Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Announcer: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, from my faith to your faith. And as soon as you have received the divine righteousness, it must be watered and cared for, and it must be passed on to others. And when religion does not offend, it is not truth, for truth always offends.

Now, mind well, I did not say that the truth has to be offensive, but it must hurt, it must convict. The gospel is the story of man's complete ruin in sin, and God's perfect remedy in Christ.

Announcer: Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's Word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio outreach which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's Word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago. The message we will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled God's Righteousness. If you receive an invitation that says formal dress required, you had better not arrive at the event wearing jeans and a dirty t-shirt. It does not matter how good or bad your reputation or character is. Without a tuxedo or gown, you will be turned away. The Bible says we need to be covered with the right garments if we are to be accepted into God's presence. But what is the right attire for heaven? And how can we be sure that we have it? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is Romans chapter 1 and verse 17. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with the message God's Righteousness.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ we come unto thee our Father and our God and in the Holy Spirit. We thank thee that we can approach thee through our Savior Jesus Christ, and that we can be sure that he who said, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out," has received us and welcomed us into thy presence.

In this hour we ask thee that the Holy Spirit may take the word to each listening heart, that men may comprehend that they must turn away from their own goodness and their own righteousness if they are to reach heaven, and must come through the righteousness that is Christ. Bless the word in Jesus' name. Amen.

We're studying together in the first chapter of Romans, the effects of the gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. Now, the gospel is the good news from God about the spiritual meaning of the historical facts centering in the work of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. There are three historical facts: Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, Christ was buried, Christ rose again according to the scriptures.

Now, our text in the Romans the first chapter and the 17th verse tells us that in that gospel there is revealed the righteousness of God. From this point in our study it must be understood at every part of our discussion that God's righteousness and man's righteousness are two utterly different kinds of righteousness. They are different in genus, they are different in species, they are different in source, aim, scope, and quality.

Anyone who thinks that human righteousness is just a lesser form of divine righteousness, something just slightly inferior but moving in the same direction, has failed to comprehend the very heart teaching of the whole of the Word of God. Let us build an analogy by comparison. In physics, it is well known that what we call heat and cold are really two names for the same thing. But everyone knows that a room that grandma may think is very cold may seem very hot to everyone else in the house. Her frail bones need the atmosphere of the tropical palm room, but your sturdy constitution may desire the fresh and vigorous breeze with a cool 68 on the thermometer.

Now the world has the idea that God's righteousness and man's righteousness are just two different phases of the same righteousness, like ascending degrees from what men call cold to what they call heat. The world gets the idea that the convict's deeds are unrighteousness, but that he has a little good in him that might be counted, and that better men have a little more righteousness than the convict. Then still better men have still more righteousness, while God has the most righteousness of all.

And eventually men get to thinking that there's a certain point of righteousness in man that is acceptable to God, sort of a passing mark, and that if a man reaches that point, he will attain heaven by his own human righteousness. But everywhere the Bible contradicts and repudiates such a concept.

Paul wrote in Titus 3:5, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit." And he wrote in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that faith not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." And we shall see when we come to the fourth chapter of Romans that it is written in the fourth chapter and the fifth verse, "To him that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

The same truth runs all the way through the revelation of God, and may be considered to be the structural foundation of the entire gospel message. When our text tells us that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God, it is saying that God must inevitably demand of man that which man can never furnish by himself.

Think how unjust it would be if God sets human conditions for entering in heaven. Conditions that could be met by only a small portion of the human race. If God demanded a certain degree of intelligence, for example, that would be unjust to morons. If he demanded wealth, it would be unjust to those who were born poppers. If he demanded moral righteousness, it would be unjust to those who were born with a nature whose moral fiber has been weakened by the depravity of a long line of sinning ancestors.

God comes to us, however, on a basis that is totally apart from any standards raised by man. We will never understand the Bible until we realize that the nature of God demands that he require the impossible of us, and that when it has been thoroughly demonstrated that no man can fulfill the requirements of God, then he himself intervenes, and gives us as a free gift that which he demands of us.

If we take absolute perfection as the norm of human righteousness, we might say that the convict has fulfilled a tiny percentage, 10% let us say, the average man 30%, and the ethical leader 50% of perfection. Now, no man who has ever lived has achieved the 100%. It's evident of course that we do not measure Jesus Christ in this comparison, for he was far more than a mere man, and possessed the righteousness of God in all its perfection as well as living up to any human righteousness which any man might design.

But if an ordinary mortal is considered, we must see that he falls into some category of imperfection. Unfortunately, there are some people who spend their time trying to increase the percentage of their human righteousness, and thus they fail to lay hold upon the totally different divine righteousness which is provided by the gospel. Do not think that the convict is to say, "God, I have done 10% by myself, and so I need 90% from you." And do not think that the ethically good man is to say, "God, you see that I've done 50 or 60% by myself, and so fortunately I need trouble you for no more than the difference to make up that which is lacking."

On the contrary, the convict must learn to curse his 20% of human righteousness, to abandon all hope of salvation by means of it, and to come to the cross of Jesus Christ to receive the totally different 100% of a righteousness that is absolutely different, a righteousness that is provided by the Lord Jesus Christ on the basis of his atoning death for sin and sinners.

And what is much harder, the good man must curse the high percentage of human righteousness which he has, must abandon all hope of salvation by means of it, and come to the cross of Jesus Christ to receive the 100% of a totally different righteousness which does not come from man at all, but which is provided by the Lord Jesus Christ on the basis of his atoning death for sin and sinners.

Through all the centuries of earth's history before the coming of the Savior, there had been the manifestation of the human righteousness of millions of men, and the demonstration that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No man has ever lived up to the standards of human righteousness, let alone to the standards of divine righteousness. No man would ever have reached heaven if it had not been that God kept telling men to believe his word, and to kill a lamb as a sacrifice. "When you do that," said God, "I will count my righteousness to your account, for I will see that you believe my word."

He told Moses to tell the people of Israel in the land of Egypt, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." But what was the inner meaning of all this continuing demand of a blood sacrifice? Surely the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin. No, it could not. We sing a great hymn, "Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain, could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain. But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, takes all our sins away. A sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they."

When the Savior was manifested, the righteousness of God was manifested with him. When the historical facts of his death, burial, and resurrection were set forth, the good news concerning the theological meaning of these historical facts revealed the righteousness of God. It was shown that God was righteous in hating sin. It was shown that God was righteous in loving sinners. It was shown that God could pardon a sinner without condoning his sin. It was shown that God could take a sinner into heaven without dirtying heaven. It was shown that he could draw a sinful human being to his own bosom without abandoning his own holiness.

Now, it is the gospel that reveals this righteousness of God, and as we unfold the Epistle to the Romans, this will everywhere become more apparent. When God first made a promise to fallen man, it was a promise of grace. The vast majority of mankind forgot the God of grace, and therefore they forgot the grace of God. Through the centuries, only the relatively few ever remembered the true God or thought upon his name. The grace of God had been promised, but the fulfillment was so distant that men did not think of it.

The affairs of the moment clouded out the distant promise, as a penny held close enough to the eye can hide the sun itself. Now, Christ has come and has died for our sins and has risen again. Therein the gospel is announced as complete and effective. The Old Testament contains a thousand announcements of what God will do for his people and what he will be to them. The New Testament contains a thousand revelations of what God has done for us and what he has become for us. The riches that were promised are now available.

If we look at the Bible through the Old Testament perspective, it's a sort of pie in the sky by and by promise. If we look at the Bible through the New Testament, the perspective is changed. The promises are fulfilled. It's like looking through a telescope. In the Old Testament, we looked through the big end of the telescope and we see tiny figures of promise, walking about on a miniature background. But as soon as Christ comes and dies for our sins, the telescope is reversed. We now see great figures of accomplishment and the complete revelation of the righteousness of God.

But how is this to become effective to a man here in your town? Our text says that the righteousness of God is not revealed to the five senses of man, but that it is revealed from faith to faith. The Greek is very interesting: *ek pisteos eis pistin*. It is literally that the righteousness of God is revealed out of faith and into faith. In other words, God does not speak to you directly from heaven, but he comes out of the faith of one heart into the faith of another.

The righteousness of God is communicated to me out of the testimony of another man's faith into the receptivity of my faith. And the righteousness of God will be communicated to many out of the testimony of my faith into the receptivity of their faith. One man preaches and another man believes. There is no man in this world who was ever saved apart from the instrumentality of another believer who first set forth the gospel.

If you say that you were saved in the loneliness of your own room, I answer that the bud that bloomed when you were alone, but that the seed was planted and watered by men. Someone gave the money by faith to print the tract or to print the Bible that you read. Faith came to your heart through the intermediary of faith in a believer's heart.

Some may cite Saul of Tarsus as an example, but only if they have not studied the whole matter closely, for Saul was not saved directly from heaven. He had just been the witness of the death of Stephen. The first Christian martyr was stoned to death while Paul stood by, guarding the garments of those who were handling the stones. Stephen's face, the record tells us, was as the face of an angel, that is, shining with the light of heaven.

Saul of Tarsus saw him die. Just before the stones fell, Stephen, we read, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked steadfastly up into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." And Saul, the record tells us, was consenting unto his death.

And Paul, Saul rather at that time, Saul could never get away from that vision of the dying Stephen. Once more the righteousness of God had been revealed from faith to faith, from the faith of Stephen to the faith of Paul. And if you catch a real vision of the Lord, your faith will kindle the fire in someone else. This is why the Lord Jesus announced the coming of the Holy Spirit. He said he would send the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not. And again the Lord said, "I will send him unto you and when he is come, he will reprove the world."

The Lord uses the Christian as an advanced outpost against the enemy. God works from heaven on men today, as our military forces worked on Japan during World War II. We did not fight directly from San Francisco, nor even from Pearl Harbor. We put outposts on Saipan and Okinawa and delivered the blows from near at hand.

And there is a reason why God works in this fashion. There is much more glory to God when a soul is won out of the control of Satan by means of a mere human being, than if that soul had been won by a direct intervention of God. God has so much more power that he could come to this world and save every individual in the flash of a second if he wished to do so. But then Satan could well claim a sort of moral victory over God. He would have been defeated, but only by a force that was far greater than his own.

But now God takes a man of the order of beings that was made lower than the angels, and as the voluntary submission of that soul to the plan of God, there is the communication of divine life. Then that soul develops a zeal for God by contemplating the wonders of his grace and starts out to witness to other human beings who have not yet submitted themselves to God. Satan puts before them all of the blandishments of this world, but he's constantly losing a steady stream of his followers who see the invisible instead of the visible, and turn away from the righteousness of man in order to receive the righteousness of God which is credited to us through faith.

I once had a conversation with a man whom I met in the club car of a train. We got to discussing faith and I asked him if he were saved. He seemed to resent my question and asked me why some Christians always had to be testifying, witnessing or inquiring about the state of other people's faith. I told him that even an elementary acquaintance with the Bible should inform him that every Christian was commanded to witness. The last words that Jesus Christ ever spoke upon this earth were, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

The man acknowledged this, but still seemed irked by what he considered interference in a private domain. I told him that I went so far as to wonder whether any person in the world who pretended to be a Christian was in reality a Christian if there was no movement whatsoever to tell others about it. The Word of God says, "I believed and therefore I have spoken." The worldling who has become a child of Satan must communicate his opposition to the faith, and the one who has become a true Christian must communicate his faith, and out of the indifferent masses, some will be drawn one way and some another.

There's an interesting contribution to this point in the whole setup of our various radio programs in the United States. Now, in America, you can buy time on the radio to advertise everything from soup to nuts. All commercial programs are paid for out of an advertising budget. Between the production cost and the wholesaler's price, there's the factory overhead and profit and the big advertising budget.

If the programs that are on the radio depended on letters from hypothetical listeners in Oshkosh or Kankakee, with contributions of a dime or a dollar, the radios would be strangely silent. The people of this country would never sustain by voluntary contributions, radio programs of opera, orchestra, dance band, comic artists, drama, romance, news, or any other feature except one. People by the millions support religious programs.

Why is this? The answer is in our text. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, from my faith to your faith. And as soon as you have received the divine righteousness, it must be watered and cared for, and it must be passed on to others. And when religion does not offend, it is not truth, for truth always offends. Now, mind well, I did not say that the truth has to be offensive, but it must hurt, it must convict.

The gospel is the story of man's complete ruin in sin, and God's perfect remedy in Christ. The general run of the sons of Adam do not like to be told that they are completely ruined so far as God is concerned, and that they must confess their bankruptcy and rely entirely on the grace of God. And after a man is saved, the entire process of the Christian life is to whittle a man down, and it will always hurt. It will turn the block of marble into the beautiful statue by the time God is through with the process.

And the more the image of Christ is formed within any believer, the more he will desire to communicate his faith to those around him who are in such tremendous need. A need that is all the greater because it is not recognized in so many cases. "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel." The time has come in the course of these expositions to ask the listener the direct question concerning your own relationship to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Have you been the recipient of the righteousness of God through faith in the Savior? Let me tell you how you can exchange what God calls the filthy rags of your own righteousness for the pure and holy garments of the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You stand in the country of the lost, dead in trespasses and sin. God comes to you in your need. You are confronted with the accomplished fact of the cross.

You stand there before the righteousness of God. He bids you come to him and believe. If you will admit that you are lost and under the curse of God, you have done half of that which is required for salvation. You must accept God's verdict about your own lost condition. If you dare to stand before him in your own righteousness, you will be cast forth into outer darkness, like the wedding guest who had on the garment of his own providing instead of that which was furnished by the host.

Then when you have admitted your hopeless condition, he will show you the great fact that he is satisfied with the death of his Son, instead of with your death. As you pass out of death and into life, you pass through the cross of Christ. All of your own righteousness is left there in that place of awe. For one moment you stand in nakedness before him, feeling the horrors of hell that should have been yours forever.

That is true repentance. Then he clothes you with garments of his own righteousness, and you step forth into the country of the saved, out of death and into life. We sing it, "Jesus, thy blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress. Mid flaming worlds in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head." Now, from that moment, the Lord God Almighty looks upon us through his righteous Son and sees us in him.

If you look through rose-tinted glasses, everything appears in rose color. If you look through amber glasses, everything takes on an amber hue. The moment I pass out of death and into life, God looks at me through his beloved Son, and sees me in all the white holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the revelation of the righteousness of God in the gospel.

The word "revealed" comes from a Greek word that means to take off a veil. Before the time of Christ, the full grace of God was hidden. Now it is unveiled. And that is the great truth that God gives us. He sets forth the righteousness of Christ in Christ and helps us to see it by the Holy Spirit.

And the unveiling is the revelation of what our heart is. It's described in First Corinthians 4:6, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Oh, I thank God for the day that righteousness was revealed to me. And how I pray that you might look back on the cross today in order that the righteousness of God may be put upon you and revealed in you forever.

And we ask thee our God and Father that the Holy Spirit will take the word to the hearts today. Lord, if there are men still clinging to the rags of their own righteousness, may they see their lost condition and turn away to thee this day, that they may stand as bankrupts in the place of blessing, to receive all that thou hast given through Jesus Christ. And it is in his name we ask it, and through him to thee be all the glory, now until he come again and forever. Amen.

Announcer: God's righteousness is altogether different than human righteousness. We must turn away from any righteousness in ourselves and receive God's perfect righteousness as a free gift. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled God's Righteousness. Listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse via the internet. Visit us at Alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is also available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled God's Righteousness, or simply request message number R1-17.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled What God Has Joined Together. In the book of Malachi, God declares that he hates divorce. And yet in America, the divorce rate among professing Christians is virtually the same as that of unbelievers. This booklet will show you from scripture how important marriage is in God's eyes, and how to maintain a strong, healthy relationship with your husband or wife. If you want to build a biblically sound marriage that will glorify God and stand the test of time, ask for your free copy of What God Has Joined Together when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is the radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place. The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a full list of stations carrying our programs, visit our website Alliancenet.org.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible comes to you through the generous gifts of listeners like you. If you have benefited from the broadcast and would like it to continue, please prayerfully consider a donation to help us keep this ministry on the air. For more information or to make a contribution to help further our work, contact us by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. That's 1-800-488-1888. Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at Alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for our free resource catalog, featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reform teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.