In this sermon, Paul Carrington delves into the concept of justification as presented in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession, specifically focusing on paragraphs 4 to 6. He begins by highlighting the significance of what Christ has accomplished, drawing from the imagery in Revelation chapter 5. Carrington emphasizes that justification is not merely God treating us as righteous, but rather we are indeed made righteous through our union with Christ. This doctrine challenges human pride and differentiates Christianity from other religions that promote works-based salvation. The sermon underscores justification as the cornerstone of Christian faith, supported by Paul's strong admonitions in Galatians against altering the gospel message. Carrington explains the distinction between justification and sanctification, illustrating that while justification is a one-time act of grace, sanctification is an ongoing process. He uses the historical example of Adoniram Judson to demonstrate the transformative power of effectual calling. The sermon also addresses God's continued forgiveness for the justified, emphasizing the importance of repentance and the dangers of living under God's fatherly displeasure due to sin. Carrington concludes by affirming that justification under both the Old and New Testaments is grounded in faith and the redemptive work of Christ, urging believers to live lives that reflect God's glory.

Tonight we're going to be going through of justification the 11th chapter of the SLBC. We're going to be covering the second half of it, paragraphs four to six. But I couldn't help but thinking of the big, big picture of what God is doing in Jesus Christ and what he's accomplished for us in the life of Christ, in his death, and in his resurrection. And the thing that struck me here as I was thinking about this earlier just before coming was what we see in Revelation chapter 5. We get this view of John, the apostle, transported up into the presence of God.

In chapter 4 he's there, he sees the majesty of God. And in chapter 5 we see a slightly different scene. And I just want to start off by reading just a little bit of that to give us the context of exactly what Christ has accomplished for us and this is what the Apostle John this is what he actually writes and he said I and I saw in the right hand of him that is God the Father in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll written inside and on the back sealed with seven seals then I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals, and no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look at it. So I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll or to look at it. So I wept much because no one was found worthy to open and read the scroll or to look at it.

But one of the elders said to me, do not weep, behold the lion of the tribe of Judah. The root of David has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals. And I looked and behold in the midst of the throne of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb, as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth then he came and took the scroll out of the right hand of him who sat on the throne and you look at what Christ has done for us, what the cross has accomplished, what no one else, it says in heaven all the seraphim, the cherubim, the best man even at his best state altogether, vanity and under the earth no one who's ever lived was found worthy but the lion of the tribe of Judah and there he is as a lamb slain before the throne of God and he goes up and he takes that scroll it's it's an awesome thing to think of who we're worshiping and what's been accomplished on our part because of what Christ has done.

And so last week we looked at the the concept of justification and we tried to define it as best as we could but it it really is all centering on what Christ has accomplished for us in his death and resurrection for people like us who are reprehensible, sin-stained sinners to be brought into the presence, into the family of God. And it's a declaration, not that God treats us as if we were righteous. It's really important that we get this idea of justification. It's not as though God is saying, well, he's treating us as though we were righteous, but we are in fact righteous because of our union with Jesus Christ through faith who has actually become our righteousness and so this whole idea just to refresh a little bit of justification is it actually assaults the citadel of man's pride And it salts it in two primary ways, but primarily the first thing it does it it causes us to look at ourselves And if you were to mine the deepest depths of your own heart Here is the reality you will find no gold There'll be nothing in you that will somehow make you acceptable.

If you were to mine all of the hearts of all men who have ever lived, you wouldn't even find one ounce of gold that God would look upon and say, well There's something there to redeem of itself And so this assaults man's pride who wants to have a part in his salvation because it's freely given it can't be earned or deserved But it also it assaults the claims of all the false religions that are out there that have the same message all of them except for one which is Christianity and what they tell you is try your best perhaps perhaps maybe just maybe your good works will outweigh your bad works and maybe God will have mercy on you in that day and so people embark on all sorts of enslaving practices trying to do penance if you're coming from a Catholic perspective if you're a Muslim people do things like make a hodge to Mecca and to do this to somehow make themselves appealing to God. If you're a Hindu or something like that, you try to keep your behavior in check, lest you get reincarnated and come back as a cockroach or something else in punishment for what you've done.

And there's just always this constant striving. And this is what John Calvin says, why is justification so important? This is what he says, he says justification is the principle hinge by which religion is supported and it is the sum of all piety. Whenever the knowledge of it is taken away, that is the knowledge of justification, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown." And so what he's saying, it's the hinge, it's the actual hinge on which our entire religion is built. That's how important it is that we grasp this doctrine of justification.

And this is why it's so critical because when Paul wrote to the Galatians, you remember here was a church being attacked by Judaizers coming in and telling them, hey, justification not good enough. You're gonna have to, not by faith, you've gotta do something by your works. And Paul opens up that letter very, very forcefully and he says the same thing twice Back to back in Galatians 1 verse 8 and 9 and he says but even if we or an angel from heaven Preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached to you. Let him be accursed If anyone tries to to play around with this whole idea of the gospel and how you're justified and made right with God, let him be accursed. And he's so forceful that he repeats the exact same thing over and over in the next verse again.

And so unfortunately through the course of history, it's been the thing that's been attacked most and as we looked at last week It's as though in some ways this doctrine was recovered not entirely because there were other groups as I mentioned some other groups There were more obscure and maybe not as widely known that had the understanding of justification by faith and God has always made a way for the truth even though the stream has become narrower at some points and broader at other points but at that time when Martin Luther came on the scene It was as though there was a dark cloud kind of over the over the church and and JC Royall said it like this He says no man can read the history of Christendom as it was 500 years ago and not see the darkness covered the whole professing Church of Christ even a darkness that might be felt. So great was the change which had come over Christianity that if an Apostle had risen from the dead, he would not have recognized it and would have thought that heathenism had revived again. The doctrine of the Bible lay buried under a dense mass of human traditions, pendences and pilgrimages and indulgences, relic worship and image worship and saint worship and worship of the Virgin Mary formed the sum and substance of most people's religion.

And by what means was all this miserable darkness cleared away? By none so much as bringing forth once more the Bible. And so in this doctrine of justification what we're seeing is that it means we are declared righteous according to the law. It's this judicial or forensic pronouncement that we are no longer guilty, but no longer we not only not guilty, but we are righteous because Christ's obedience, active and passive, has been imputed to us. But one thing I just want to clarify, Because I think it's important that we do get this is is not to confuse justification and sanctification They're inseparably connected And yet they're quite distinct and so justification what we're talking about tonight is that single act of grace that it changes a person's state Before God it's that perfect and complete act that God undertakes and it's complete at once It's a one-time action where a sanctification is a continued work of grace resulting in a change of character over time.

And so we can say that justification, the act that God undertakes for us, is evidenced by good works or our continued sanctification. It's shown in that way. But what happens, most of all I want us to understand, is that justification should result in us worshiping God. And when you continue in Revelation chapter 5 and you see this lamb as he was standing there before the throne of God who goes up and takes the scroll from him who lives forever and ever. There was a new song that was sung and this is something we never want to just become so again cerebral but let it sink down into our hearts and the song that was sung it says you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and ever deemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth." And so we get into paragraph four and I'm just going to read it here.

Hopefully we can put it up and I'll read the first part of this here. It says, God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins and rise again for their justification. Nevertheless, they are not justified personally until the Holy Spirit doth in time do apply Christ unto them. And so this is kind of a summary that speaks of the point at which justification occurs. And we kind of see three things happening.

We see eternity past where it says God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect and we saw of God's decree previously we've seen how God decrees and he does it from eternity past so one thing we just want to gather from This is it's not as though God looked down the annals of history and saw that ah brother so-and-so He was going to repent and so I'm gonna write him in my book or I'm gonna repent I'm gonna save her because I saw that she was gonna receive Jesus Christ It's nothing like that whatsoever, but he decreed it from eternity. And it's not every person, but it's his elect. So we see from eternity past what God does, but also in the fullness of time, what does he do? Well, he sends Jesus Christ. And it says, Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins and rise again for their justification and and this is what Paul Mentions when he looks at Roman when he writes Romans chapter 4 in verse 25 It's almost an exact quote but but this is showing that Abraham was justified by faith apart from works of the law and it was speaking not only about Abraham or for Abraham But also for us and it says and therefore in verse 25 It was accounted to him for righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him But also for us it shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord From the dead who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification.

And that's that line there that you see right in the in the fourth paragraph. And so we see from eternity past, God decrees it, we see in the fullness of time Jesus Christ coming, but what about us? There's this aspect of effectual calling that that nevertheless they are not justified personally until the Holy Spirit Doth in time do apply Christ unto them. And this is the wonderful act of salvation, that new birth that takes place when the Holy Spirit blows where he will and he brings a dead sinner to life. And you can look through history and every century you'll find dead sinners brought to life in Jesus Christ.

It's an amazing thing, you know, the one man that I was I was thinking of that I thought would be just really a good example of what happened was a young man by the name of Adoniram Judson and here was a man who a young man he grew up in a Christian home you know he went away to school in Rhode Island I think it was and he's in New England goes into Rhode Island and he ends up basically denying the faith he becomes a deist He came under the influence of a really, I think, quite a personality, a young man by the name of Jacob Eames. And there he was in the university. He totally abandoned his faith, got involved in the theater and in partying and doing all these types of things, a debauched lifestyle. And he decided he was going to wait until he was 20 to tell his parents that he had abandoned the faith. And so he did so.

He went back home. He told them, Mom and Dad, I've Abandoned the faith. I'm not a Christian and it broke their heart it devastated them and About six days later. He he left and embarked on his journey and As he was going he wanted to work for the theater and do writing and so on but what happened was one night he passed into a village and he went into an inn to get some sleep for that night. And as he was in that inn, the innkeeper, before he went to bed, said, I just want to apologize in advance.

There's a man that's really almost deathly sick in the next room and it might be disturbing to you throughout the night. And I apologize for that. If you could bear with it, that would be great. And so there was, at an Irem Judson, he's lying on his bed there looking up at the ceiling. And as he's there, he's wondering about this man.

Is he prepared to meet God? But hold on, I'm a deist. I don't, I'm not afraid of that. And he's having this tug-of-war wrestling match inside of himself. But something happened where he just realized that I don't think I'm prepared to face God.

And so in the morning, you know, after finally getting some rest, he went out to the innkeeper and he said, hey, did that man recover last night? And the innkeeper said, no, he died and it caught him off guard. He didn't quite expect that. And he asked the innkeeper, well, what was the man's name? And he told him his name was Jacob Eames.

It was his friend who had led him astray. In that very same year, that young man at Anirum Judson, he repented. He went back, he enrolled in seminary. Four years later, he embarked as becoming the first American missionary to go overseas and had one of the most illustrious missionary careers that you can imagine preaching the gospel in Burma, but you see how God in time Called this man whose whose name was written in the Lamb's book of life from eternity past saved by Christ in the fullness of time It's It's a wonderful thing and Ephesians 2 captures this so well. It says, And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the power of the air.

That's what he was doing for a number of years. The spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once had our conduct, ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath just as others. And so in paragraph 5 we read this, God doth continue to forgive the sins of those who are justified and although they can never fall from the state of justification yet they may by their sins fall under God's fatherly displeasure. And I'll stop there for a moment. And it's an amazing thing to think about.

Not only have we been justified in time, but then God continues to forgive our sins. He doesn't just take us to a point says it's up to you from this point forward but but if we would what does it say we would confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us for our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and we heard today you know Proverbs 28 it speaks about the fact that he that covers his sins shall not prosper, but he that confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. This is the great God that we serve. We have this advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous who's standing there as a high priest continually like that lamb if you just picture that lamb before the throne of God as a lamb interceding for us making intercession for us This should be a great anchor for our souls when we're when the storms are blowing up on the surface of life that anchor goes way down deep and holds because we have an understanding yes things are difficult maybe I'm tossed by doubt or difficulty But I know of whom I have believed and I am persuaded and so we can never be unadopted you can never be Unjustified and yet what he's saying here is yet they may by their sins fall under God's fatherly displeasure and you need to think of it like that that this is a view of God as father as a father I will chastise my son or you will chastise your son as a mother and and here's the reality that oftentimes we're our own worst enemies if you really look at life and you're honest with yourself and you're in a state of examining yourself even like a sermon we heard today you're gonna find that the most substantial battles are the ones taking place right within the bosom our own soul and so the old man is constantly at war with the new man and and if you think of Ezra the people in Ezra's day here's a question could the people in Ezra's day expect the sunlight of God's pleasure and delight on them while they lived opposite to his commands I mean could they really as they had these pagan wives expect somehow that God's gonna smile upon them and you might ask that same question Can I with this pagan wife quote-unquote in my life really expect the blessing of God?

I can keep playing religion. I can keep coming to church and singing. I can keep doing all those things. But will I have God smile his blessing upon my life while I continue in these things when repentance is available? It's really worth asking that question because repentance brings forth light.

You think of a man like David after he commits adultery and murders a man, and this is what he writes, he says, restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your way ways and sinners shall be converted to you." And so it's such an important thing to ask yourself is there that tendency in my life to stay in a position of God's fatherly displeasure. It's really an important question to ask yourself as a young person. Ask yourself as an older person, as a husband, as a wife, is this my tendency? It's almost like holding your breath or or quietly or not so quietly rebelling against God.

That can happen oftentimes where you're at war, sometimes you're at war with sin and other times you're at peace with sin like we heard today. You just get into some sort of relationship where you're just locked in with your sin and you just say hey this is who I am going forward. It's like the the people in the book of judges who said you know what God told us to destroy all the ites of the land but we're not going to do that we're just going to live a peaceful coexistence with them And of course we know how that turned out. Before long they became enslaved to them. And there are a few reasons for God's fatherly displeasure.

There's many, but here are a few to think about just to examine yourself. Is there a lack of forgiveness in your heart? Like that unforgiving servant? It might be something to consider. That oftentimes can be something that has a crippling effect on our faith.

Even if someone doesn't ask you to forgive them, Are you able to grant forgiveness simply because of how Christ has been so good to you? And this is where a lot of people I think we can stumble where that root of bitterness grows up and before long we have ought against one another and it's a terrible, terrible thing. There could be vice and secret sin like we heard about today. How about pride, where we hear in the Bible that God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble. Or even in a marriage where 1st Peter talks about that, He warns the husbands, if you don't want your prayers to be hindered, make sure that you're leading your wife in a right way.

It's important that I can't just go to God and think all is well when there's all this turmoil in my home. That can be something to consider. How about something that you wouldn't often put in that category of a gross sin but something like the fear of man Where you know you should be obeying God, you know, you should take a stand, you know You should be involved in the Great Commission But I'm afraid and so you you fear man more than you fear God or you could could be all sorts of things like worldliness You know, maybe hard to pinpoint, but are there weights? You know how hey Bruce 12 talks about that weights and sins. There could be things in your life that are weights Unprofitable that are holding you back from following God and serving God as you ought to.

Or it could just be a steady drift. At one point you were close to the Lord, you felt close to the Lord, but because of other things coming in you just steadily drifted and so you suffer from being not all that bad. You're not engaged in all this other stuff but you're just distant from God in your heart, no warmth in your soul. And so this is something to think about. Are you satisfying yourself?

Am I satisfying myself with the husks of this world. I thought it's amazing how this dovetails so nicely with what we we heard this morning. And what's the remedy for all of this? The remedy is to repent, to turn to God. And you can say well I already did that I wrote it in my Bible or I did it five years ago but the Christian life isn't just one of one-time repentance but it's a life of constant repentance of asking God please change me it's a constant course Correction as you see more and more of your own sins that you ask God to forgive you and not only that but you take Drastic measures where drastic measures need to be taken and and what a thing it is to have the light of his countenance restored back to you again.

Think of it like the prodigal son. You know the word prodigal, it means wasteful, recklessly, extravagant. I mean can God forgive something like that? Well, we know we know how it can be forgiven and in this paragraph it tells you it says how do you get back to God you humble yourself you confess your sins you beg pardon you renew your faith and repentance and so I think the thing we can take away from this is is don't live at a distance from God don't live at Distance with your brothers and with your sisters, but be be a repenting person I want to be more of a repenting person because you know our religion unlike any of the other religions it's a sinner's religion it's it's specifically made for sinners Christ says I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance And so we have a God that restores the repentant. Think of a man like Peter, utterly broken after his big grand display of pride, though all men forsake you, I will never forsake you.

And continuing and persisting in that attitude, Only to be totally embarrassed and taken down by basically a servant girl in the courtyard of the high priest But thanks be to God we have a God that he restores the repentant after he realized what he did It says he wept bitterly not dissimilar from what we see in Ezra chapter 10. And so there's hope not only for the dead sinner but also for the wayward Christian. Both of us can can draw hope from this. And so the last paragraph it says this, the justification of believers under the Old Testament was in all these respects one and the same with the justification of believers under the New Testament. And so the question is, you know, were the people or were the saints of the Old Testament, were they justified before God through the sacrifice of bulls and goats of lambs?

Did that actually make them right before God? Well, the obvious answer is no, it did not. No man has been made just because he did what God told him to do in the keeping of the law because he could never keep the whole law hence the necessity of God sending his only Son you see how everything comes back to one man Jesus Christ the righteous it's a wonderful thing and so these things like the lambs that were sacrificed the goats the bulls all that it was pointing to the one who was to come the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and it's almost like thinking like when you think of the the Old Testament a good analogy perhaps to help us think it through is you know when the building goes up the builder takes away the scaffolding right what's the building the building is Jesus Christ the temple And the scaffolding is like the old covenant. It's no longer required. And so the new covenant supersedes that.

And what happens to those that were like men like Ezra? What happens to men like David? Well, there's a retroactive application of the blood of Christ where we are on this side of the cross and they're on that side of the cross. That blood is retroactively applied to those who believed and if you want to get a real good understanding of that, Hebrews 11 is a perfect description of that because every single man is introduced by two words, by faith, by faith, by faith. It wasn't ever without faith that a man was justified.

And so we look at a man like what like Abraham and in John chapter 8 when Christ is in this this major conflict with the Pharisees they're going back and forth and you know they're basically denigrating him saying all sorts of wicked things about him And one of the things he ends up saying is this, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. So we can see that a man like Abraham was looking forward to a day, the day of Jesus Christ. He saw my day. He understood that what he was doing with all these other things were just a picture of that which was to come and he was glad. That's a man like Ezra.

That's a man like Isaiah. All these men and women that we read about in the scriptures. They were saved by one thing and that is by the blood of Jesus Christ. And so just a couple things to wrap up with. Maybe two or three things to examine and consider as we wrap up this amazing chapter on justification.

I think to me that the big takeaway is behold our God in the doctrine of justification, making us alive and right with him in a way that we never could. Everything redounds to his glory. You know the fact that Jesus Christ has come and when you get a picture like that in Revelation 5 where nothing and no one else could make us right, Jesus Christ did that for us. And this is what Charles Spurgeon says, you know, you can trust in man's ways and man's system, but it leads to destruction. But he says this, to wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing than making it alive.

Man can do the one, only God can do the other. And that's what we receive when we're justified, we're made right and declared righteous before God. One other thing to think about is examine yourself. Are you in the faith? When you think of this fact that there's a gate that leads to pardon, there's a gate that leads to peace with God, to eternal life, and whosoever you are, even the vilest of men, a man like Adoniram Judson living a totally debauched life, receiving the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

If you go in by that gate you shall be saved. Are you in the faith? The way has been made for sinners. The tree of life has been planted, if you will, and we're bid to come and to partake. And this is the thing that we also should think about also is, is this what Christ has done in our justification actually resulting in a way of life that is redounding to his glory?

Are we living a life of worship, of declaring the worthiness of God, declaring Jesus Christ and what he has done? You see, J.C. Rowland will end with this quote, He says this, I call that religion miserable, which teaches people to be content with saying we can do nothing of ourselves and makes them continue in sin. I find no such theology in the New Testament. I hear Jesus say to sinners come repent believe labor ask seek knock I see plainly that our salvation from first to last is entirely of God But I see with no less plainness that our ruin, if lost, is holy and entirely of ourselves.

May we think of these things, the absolute beauty of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you. Thank you for what you've accomplished for us, Lord, what we never could, that not all the men in the entire history of the world could accomplish, but you have done so through the sending of your Son, raising him for our justification. Lord, thank you for all that you've done.

May you touch our hearts and cause us to worship you more deeply. Oh Lord, more sincerely. May we walk in dependence more and lean on you more, O God. May you help us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.