Romans 3:9-26 - Justification

Marc Minter

FBC Diana

The Reformation • Sermon • Submitted 7 months ago • Presented 7 months ago

The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation

Gospel

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Main Point: God saves (or specifically justifies) repenting and believing sinners through the person and work of Jesus Christ alone; therefore, we must confess our sin, we must abandon any hope of contributing to our justification through obedience, and that we must believe or have faith in Jesus as our only hope in life and death.

Notes

Transcript

Introduction

On October 31, 1517, a German monk, who became a Roman Catholic priest and theology professor (Martin Luther), posted 95 statements or theses to the church door in Wittenberg. This event become famous, and many historians point to it as the accidental start of the Protestant Reformation. Luther was probably inviting scholarly debate on a topic that was becoming increasingly problematic, but some of his students translated the theses and distributed copies far and wide.

The main problem Luther was arguing against was a practice called indulgences. Practically, buying indulgences was a win-win; the Church was able to raise funds and the parishioners were able to reduce some of their time in purgatory. All across the Holy Roman Empire (covering most of western Europe), the Roman Catholic Church was offering citizens indulgences, which consisted of doing acts of penance and giving a little money to the cause of the Church. John Tetzel was a Roman priest especially good at selling indulgences, and one of his jingles was “When coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.” For a small donation (along with prayer and good deeds, of course), you could minimize your own penalty and even that of dead loved ones.

The common religious and cultural perspective just before the Protestant Reformation was that the world is a wicked place to live, that God has high demands for personal righteousness, and that everyone must work hard to stay in God’s good graces. Pictures of Christ coming in judgment, stories of self-denying Christian heroes, and superstitious practices for dealing with sin and evil were everywhere. Fear and uncertainty permeated the everyday life of almost everyone.

If we were to summarize what became the end of the Medieval period in western Europe, we might say it was legalistic, severe, and tyrannical. And it is hard (maybe impossible) for us to imagine what it was like. Our own day and our American experience are (in many ways) the opposite. The legalism of the past has largely given way to licentiousness. The average East Texan doesn’t fear God’s judgment, he or she assumes that God’s love equals absolute affirmation.

And most of the severities of daily life are far behind modern men and women. We don’t depend on the rain or the sun (or so we are allowed to think), and we don’t have time for sickness and disease. We have grocery stores and restaurants on every corner, and we have doctors and medicines for everything.

So too, in the western world, most of the tyrannies of dictators and monarchs have never really threatened us. I have the same allergies as most of my fellow Americans for stuff like high taxes, bloated bureaucracy, and governmental overreach and ineptitude, but these troubles are far different from those of the Medieval common man… they suffered under terrible oppression, they were tortured for believing the wrong things, and they were even executed for speaking up against errors and injustice.

Still, one of the most basic questions of life remains the same, no matter when or where we live: How can I, a sinner, be saved from the wrath of God?

This was the major debate of the Reformation, and both Protestants and Roman Catholics answered the question in essentially different ways. The two answers then are (generally) the only two answers that can ever be (not just for Christians but for anyone): either (1) a sinner must do something to save him or herself (i.e., religious rituals, good deeds, acts of restitution); or (2) a sinner can do nothing to save him or herself, God must do the saving (i.e., God Himself must act on behalf of the sinner).

The formal Christian doctrine that speaks directly to this question is known as the doctrine of justification. To put this question – “How can I, a sinner, be saved from the wrath of God?” – in more precise terms, we must ask, “How can a guilty sinner ever be justified or vindicated before God’s bar of justice?” In other words, if God is the cosmic judge, and His own laws are the standard by which He judges all people everywhere, then how can a guilty criminal like me ever hope to leave the defendant’s seat without hearing the pronouncement of “guilty!”?

Today, it is my aim to answer this question from a historically Christian perspective and (more importantly) from the Bible itself. I want to walk through a passage of Scripture that addresses this doctrine, and I want to argue that the answer I’m explaining today is not new (it wasn’t even new in the 1500s!).

My hope is not merely that we will all have a better historical perspective of Christianity, but that we will all leave here with a better understanding of the central Christian hope – that God saves sinners by grace alone through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone… to the glory of God alone.

Let’s stand, and I’ll read our passage: Romans 3:9-26.

Scripture Reading

Romans 3:9–26 (ESV)

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all.

For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.”

14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.”

18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Main Idea:

God saves (or specifically justifies) repenting and believing sinners through the person and work of Jesus Christ alone; therefore, we must confess our sin, we must abandon any hope of contributing to our justification through obedience, and that we must believe or have faith in Jesus as our only hope in life and death.

Sermon

1. Historic Continuity

Some have argued that Martin Luther and the other reformers were teaching and promoting something new.[i] And, in one sense, this is not wrong. The Protestant Reformation happened during a time when almost everyone in Christendom did not believe or know the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Jesus Christ. The Roman Catholic Church had long established an entire structure and function of the Christian life that centered on the practice of various sacraments.

It wasn’t until the mid-1600s that Rome actually declared its official position on the doctrine of justification (over against the Protestants), but the sacraments were already playing a major role in the lives of everyday people during the 1500s. To participate in these sacraments was not only a sign of one’s faith or belief, these were the very means by which one obtained the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and the forgiveness of sins. And the Roman Church still teaches the same today.[ii]

Now, I’m not saying that all of your Roman Catholic friends or family believe that salvation is by works. I’m not even saying that the official teaching of the Roman Church is that salvation is by works. But I am saying that the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is that salvation is by faith in Christ and also by works the sinner must perform, including baptism, the Mass, and penance.

Friends, this is a grave error. At best, the Roman Catholic Church obscures or hides the biblical gospel. At worst, it rejects the biblical gospel outright and denies the sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the perfect and effective savior for sinners. If you want to talk more about this, then let’s get together over a meal or coffee sometime. Let’s connect after the service today to make a plan, or you can find my contact info in the church bulletin.

As I said a bit ago, the Protestant reformers were (in a sense) teaching and promoting a newunderstanding of the gospel. It was new to those who were hearing it in western Europe in the 1500s, it was new to those who had never even seen a Bible, and many had never heard a sermon preached in their own language.

But the doctrine of justification was not new to Christianity in the 1500s. As a matter of fact, as far back as the second century (40-60 years after the death of the last Apostle), one Christian wrote a letter to his pagan friend, trying to explain the gospel and call his friend to believe and follow Christ. The author’s name does not appear in the letter (he simply refers to himself as “a disciple”), but he wrote it to his friend, named Diognetus. So, it is called The Letter to Diognetus.

The disciple wrote, “[For a long time, God] permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them… [And this long miserable history of humanity] made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God…”

“But when our wickedness had reached its height… [because of] the one love of God… [He] did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away… but showed great [patience with us], and… He Himself took on… the burden of our [sins], He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for them that are mortal.”

The disciple went on, “[W]hat other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, [but] by the only Son of God?”

“O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of [the] One should justify many transgressors!”[iii]

Finally, he said, “[God] therefore desired to lead us to trust in His kindness.”

Friends, here is a Christian from a generation or two after the Apostles who not only understandsthe doctrine of justification through faith or trust in Christ alone, but he glories in it! There is an ocean of time between us, but Christians today share a common faith with the Christians of long ago that Jesus is the righteous one who justifies the unrighteous… those who simply trust Him for it.

This doctrine of justification by faith alone is not new. It was largely rediscovered during the time of the Protestant Reformation, and all true Christians have been believing this glorious gospel of Christ as the perfect substitute for sinners since the very beginning.

In fact, the reformers of the sixteenth century taught and preached the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone from the Bible. They believed this was (first and foremost) a biblical doctrine, and that’s why they were willing to stand against all of Christendom in order to believe and preach it.

There were many notable reformers, but none wrote quite like Martin Luther, and none seemed to articulate the doctrine of justification quite so vividly as Luther. And he asked and answered the same question we are after today.

He said, “By what means shall I become righteous and acceptable to God?”[iv] “The gospel answers,” he said, “it is necessary that [you] hear Christ, and repose [yourself] wholly on Him [i.e., trust in Him alone], denying [yourself] and distrusting [your] own strength… It is faith that justifies [you],” said Luther, “the Lord [forgives] all [your] sins by the mediation of Christ His Son, in whom [your] faith believes and trusts… Wherefore nothing is required unto justification but to hear Jesus Christ our Savior, and to believe in Him.”

I agree with Luther, but I want to turn now to the word of God to see how the Bible itself teaches us what all true Christians before us have believed.

2. None Righteous (v9-18)

It seems to me that there are three parts to our passage today:

(1) in v9-18, we see a summary diagnosis of all humanity;

(2) in v19-20, we see the function of God’s law for sinners;

(3) in v21-26, we see the glorious explanation of how God can be simultaneously just and the justifier of repenting and believing sinners.

These three parts or sections describe three truth-claims that all culminate in the implied conclusions: (1) that we should confess that we are utterly sinful, (2) that we should abandon any hope of earning or contributing to our justification by obeying God’s laws, and (3) that we should believe or have faith in Jesus as our only hope in life and death.

That is where we’re going, and let’s start with the first part, v9-18… a summary diagnosis of all humanity… and (trigger warning) it’s really bad news.

The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Rome, and he began by describing the willful and active unrighteousness of every person in a fallen world. The chapter and verse numbers weren’t original to Paul’s letter, but they are helpful for us as we try to follow the logical progression of what Paul is saying.

The second half of Romans 1 is a description of all the descendants of Adam and Eve (from creation all the way to today). Since sin entered the cosmos, every person born under the sun is marredby or twisted by or corrupted by sin. We naturally “suppress the truth” about God (Rom. 1:18). We look at creation around us, we consider the design of our own bodies and minds, and we observe the power and wisdom of God in all of it, but we deny God the honor due His name (Rom. 1:21). In this wretched estate, we are ruled by our “lusts” and “passions” (Rom. 1:24, 26). We are “consumed” by our sinful desires, even to such a degree that we would deny nature itself in order to pursue what we want (Rom. 1:26-27).

Then in Romans 2, Paul turns his attention to first-century Jewish people. Today, all kinds of ethnicities across the planet have access to the Scriptures (to the Bible). But back in Paul’s day, the only people in the whole world who had received God’s revelation of Himself (as just judge and as gracious savior) were those who were the descendants of Abraham. They had “the law” of God (Rom. 2:17). They had the covenants of Abraham and Moses and David. They had been “entrusted with the oracles [or “sayings” or “words”] of God” (Rom. 3:2).

And that is why Paul asks the question he does at the beginning of our text today, “What then? Are we Jews any better off?” (v9). “No,” he says, “not at all” (v9). Having the law of God, having the righteous instructions of God, this is not sufficient to save anyone (which we will get into more in v19-20). But Paul’s first explanation as to why all people (i.e., “Jews and the Greeks”) are in a bad situation is because of their “sin” (v9).

What does this mean to be “under sin” (v9)?

Well, Paul describes this situation by citing and alluding to several OT passages that speak of the sinfulness of natural, unregenerate, fallen humanity. When we come into this world, until or unless God does something for us and in us, what are we like? Here it is:

From Psalm 14:1-3 and Psalm 53:1-3, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless [i.e., not useful for any good thing]; no one does good not even one” (v10-12). This is not saying that you and I don’t naturally do anything that is relatively good. It is saying that we do not do anything that is truly good. Even the good we might do is tainted by bad motives, selfish ambitions, or false pretenses.

The Scripture continues, from Psalm 5:9 and 104:3, “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips” (v13). The wickedness of words is in focus here. Alluding to Psalm 10:7, “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness” (v14). In short, our words are commonly used to curse, to attack, to lie, and to kill… there is death in our tongues.

Drawing from Isaiah’s prophetic word of judgment (in Isaiah 59:7-8), Paul says, “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known” (v15-17). Not only do we naturally use our words to hurt and wound and destroy those around us, but we also have within us a propensity to follow these words with brutal actions.

And in a summary statement of this whole diagnosis, Paul alludes to Psalm 36:1, saying, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (v18). In other words, natural humanity loves sin, chases sin, cherishes sin, and suppresses that feeling of guilt, imagining that there is never going to be a day when he or she will stand before God and have to give an account. We don’t fear God; we don’t remember that His eyes never close; and we dismiss those thoughts of coming judgment as though our present distractions can simply make it go away.

At this point, we might pause and take an assessment of our own lives. We are not as sinful as we could be… we could certainly be worse. But, if we’re honest, we must confess that we are utterly sinful. We do not naturally seek for God; we do not naturally aim for genuine righteousness; and we do not naturally use our words and actions to build others up, to honor the dignity and humanity of others around us, or to make ourselves useful for serving God and serving others.

Sin is not just the stuff we sometimes do or don’t do; sin is the corrupt and wicked posture of our hearts and minds. We love some of the very things God hates. And we naturally despise some of the stuff that God values most highly.

Friends, the bad news of the gospel is very bad. Any manifestation of sin in our lives (past or present) is a symptom of our deeply rooted disease. We are “under sin” (v9), and this means that sin affects everything about us. This must be our starting point if we are to hear any sort of good news in the gospel message.

3. The Law Condemns (v19-20)

The good news is surely coming, and it is the best news of all time. But before we get to that third part of our passage (v21-26), we must consider yet one more feature of the bad news. It gets worse before it gets better.

This second section or part of Paul’s explanation here focuses on the “law” of God. And in order for us to understand the logical progression here, we must understand that God’s law is not inherently an impossible or unreasonable standard of holiness. It is not as though God has created humanity and then vindictively commanded us to jump an impossible distance.

Rather, God’s law was revealed in order to teach us what He is like, and in order to show us how we ought to live (rightly and successfully) in God’s world. It is a fact that we (because we are sinners) fall short of God’s good and right law, but that is not due to any deficiency or flaw or injustice in God’s law. God’s law is good, but we are bad. As sons and daughters of Adam, we walk as our father did.

These two verses (v19-20) describe what theologians call the first use of the law.[v] When God’s law is made known to us, it does not help us out of our sinful state, but it reveals just how sinful we are. Before we read that we must never lie or steal or covet our neighbor’s stuff, we might compare ourselves with other people who are worse sinners than us. We might even imagine that we are actually quite good, especially when we compare ourselves with really bad sinners.

But when we look in the mirror of God’s law, and when we see ourselves for what we really are… when we are judged, not by comparisons with other sinners, but by God’s standard of holiness and righteousness… “every mouth is stopped” (v19). We realize that we are not good at all, but actually we are “accountable to God” for all manner of wicked thoughts and words and deeds. Through our awareness of God’s law “comes the knowledge of [our] sin” (v20).

This part of our passage speaks directly to those of us who are prone to some kind of legalism. It also demolishes any idea that what I really need is to “do better” or “be better.” If you give me a list of rules, some standard for good living, then it will not be long at all before I fall short of it… because I am utterly sinful.

Jesus summarized the first three commands of God’s law by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). And none of us has ever loved God with all of our anything! We haven’t truly and purely loved God for 3 seconds during our entire lives! On our best days, even if we are Christians (spiritually alive and renewed by God’s indwelling Spirit), our love for God is mixed with love for sin, love for self, and love for the things of this world.

Friends, we must abandon any hope that we might have of earning or contributing to our justification before God by obeying His law. We are utterly sinful, and God’s law (good as it is) only shows us just how bad our sin disease is.

4. Just and Justifier (v21-26)

When (and only when) we come to grips with these realities (that we are utterly sinful, and that God’s law only condemns us) are we ready to hear the good news at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The gospel is all about “righteousness” – God’s own “righteousness” (v25-26) and the “righteousness” that God demands of guilty sinners like us (v21-22). Righteousness is a Bible word and a legal word that refers to justice, law-obeying, and moral uprightness. God is perfectly just and morally upright, and He demands that anyone who comes near to Him be the same.

God cannot abide unrighteousness. God does not look the other way when He sees injustice. He does not usually punish sin immediately, but God does not approve of any disobedience or failure to keep His law. He keeps it perfectly, and He requires that all creation do so as well… and He will make this requirement clear enough for all to see when we all stand in His court on the final day.

It may come as a surprise to some of us that a question the Bible never asks or even seems to imply is “Why would God ever send a person to hell?” The answer (from the Bible’s perspective) is obvious. God condemns sinners because they are sinners. Those who rebel against God’s good law… those who live in God’s world but deny Him the glory and honor and gratitude He deserves… those ones deserve nothing but God’s hatred and wrath.

The Bible never wonders why God might punish any or all sinners, but the Bible does ask and answer the question, “How could God ever forgive and even bless unrighteousness sinners?!” If God is a just judge, and if good judges execute judgment (which is the definition of a good judge), then how can God ever say of a guilty defendant “not guilty!”?

That’s what Paul is getting at in v25-26. He says, “in his divine forbearance [God] passed over former sins” (v25). Here the Bible is grappling with the fact that God promised that sin equals death (Gen. 2:17). And yet, sinners have continued to live in God’s world for thousands of years (at least for a time). Even more than that, God promises (in both the Old and New Testaments) that some sinners will escape death entirely (not necessarily physical death, but ultimate death or judgment from God on the last day). But how can this be?!

Let’s walk through the passage together…

The Scripture says, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested” (v21). In other words, the righteousness that God demands from sinners has been revealed or made known. But it is nota righteousness that comes from sinners! It is the “righteousness of God” that comes “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (v22). Somehow, God has made His own righteousness “a gift” to believing sinners, and He’s done this through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

But how?!

Again, we are reminded of the universal condemnation of all people everywhere… in v23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (v23), but sinners are “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (v24). In other words, the way that sinners are “justified” or declared “not guilty” and even “righteous” in God’s sight is by or because of the “grace” of God that is accessible “through” the “redemption” or redeeming act which Jesus performed on behalf of sinners who believe or have faith in Him (v24).

But this still doesn’t answer the question. How can God grant such a gift to guilty sinners withoutbecoming an unjust judge who doesn’t punish sin?

This brings us to one of my favorite words in all of the Bible – “propitiation” (v25). You don’t have to be able to pronounce this word or use it in your everyday vocabulary, but we all had better know what it means.

Verse 25 says, “God put [Jesus Christ] forward as a propitiation,” which was a work Christ performed “by his blood” (v25). The word “propitiation” means to satisfy or to appease the requirement of justice. Because we come into this world as sinners, and because we have sinned against God and others every day of our lives, God’s justice requires that we suffer under the wrath-filled condemnation that we deserve. But this passage tells us that God sent His own Son, who took on the nature of humanity, to suffer as a substitute in the place of sinners.

The whole Bible speaks to this climactic display of God’s love for sinners in Christ Jesus. Just after the first sin, God Himself killed an animal and made clothes for Adam and Eve with its skin in order to cover their nakedness. When God made a covenant with Abraham, various animals were torn in two, in order to show that death was necessary for any sinner to enjoy God’s blessings. And when God revealed Himself further to the people of Israel, God established an entire sacrificial system to be operated by priests who were set apart for this holy duty of offering daily sacrifices which would remind the people that their blessings from God were only possible through the shedding of blood.

But in the New Covenant, in the apex of God’s plan of redemption, it is not an animal that is laid upon the altar of sacrifice… dead animals could never take away the guilt of rebel sinners. Instead, it was the unique Son of God (Jesus Christ) who willingly laid Himself down under the executioner’s blade.

Jesus suffered and died, not because of His own sin, but because of the sin of those He came to save. Upon the cross of Christ there hung both priest and sacrifice, both mediator and propitiating offering. When Christ died, the penalty of death was carried out, and God made the way for Him to stand both as just judge and justifying savior.

This is that glorious exchange that the second-century witness to his friend Diognetus was talking about! This is the righteous one who died in the place of the unrighteousness! And we are taught here in Scripture that those sinners who look to Christ with faith or belief are not only declared “not guilty,” but they receive the righteousness of Christ as their own possession… this is the gracious gift of God.

How, then, can a sinner like your or me ever hear God declare that we are not guilty? How can we be saved? How can we be assured that we will escape the wrath that we deserve on the last day?

We must confess that we are utterly sinful… that we are completely affected by sin… that we are shot through with sinful desires, our lives are marked by sinful words and deeds, and we are completely unworthy of any blessing from God.

We must abandon any hope of earning or contributing to our justification by obeying God’s laws… we can do nothing to save ourselves… we have no genuine goodness of our own, and we are not capable of earning any privilege in God’s sight… not because His law is impossible, but because we are wretchedly in love with the very sin that God’s law commands us to forsake.

And we must believe or have faith in Jesus as our only hope in life and death… We must trust in Christ alone who is our mediator, our substitute, our priest, and our propitiation.

This is the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone! This is not merely a Reformation idea… it is the burning heart of the Christian gospel throughout the ages! And this is the message that miraculously changes sinners like you and me from the inside out.

May God grant us all a better understanding of this glorious gospel.

May God grant us all the faith to believe it.

And may God transform our lives, that we would now live with gratitude and joy and hope, abandoning ourselves and giving ourselves entirely to knowing and following the marvelous Savior who has earned such a glorious salvation for guilty sinners like us.

Endnotes

[i] See Michael Horton argue against this claim at the following link. He does not cite specific scholars, but he does assert that “some evangelical scholars… charge that the doctrine of justification taught by the Protestant Reformers is a novelty.” https://whitehorseinn.org/resource-library/articles/did-martin-luther-invent-justification-500-years-ago/ [ii] I am drawing from the teaching of the official Catechism of the Catholic Church. This catechism affirms and explains, for example, that “justification is conferred in [the sacrament of] Baptism” (p. 536), that “an indulgence [as one aspect of the sacrament of penance] is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin” (p. 411), and that “by [priestly] ordination one is enabled to act as a representative of Christ… in his triple office of priest, prophet, and king” (p. 441). Catechism of the Catholic Church: With Modifications from the Editio Typica (New York: Doubleday, 1997). [iii] Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., “The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 28. [iv] Luther, “The Method and Fruits of Justification,” in The World’s Great Sermons: Basil to Calvin, ed. Grenville Kleiser, vol. 1 (New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908), 119. [v] See the “three uses” of God’s law explained in summary form here: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/threefold-use-law

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aland, Kurt, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, eds. Novum Testamentum Graece. 28th ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012.

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. Logos Research Edition. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.

Schaeffer, Francis A. How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. Logos Research Edition. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005.

Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition). Logos Research Edition. Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Logos Research Edition. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009.

The Holy Bible: New International Version. Logos Research Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984.

The NET Bible First Edition. Logos Research Edition. Biblical Studies Press, 2005.

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