as Jews] we know [a principle of doctrine] that a
person is not declared righteous from the source of his good deeds but through
the means of faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, and we [you and me, Peter]
believe in Christ Jesus in order that we might be declared righteous from the
source of faith in Christ and not by the good deeds we do; because [we know a principle]
no human being will be declared righteous from the source of good deeds.”
How does justification
take place? What are the mechanics of justification by faith? What has to
happen for God to declare us to be righteous? When we understand that it increases
our appreciation as believers for everything that God has done for us in
salvation. Secondly, it increases our understanding of why it is that we have
eternal security. We can do nothing to lose it because we did absolutely
nothing to gain it. Like everything related to the gospel in Scripture our
starting point must be God, it never starts with man. We always start with God
for two reasons. First, we can’t start with man because man is finite; he is
limited. He has limited knowledge, and all of the accumulated knowledge of man
in proportion to God’s omniscience is like one grain of sand com pared to all
the grains of sand on all the beaches throughout the world. Second, we can’t
start with man because due to him being a sinner his knowledge is warped. It is
always distorted by the human viewpoint frame of reference that he brings to
the facts. Sometimes we can’t convince an unbeliever of certain things because
their interpretation is so wrapped up with the past itself that they can’t see
one thing from another, there is no objectivity there whatsoever. This is
because of sin. Inherent sin warps our perception of reality. The only solution
is the grace of God.
When we look at the
essence of God there are three characteristics we want to isolate to understand
the whole doctrine of justification by faith alone. These are righteousness,
justice and love. Together they comprise the integrity of God. Integrity is a
little more up-to-date than the old word “holiness.” When we look at the
attributes of God we have to realise that all of them comprise the wholeness of
God. Just as we have many different attributes and characteristics in our life
that characterise us they are not evident all the time. In one situation your
honesty may be evident. In another situation the fact that you are a hard
worker and are reliable may be evidenced, and honesty is not an issue and not
even apparent in that situation. So when God deals with us, no matter what the
situation may be, different attributes apply at different times but they never
operate apart from all of the other attributes. There is an internal
consistency between all of the attributes. When we talk about the righteousness,
justice and love of God, God’s love does not operate apart from His righteousness.
In fact, His righteousness provides a standard for the function and motivation
of His love.