The sermon by Jason Dohm explores the theological implications of justification by faith as outlined by Paul in Romans 3:27-31. The first implication is that boasting is excluded because salvation is not a result of personal achievements but is granted through faith in Jesus Christ, the anointed Savior. This underscores that it is not faith itself that saves, but the object of faith, which is Christ. The second implication is the universality of the Gospel, meaning that both Jews and Gentiles are justified by faith without any distinction. This emphasizes that there is one God and one way to salvation, available to all who believe. The third implication addresses a potential misunderstanding that justification by faith renders the law void. Paul argues that, rather than being nullified, the law is established. The law still serves important purposes, such as reflecting God's perfections and guiding believers in understanding what pleases Him. Thus, while law-keeping is not a means to achieve salvation, it remains relevant and significant in the life of a believer.

Good morning. I've got really good news for you. Really good news. God is gracious and kind. If you're like me, I didn't dive as deep as I wanted to this week in this text.

I've been in His word, but this text is so beautiful. And what I'm praying is the same thing I'm praying for you that even now It's not too late. That's the good news It's not too late to dive deeply and ask the Lord for his grace to open our ears well And to dive deeply into these words that are just beautiful from heaven. So our sermon text will be Romans 3, 21 through, rather 27 through 31, but I'm going to pick us up in Romans 3 starting in verse 19. Now we know whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now, the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness. Because in His forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness. That He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Now our text. Where is boasting then? It is excluded.

By what law? Of works? No. But by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes. Of the Gentiles also. Since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith, do we then make void the law through faith?

Certainly not. On the contrary, we establish the law. Oh God, we just want to exalt You. The beauty of these words and Oh Lord, if you would help us now, just cleanse our minds of all the distractions and be with our brother as he comes. Open our eyes and our ears to your magnificent word.

God teach us today. Give us humble, teachable hearts. Help us right now, God. Prepare well for this time. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is Three Implications of Justification by Faith. Paul Preached a great sermon to us in the text last week on justification By grace alone through faith alone Sweet to sing Martin Luther a mighty fortress is our God the great champion of justification by faith, because we're right in the thick of that in Romans this week. Paul gives us three things that must be true if justification as he teaches it is true. Reflecting on last week's text, I think that was the most glorious text I have ever preached on.

I've been preaching full time for 12 years now. That's probably 600 sermons or something like that. I don't know where it ranks in terms of preaching, but the text itself, I can't think of one that was more glorious than the text we were in last week. I don't know how one human being could get a fuller view of the Gospel in just six verses. You really have it in its fullness in so many ways there.

You have the righteousness of God set apart from law keeping. In other words, not my righteousness, but God's righteousness imputed to the believer with nothing to do with law keeping. You have it being grounded in the Old Testament. In other words, it isn't new news. It's exactly the keeping of the Old Testament promises.

So if you want to find the Gospel, you need not start in Matthew in the New Testament, but you can find the grounding for all the Gospel truths in the Old Testament. Paul and Peter were both saying we're telling the old old story of a promised Savior, And now we're just on the other side of the fulfillment of it. We have the instrument of faith. We have the instrument of salvation, which is faith. How do we lay hold on this salvation?

By trusting in Jesus. We have the object of faith, which is Jesus Christ. Meaning it's not just blind faith in any old thing, it is the object of faith which really has the great value. And what's the object of faith? Jesus Christ.

We had that salvation is available to any and all who will believe. It is a full and free offer of pardon to anyone who will throw themselves on Jesus Christ for mercy. We have the universal condition of man that all have sinned. And even though you were made to reflect the glory of God, you have done anything like that, we're all in this condition where we have sinned against God. And that really is the context for salvation.

We've failed to live up to what God made us for to be image bearers. We have free grace, yet redemption. Salvation that is free to us is a gift to us, but it but it isn't Free all the way it a high high price has been paid for the salvation It took nothing less than the blood of the Son of God to purchase it for us. We have a propitiation. What is propitiation?

It is offering something to satisfy and bring to an end the anger of God. In this case, it is the good, right, appropriate anger of God against all of our rebellion. You have God as just and the justifier, the justice of God perfectly preserved, and yet He's found a way to have mercy on sinners and declare them righteous even though they and themselves are not righteous, but he does it by substituting his his perfectly righteous son for them. So that's it. What do you want from the gospel that you don't have in the six verses from last week.

You might have further explanation of some of these things, but I can't think of anything that's missing. It was a glorious text. But we have to keep moving, so this week we keep moving. Last week we had justification by faith, now this week Paul gives us three implications. And they really are unavoidable implications.

If you take justification by faith as Paul teaches it, these are three things That must be true if justification by faith as he teaches it is true. There's no wiggling out of these things. And they really need to be said because they're things that we would potentially get wrong to our own harm. So thank you Paul for giving us this. As we go to our text, let's ask God to help us.

God we simply thank you for glad tidings this glorious. A full and free salvation to us though it cost you so dearly free to us. God I pray that these three implications of the gospel that Paul sets before us this week would really be pressed on us. That they would be inescapable for us, that we would have no desire to escape any of them, but we would embrace these implications and we would remember them many, many years from now. Still be guided and directed by the truths that are here.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen. I'd like to begin by looking at the first two verses of our text. So this is Romans chapter 3. Hopefully you're still open to Romans chapter 3. Verses 27 and 28.

So please follow along as I reread those two verses. Paul writes this. Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. In these two verses we have implication Number one of justification by faith. Boasting is excluded. If you are taking notes on the handout, filling in blanks, boasting fills in the blank. The first implication, and it is unavoidable, you can't wiggle out of it, is that boasting is excluded by this way of salvation that God has made.

As we work through the text, we'll find three main questions whose answers give us the three implications that are unavoidable implications of what the justification by faith means. There are some secondary questions, so there are more than three in the text, but there are really clearly three primary questions, and then the rest are secondary questions that Paul uses to continue the explanations. The first primary question, where is boasting? The second primary question, is God only the God of Jews or of everyone? The third primary question, Does this gospel, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, make the law irrelevant?

So those are the three questions whose answers will lead us to these three implications that we can't possibly wiggle out of if we understand them correctly. Question number one, where is boasting? Implication number one of justification by faith. Boasting is excluded. It is nowhere to be found.

Paul goes on to explain this by asking and answering additional questions about systems of righteousness. Paul sets before us a couple of systems of righteousness. He begins by talking about the law of works. When Paul talks about the law of works, he is talking about a system of righteousness. The use of law here is meaning system.

A system of righteousness by which a person's work provides the righteousness. I act righteously, my works are righteous, so I'm righteous. That's the system. Obey God and I obey God so I'm righteous. But let's just say right now that Paul's just spent two and a half chapters destroying that notion.

So that every mouth has stopped and all the world is guilty. That's verse 19. Just a few verses up into last week's text. Paul argues for two and a half chapters that all of us should embrace the fact, no matter who we are, what amount of revelation we've had along the way, that we are justly condemned by God. God is doing a good thing, the right thing, the appropriate thing, by rendering the verdict on our life to this point as a guilty verdict.

God is doing the right thing by doing that so that you need to be quiet. You are condemned. So don't you dare offer a defense. You know you stand condemned based on this two and a half chapters of arguments. He's convinced me.

I don't know what the two and a half chapters did to you. The two and a half chapters made it so perfectly clear as the weight builds argument by argument that a righteous God, a good judge, could only render a guilty verdict on my life and that I'm not alone. So righteousness by works has failed In terms of the law of works, a system by which the deeds of the law mean you're righteous. Paul just spent two and a half chapters saying that ship has sailed. Righteousness by works in your life has failed.

So can we agree there's no boasting there? We have a system of works, you're total failure by that system. He just gave you an extended, irresistible chain of logical arguments to convince you that you have failed by that system of righteousness. So you can't boast by that system. So Paul even says, by what law?

Of course not that law, based on the last two and a half chapters. So Paul brings us to the law of faith, the system of righteousness that results from and only from faith in Jesus Christ. I'll say again what I said last week. Jesus Christ, each of those words means something. Jesus means Savior.

Christ means the one anointed, the one set apart, commissioned by God for this saving work. So when we see Jesus Christ, we should thank anointed Savior, the one God set apart to the saving work. Paul doesn't re-say it here. He doesn't need to, but let's re-say it here to be safe. It isn't faith that saves.

It is the object of faith that saves. Do more people than Christians have faith? Of course! Everybody's trusting in something. The question is, can the thing you're trusting in deliver when the chips are down?

Will the thing that you're trusting in Do what you're trusting it to do when it counts, when it matters. And what the Bible teaches is any other thing that you're trusting in, in the day when you need it most, in the day when you stand to give account to this God who gave you your life for how you spent this life. If you're trusting in anything but Jesus Christ, it's going to fail and you'll be lost. But the one who trusts in Jesus Christ will never be put to shame, not even on that day of days when the God who knows everything about you, and if you are standing on your own merit, He would have to render a guilty verdict, but if you trust in Jesus Christ, He changes places with you. And He quenches all of God's anger against your sin because the Father has set Him forth to satisfy and bring to an end all of his anger against your sin, and leaves you as if you had lived Jesus' life.

So it is not faith that saves. It is the object of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, that saves. It is who Jesus is, is the infinitely worthy and valuable God man, and what Jesus has done in his perfect life, no sins of his own to die for, and death as a substitute for sinners, that secures my salvation. So what Paul calls the law of faith here, this system of righteousness by faith, He called the righteousness of God in verse 21 and verse 22. Look back to last week, verse 22.

Look at what he says about this righteousness of God or this law of faith. It's fair to say you can use those interchangeably. Verse 22, even the righteousness of God threw faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. So this righteousness of God is a righteousness that comes from outside of you. You didn't generate it.

It's God's righteousness. But it comes through faith in Jesus Christ and it's available to anyone and everyone who believes in Him. Now If my salvation can only be secured by who Jesus is and what He has done, how can I boast about that? And the answer is, I can't. Boasting is excluded.

So this is Paul's argument. Let's look at the systems of righteousness, the law of work, or the system of righteousness by the deeds of the law. He spent two and a half chapters saying, fail. You can't boast in that. You fail that test.

Alright, well let's look at the system of righteousness by faith, the law of faith. It's the object of faith, who Jesus is and what He has done that has secured that salvation for you. So there's nothing left for you to boast in. Let's let Paul comment on Paul. I want to go to two texts of scripture.

The first is Ephesians chapter 2. It's worth you going there, I think, if you're willing. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9. If you're going there, I'll give you a second to get there. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9.

You'll see that Paul is saying the same thing, but he actually offers a really helpful and necessary clarification in Ephesians chapter 2. Listen to Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9. For by grace, it's a gift, you have been saved through faith. And that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." That brings up a question. Why is boasting introduced either place?

Why in Romans chapter 3? Why in Ephesians chapter 2? Because we would if we could. Because we would if we could. We naturally like to have the credit, and if there was a way we could appoint the credit to ourselves, we would do it.

So, Paul is a good gospel preacher. He wants to strip that away, so we are not tempted to think, I figured it out. Here's a pro tip, you didn't figure it out. Even the faith is a gift. So another way to paraphrase of what Paul is saying here in Ephesians 2 is, don't you dare turn faith into a work that you then take credit for.

Don't you dare turn faith into a work that you then take credit for. Don't you dare turn faith into a work that you then take credit for. I did it! You would never say this, but the sense of it is, I saved myself by trusting in Jesus. I figured it out.

My neighbor is dumb, but I am smart. And so, the gospel preaching wasn't lost on me, it was lost on him. Poor guy, idiot. Wasn't lost on me though. I figured it out and I did it.

I believed in Jesus. Paul says no, no, no For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves The grace wasn't from you the faith wasn't from you It is the gift of God lest anyone should boast. If you turn faith into a work, you give yourself credit for it as if you were needed for salvation. God did all that, but I'm the last link of the chain. Do you know that you robbed glory from God by saying I'm the last link in the chain?

Because you've just made yourself the decisive link. The chain wouldn't have made it all the way there unless I was the last link in the chain. No, no, no. The grace of God is a gift by definition. Faith is a gift.

Paul says it. 1 Corinthians 1, the other place, I'll take you Paul commenting on Paul. The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. I was waiting for somebody to say, Matthew Henry. No, it's the Bible.

He's really good though. 1 Corinthians 1, Paul commenting on Paul. 1 Corinthians 1 verses 26 through 31. 1 Corinthians 1, 26 through 31. Paul writes, 1 Corinthians 1, 26-31.

Paul writes, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that as it is written, he who glories Let him glory in the Lord. He's quoting Jeremiah 9, 23, 24.

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, or the rich man boast in his riches, or the strong man boast in his strength. Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." There's more there. Glory in the Lord! God makes salvation in a way where he receives all the glory. Salvation by faith means that all the boasting should be not in me or anything that I've done because I don't have it coming to me but in God, him setting forth his Son and in his Son.

You want to boast? Boast in God. Here's a bonus snippet from part of Galatians 6 verse 14. You can just note it down if you want to. Galatians 6 verse 14, the verse starts this way.

Paul says, writes to the Galatians, but God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. God forbid that I should boast. Why? Because it's excluded. Except, I'll allow myself a little boasting here, in the cross.

It's the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ and him shedding His blood for sinners that deserves the glory. If you want to brag about something, brag about that. So Paul's conclusion is that there is only one system of righteousness by which any of us can be declared innocent before God, and that is by faith in Christ Jesus, the anointed Savior, and that this is completely separate from the deeds of the law. And so there is zero place for bragging. No place for bragging.

No boasting for us, because we didn't do it. God did it. There is a system of righteousness from law keeping. You failed. You can't brag.

The system that we qualify is, I threw myself on Jesus Christ for mercy, and because he shed his blood, he could extend his mercy to me. How am I going to boast about that? Boasting is excluded. We should boast in Him. Okay, to our text.

The next two verses, verses 29 and 30. Romans 3, 29 and 30. Paul continues. Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles?

Yes, of the Gentiles also. Since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. These two verses, we have implication number two of justification by faith. Justification by faith as Paul teaches it is true. This has to also be true.

All sinners are justified in one way without distinction. So if you're taking notes on the handout, there are two blanks. Sinners fills in the first blank, distinction fills in the second. All sinners are justified in one in the same way, without distinction. So here we have this second primary question.

Is God only the God of the Jews or of everyone?" He answers, He's the God of everyone and the implication is all sinners are justified in one way without distinction. Paul answers his own question, God is the God of Jews and non-Jews alike. Did he only make Jews? Somebody else make the non-Jews? No, he made the non-Jews.

I'm a Gentile. He made me. Meaning he's not, he's God over all the works of his hands, by the way, all the works of his hands is the only thing, only things that exist, all things that have been made, were made by God through Jesus. God is God. Period.

Amen. He is the God of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. You know where I got that from? Revelation chapter 5. Who will be around the throne in Revelation chapter 5?

Just the Jews. Wrong. Every tribe, Every tongue, every people, every nation will be around the throne worshipping the Lamb. There is one and only one God. He is perfectly righteous and all people have sinned against him and so there is only one way to be saved.

Which is the way this just God has made to justify sinners. Faith in Jesus Christ. One God, one way to be saved. If you're part of Abraham's family line and that nation that this family exponentially multiplied into, if you're physically marked out as belonging to God by circumcision, then there's good news for you. He promised to send you a Savior.

And in due season, that Savior came and laid down His life as a ransom for many. If you are outside that family line and nation, God has sent the anointed Savior for you too. And by the way, that's in the Old Testament too. What did Jesus say? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. No Jew comes to the Father except through me. Well that's true but that's not what he says. No one, he makes no distinction between Jew and non-Jew, between Jew and Gentile. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jews come to the Father through Jesus. Non-Jews come to the Father through Jesus. There is no other way. He is the way. It's John 14.6.

Who's Paul writing to? Rome. The city? No, the church. A church made up of Jews and non-Jews, Jews and Gentiles, both in this church.

And He's instructing them, there is one God, He is the God of you all without distinction. And He saves in one way without distinction through faith in His Son. People in the church in Rome, if you are a Jew, you must be born again and that only happens through faith in Jesus Christ. And if you are a Gentile, you must be born again and that only happens through faith in Jesus Christ. And if you're a Gentile you must be born again and that only happens through faith in God's Son Jesus Christ.

Here's how he says it in Galatians 3.28. So writing to another church, Galatians 3.28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, There is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you're a Jew, you're a sinner, you can only be saved one way by Jesus. If you're a Greek, you're a sinner. You can only be saved one way, through faith in Jesus.

If you're a slave, you're a sinner slave. You can only be saved one way, by faith in Jesus. If you're free, or even a master, you're a sinner free man, free woman. You can only be saved in one way. If you're male or you're female, you're a sinner.

You can only be saved by faith in Jesus Christ. You are all one in Christ Jesus. You might have heard this expression, the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Have you ever heard that? And it is!

No one stands above another at the foot of the cross. Not Jews, not Greeks, not slaves, not free men. Not males, not females. Ground is level at the foot of the cross. Listen to what John Murray says, I found this helpful.

John Murray says, We must not suppose that Paul has merely in view the correction of Jewish prejudices. He has the interest of the Gentile at heart also, and this ethnic universalism of the Gospel must have dawned also upon Gentiles with emotions of joy and wonderment." That's long and not necessarily with words we normally use. What does he mean? He's saying there are two things in view here, not one. He is correcting Jewish prejudices.

Oh, we're the people of God. You all are nothing. You non-Jews are nothing. He's correcting the Jewish prejudices. But he's doing more than that.

He's also saying to the Gentiles, God always intended to include you and you are included on level ground. So the Jew will know he is in no way above salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. No way above it. And so the Gentile will know that he or she is in no way below salvation as if God never intended that. God always intended that.

Finally, the final verse. Paul writes this. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary, we establish the law.

Here we have implication number three of justification by faith. If justification by faith as taught by the apostle Paul is true, this must also be true. Justification by faith does not make the law void. If you're filling in the blanks, void fills in the blank. Justification by faith does not make the law void.

So we have this third primary question, does this gospel, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, make the law irrelevant? The answer brings us to implication number three, justification by faith does not make the law void. Paul is attacking a wrong conclusion. It could be drawn from the fact that justification is apart from the deeds of the law, that salvation is by grace through faith, that it's a gift just by trusting in this object of faith, and so our law keeping has nothing to do with it. All of that is true.

You can draw a wrong conclusion from that. What's the wrong conclusion? It's obvious. If salvation through faith has nothing to do with my law keeping, then law keeping is irrelevant and the law is void, nullified, inoperative, abolished. I shouldn't spend one more second with the law in view.

It has nothing to do with me." Paul says, wrong conclusion. You got the facts right. It's not law keeping that imparts life to you. It's this anointed savior that you got the conclusion wrong. And actually, it's just the opposite.

Your wrong conclusion is the law is now irrelevant. The law is void. Paul says, no, exactly the opposite. The law is established. Not only do you have it wrong, it's the polar opposite of that.

The law is actually established by justification by faith as Paul teaches it. Let me start by saying that Paul just asserts here, he doesn't explain, meaning we're just looking at one verse and the verse is just a declaration with no explanation. Did you notice that? I noticed that. Why does he just make a declaration here with no explanation?

Because the explanation is really the subject of chapter six, of chapter seven, and of the first part of chapter eight. Oh, there's going to be an explanation. A long explanation in which he's going to build another devastating chain of logic that you can't escape. But he's not ready to embark on that just yet. And so right now he just makes a declaration, no it doesn't make the law void.

Justification by faith doesn't make the law irrelevant to me. But without pre-preaching those sermons, which I have no intent to do today, We can make several observations about what we have here. By the way, we'll probably spend two months in 6-7 and the start of 8, so you should thank me for not pre-preaching those sermons. I'm not ready for them, That's one thing. But even without pre-preaching those sermons, there are several observations we can make just even out of this one verse.

First, his literal answer is an answer we have seen before. We've actually seen it twice before. Certainly not! We saw it in verse 4. We saw it in verse 6.

So when we encountered that answer before, certainly not, I quoted John Murray then in that sermon too. John Murray notes that the King James renders it, God forbid, which is not a literal translation. Certainly not is better in the sense that it's more literal, but John Murray defended the King James translation because even though it's not literal, God forbid It imparts the urgency and the intensity and his abhorrence for what's in view. Whereas a literal translation certainly not. Does it bring over all that's in the Greek?

So John Murray actually likes a non-literal translation. God forbid! Paul recoils from this wrong conclusion. He's not just saying no that's not true. He recoils from it.

He holds that wrong conclusion in contempt. So we have to ask, why would Paul react so strongly? Paul, what's your problem? Why would he recoil from this wrong conclusion? Why would he hold this wrong conclusion in contempt?

I think it's the immediate context of Jesus being the answer to the concepts of redemption and propitiation, this system of righteousness, the righteousness of God that allows God to be just, to perfectly maintain His perfect justice, but also declare the guilty to be innocent and righteous. How can God do that? But it's the setting forth of His Son to absorb and drink down all of His anger to pay the price to redeem the sinner. So I think that's why Paul reacts so strongly against this wrong conclusion that justification by faith somehow makes the law irrelevant. He says, no, no, no, look at this system of righteousness that includes the concepts of redemption and propitiation.

What is redemption? What is redemption? It's paying a price to liberate the slave out of slavery. Slavery to what? The penalty of sin and the power of sin.

So now think of the wrong conclusion in light of that. God sends His Son to bleed and die to save the sinner from the penalty of sin, hell, and the dominating power of sin, but now he doesn't care if you sin. He bought you out of the slavery to sin, but now it's irrelevant whether you do or don't sin. How could that be? No wonder Paul recoils from that wrong conclusion.

No wonder he holds that wrong conclusion in contempt. What is propitiation? Setting forth, offering something to satisfy and bring to an end the anger of God against sin and rebellion. And now, somehow, after he's done that, he no longer cares about sin and rebellion. No wonder Paul recoils from that.

No wonder Paul holds that in contempt. Paul says no! The way God justifies sinners establishes the law. It doesn't make it irrelevant or avoid? Second, Paul has already taken a similar position against a related wrong conclusion.

Just look up in verse 8. We're not even in a different chapter. Earlier in chapter 3, chapter 3 verse 8, and why not say, let us do evil that good may come as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say, their condemnation is just. So this is definitely related and Paul has already pushed back hard on it and saying, people who say that about us deserve their condemnation. Justification by faith does not in any way mean let us do evil, that good may come.

It does not in any way mean that the law is now irrelevant to the believer. Paul is waging war against antinomians who are antinomians. There are people who say the law is bad. The Law can't impart life. Paul does teach that, but Paul nowhere teaches that the law is bad.

Actually, he does the opposite. He says the law is good. The law is not the problem. We're the problem. So should we, by the way, antinomians, alive and well, saying that the law is bad and you should need to give it a second look.

That is not true. It cannot impart life. By all means, Let's keep the gospel scandalous so that the chief of sinners can be swept into the kingdom of God by the grace of God. Amen to that. But it does not then follow that the law is the big problem and we shouldn't have anything to do with the law going forward, as if Jesus died for us to be lawless.

Do you think that? You think Jesus died for you to be lawless? The law is the reflection of God's perfections. So the gospel does set aside law keeping as having anything to do with justification. It does.

The gospel does that. Let's talk about justification. Oh, set law keeping aside. Why? You already blown it.

If law keeping has anything to do with it, you're going to ruin that system and you'll never end up at righteousness. So the Gospel does set aside law keeping as having anything to do with justification, but it doesn't set aside the law from the other purposes that it serves. Just because the law doesn't serve that purpose doesn't mean that it serves no purpose. Just because the law could never impart life doesn't mean that it has no use in the hands of God and the hands of the Holy Spirit. That's a wrong conclusion, a wrong conclusion that Paul recoils from and has contempt for.

Let's summarize and apply these three unavoidable implications of justification by faith. Boasting is excluded, But you can boast in the cross. You should boast in the cross. God has done all the work. God ought to have all the glory.

He ought to receive thanksgiving from us for Jesus going to the cross every day that we are alive. Give every bit of the praise to God. Don't ever reserve one ounce of praise for your salvation for yourself. You don't have it coming to you. Jesus paid it all.

We sang that. It was wonderful to sing that. Has not Jesus paid it all? Yes, He has paid it all. There is one way to be saved, faith in Jesus.

Unbeliever, unbeliever, you are trusting in things that will fail you when you need them the most. When your eternity hangs in the balance, heaven or hell, unbeliever, The things that you are trusting will fail you in that terrifying moment. I pray that God would give you the grace to be able to fast forward to that moment where you give an account and you stand on your own and these other things that you're trusting and they fail you. What will it be like in that moment? So that you'll be terrified now, so that you won't be terrified then.

Flee to Christ. No one who trusts in Jesus Christ will ever be put to shame, least of all, in the day when we give an account to God. Believer, that act of trusting in Christ for salvation puts us on a road that we're intended to continue down. It is the first and great in trusting ourselves to Christ. But can we say that we're done?

We're done for salvation. You'll never get any more saved. If you're really saved, you'll never get any less saved either. But is that the end of the story? Doesn't God want us to grow in dependence upon Him?

I think for believers, my exhortation would be to say what the Father says in the Gospels, I believe, help my unbelief. I believe, help me Grow in dependence upon you, trust in you. Salvation by faith does not set aside the law from its other purposes. Do you want to know God? God reveals Himself in His law.

His perfections are revealed in His law. Having been saved, do you want to know what pleases Him and what displeases Him? The law tells you that. It directs us. It helps us in many ways.

The law is good, we're the problem. You should be able to say, like the psalmist, oh how I love thy law. God, I thank you that Paul doesn't leave us to work out all the implications of justification by faith for ourselves, but that these ones that really could trip us up to our own harm, He makes so clear. And I pray that we would always remember that if justification by faith is true, that these things must be true also. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.