Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: God looks at us through Jesus Christ and sees us in all his holiness. Therefore, no one can ever lay anything to the charge of God's elect, since God has justified us. Now we turn to the other side of the coin. In spite of all that we have said, there is a sense in which all our deeds have an eternal effect.

The thief on the cross had a life that was wasted, and coming to Christ in the moment of death, he was saved and is in heaven. Yet it's difficult to conceive that the Lord Jesus will be able to say to that thief, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Most certainly the thief was saved, yet as by fire.

Let us never forget that we must all appear before the judgment seat of God in Christ. We must not forget that there's a great distinction between God's forgiveness and his governmental dealings with those whom he has saved. Forgiveness, mercy, and justification cover many, but not all of the divine sanctions against sin.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry 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'll be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled "The Coin with Two Sides." In the animal world, we can see the principle of the survival of the fittest.

We also see this principle at work in the unbelieving world, where the privileged, strong, and capable often prosper at the expense and exploitation of the weak. But in God's kingdom, there is no such thing as the survival of the fittest whereby those who are spiritually strong may look down upon those who are weak and advance themselves by taking advantage of their weakness.

How are strong and weak believers to interact with each other in a manner that glorifies the Lord? The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 14, we're looking at verse 10. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled "The Coin with Two Sides."

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus, we come unto Thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We ask Thee once more that Thou shalt illumine the pages of Thy word, and that as we open it and read of our Lord Jesus Christ, that Thou shalt make Him very real to each heart. And it is through Him and for His sake that we ask it. Amen.

We continue in our study of Romans 14:10, where God asks a telling question and then gives us an answer: "Why do you pass judgment upon your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God."

The 14th chapter of Romans is calculated to put the strong and the weak brother in a relationship of love towards each other because each is in a relationship of love towards God and because each is answerable to God alone. The chapter is not giving any compliments to the strong brother, nor does this passage justify pride.

No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven, our Lord told us in John 3:27. "If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know it as he ought to know," we read in 1 Corinthians 8. And so Paul asks, "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded."

Every believer is to do as he is persuaded in his own mind. Luther puts it this way: "Let everyone be sure and firm and at peace. On account of the scruples of the weak, the strong should not change his conviction, nor should the weak, for the sake of the strong, act against his conviction. Let the weak permit him, the strong, to act as he thinks, but let the weak be true to his own conscience."

Now, Luther's concern here is that the strong Christian should not, by unwise use of liberty, offend his weak brother and cause him to sin against conscience. Many reasons are set forth to show that no individual may judge his brother, but the principal reason is that we are all the bondslaves of Jesus Christ and that we are to appear before Him and be judged for our own manner of life.

Have we always followed what we thought to be right? It appears that God will receive a believer who truly thinks that he is following the will of God, even when he has not been doing so. The psychological complexities of such a situation are so great that it's utterly impossible for me to judge any other individual. Only God can unravel the motives of a man's conscience and mine.

The Greek states that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. Some very early copyists changed the text from God to Christ, and it was through this that it got in that manner into the King James Version. Theologically, these copyists were correct, for the Bible tells us in the words of Christ Himself that all judgment has been committed to the Son.

God was in Christ, and Christ is God. Things equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Before we proceed further, we must answer an error that has grown up in some Christian circles. There are those who stress the cleansing power of Christ to such an extent that they practically teach that anything that a believer does will be overlooked by God.

It is a subtle form of antinomianism—the horrible doctrine that says that as long as an individual believes, he can do as he pleases. There is no basis for such distortion of the true doctrine of justification by faith apart from the works of the law. All believers will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

And at that time, no Christian will criticize another. Each believer will be concerned with himself alone, and none will think about the strength or weakness of any other man's position. When we discuss the sins of believers, there are those that cry out, "Well, our sins are under the blood. Christ has said that if we believe, we shall not come into condemnation or judgment."

We hear people say that they will never face their sins in time or in eternity. In one sense, this is true. But in another sense, it is not true. Let us seek true balance in this matter by trying to see what the word of God teaches, so that we shall not be ashamed before Him at His coming.

The confusion arises from the fact that many people do not understand the differences between the various judgments that are described in the Bible. Such people remind us of the imaginary man who might say to a friend, "Why, I see there's a trial going on today down in the court."

"In what court?" asks the friend. "Oh, in the federal, state, county, municipal police court. A man is being tried there for murder, arson, parking his car by a fireplug, and not paying his income tax." "Wait just a minute, wait a minute. You have your story mixed up. You can't try a man for a parking offense in the federal court, nor for murder. These are tried in other courts."

"Oh," says the man rather lamely, "is there more than one court?" Well, a man would be ignorant indeed not to know the differences of jurisdiction in man's courts of justice. And yet, there might be some excuse for his ignorance. But is there any excuse for the ignorance of the differences of jurisdiction in the courts of God?

God will hold court with Christ as the judge at various places and at various times, with various groups coming before Him for judgment. The idea that everyone from Adam to the last man will be gathered together in one general judgment court, divided into two camps and judged, is a medieval idea which has no foundation in scripture.

It is a fallacy that arises from the confusion of truths that differ, and the Christian must learn to distinguish things that differ. Let us now consider the judgment of the believers at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. This judgment will be much wider in scope than some believers anticipate, and it will have much more serious and eternal effects than some have been led to believe.

First, we must settle the problem that has arisen in some minds because of the statement of our Lord: "Truly, truly, I say unto you, he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."

Some Christians have been led to believe that one who is saved through faith in the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which was itself a judgment for our sin, will never be judged again. This, of course, is not true. As we believers must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and in our present text, we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.

Here are two seemingly contradictory texts: "He that believes shall not come into judgment" and "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." I believe that we can have light on the apparent contradiction by the use of an illustration. A man is out hunting with a friend and a terrible accident occurs.

His gun goes off as he's climbing over a fence and shoots his friend in the back, killing him instantly. There are those who doubt that the death was accidental because the survivor stands to have great financial gain by the death of his friend. There is a coroner's inquest. The district attorney wishes to intervene.

The man should be put on trial, he thinks, in order that all the evidence be brought forth in court. There's an argument among the lawyers as to the wording of the indictment against the man whose gun went off. If the district attorney brings in an indictment of murder in the first degree, a conviction will carry a mandatory sentence of death.

If the indictment is for manslaughter, the accused will be tried, but no death penalty will be involved. Or the bill may charge him with no more than criminal negligence, with a suit for damages that might take away his property. It can well be understood that the wording of the indictment will make all the difference in the world in his trial, the outcome of his trial, and the sentence that may be exacted against him if he be found guilty.

While drawing the analogy from this illustration, please understand that I must not be quoted in part, for I'm going to say some things that may seem wrong at first hearing, and then I will remove certain implications by citing the scriptures for the whole well-rounded position. The sinner is guilty before God.

Christ Jesus has carried the penalty of the sinner's guilt. The one who believes in Christ can never, therefore, never appear in a judgment where he could be condemned to the second death. That judgment has been removed from him forever. It would be as impossible for God to bring me to a judgment that might end in sending me to hell as it would be for God to bring Christ back to die again.

The man who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work for sin will not come to the judgment of the Great White Throne, where the dead—the spiritually dead—will stand for a brief moment before being cast into the lake of fire. The true child of God will have been reigning with Christ for more than a thousand years before this judgment takes place.

So, in a very real sense, we shall not come to judgment. We cannot come into the judgment where sin is dealt with as sin, because God has promised that our sins and iniquities will be remembered against us no more forever. How then shall the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad, be brought before us in another judgment?

Are they not removed as far as the east is from the west? Are they not cast into the depths of the sea? Are they not blotted out as a thick cloud? Are they not cast behind God's back? All these figures of speech leave no doubt whatsoever that the sins which have been dealt with by the righteous act of God in putting His Son to death in our place, remove those sins from our account forever.

It stands, therefore, first of all, that we cannot and must not allow any passage of scripture to be interpreted in such a way that the glorious truths of justification by grace and complete salvation by grace are in any wise impaired. I believe that this is so important that I wish to expand this truth in the light of certain scriptures.

In 1 Corinthians 3:11, we read: "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." That foundation includes all the glorious phases of our inheritance. First, we are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Moreover, this justification covers a believer in the totality of his existence—in his past, present, and future.

Justification may not be limited to the portion of a believer's life before he was saved, but applies equally to all sins that may ever break out in his life down to the very last breath. A believer is accepted in Christ in the whole of his person. Remission of sins that are past does not refer to the past in the history of a believer, but to God's dealings with the sins that were in the lives of men who lived on the other side of the cross in that past period, from Adam to the thief who died in faith beside Christ on Calvary.

God looks at us through Jesus Christ and sees us in all His holiness. Therefore, no one can ever lay anything to the charge of God's elect, since God has justified us. Second, we are declared to be the sons of God in the new birth and immediately receive all the rights that go with that glorious position.

Third, we have already received the gift of eternal life and shall never perish. This life became ours through the new birth, and it is a new creation. Fourth, so many and so varied and so great are the benefits that became ours by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it is written that we have been perfected forever by that offering of the Lord Jesus.

And thus we are looked upon as being in the sight of God already in heaven, seated with Christ. Fifth—and there never will be a "lastly"—the perfect position of the believer in Christ guarantees our immediate presence with the Lord the moment we leave this body and our future likeness to Him at His return.

To depart in any way from these great truths is to fall from grace. You do not fall from grace by sinning, but you do fall from grace by falling into law—that is, by holding any view that is lower than the view which is expressed in these great scriptures which we have used. All of our position is in grace, and the constraining love of Christ through this grace is our motive power for daily living.

Now we turn to the other side of the coin. In spite of all that we have said, there is a sense in which all our deeds have an eternal effect. The thief on the cross had a life that was wasted, and coming to Christ in the moment of death, he was saved and is in heaven. Yet it's difficult to conceive that the Lord Jesus will be able to say to that thief, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

Most certainly the thief was saved, yet as by fire. Let us never forget that we must all appear before the judgment seat of God in Christ. We must not forget that there's a great distinction between God's forgiveness and his governmental dealings with those whom he has saved. Forgiveness, mercy, and justification cover many, but not all of the divine sanctions against sin.

Let me illustrate this by quoting from the writings of an English minister. A poor wretch whose health, character, and life have been ruined by drink and vice, flings himself down at the penitent form and finds mercy. We glory in the fact that Christ receives the devil's castaways. He rises forgiven and recreated—a new creature in Christ Jesus.

But is his health restored? Is his ignorance, vulgarity, and deficiency in every noble characteristic in true manhood made up? No indeed. Is the lost opportunity of life recovered? No. We recognize that while the penalty of sin—eternal death—is remitted, the consequences of sin remain in the enfeebled body, in the unformed character, and the ignorance and lost opportunity of life.

For these, like Esau who sold his birthright, he finds no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. It is written in the order of God that he can never be what he might have been. The example of David's sin carries us further than this. The prophet had said, "The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die."

Here was forgiveness for David's great sin of adultery and murder. Yet not only the consequences remained in the disgrace to the name of Jehovah and in the loss of strength, as we read in 2 Samuel 21:15, but God did not remit the governmental dealings with David that righteousness demanded. "The sword shall never depart from thine house because thou hast despised me."

And thus, forgiveness does not exempt from some forms of judgment. Righteousness must be done, though the sinner is spared. Mercy must be extended to the guilty, yet justice must be done to the injured, and God's holy name must be vindicated. The cross allowed God to extend mercy to the guilty on righteous ground, but righteous government has other demands as well.

And this sets forth Paul's great concern throughout his own Christian life. And if it was his concern, how much more should it be yours and mine? His whole manner of life was founded on the godly joy and the godly fear which God had given him to know. He experienced godly joy because he knew that he was in Christ—a new creation.

Yet godly fear made him live like a runner in a race, hurling himself toward the goal, with no thought of any other circumstance. His great apprehension was that he might be a castaway even though he had preached to others. It should go without saying that he had not the slightest fear that he would be cast away from salvation, but he was expressing the thought that we are trying to explain here.

It was possible for him to live, and he knew it well, in such a way that he would stand as disapproved before the judgment seat of Christ. He might spend his time on wrong things; he might allow sin to enter, which even though later confessed and forsaken, would cause him to lose opportunities and time which could never be regained.

We must understand that everything we do, everything we say, everything we think, everything we are, has a relationship to God. Each act, each word, each thought, each moment of being contains the possibility of sin. If there is sin, that sin is like a coin with two sides. If a Christian tells a lie, the heads side of that act is sin; the tails side is a work.

The sin side has been dealt with forever by the death of our Lord, but the work side will face us at the judgment seat of Christ. What shall I do? This may well be the cry of each believer when these truths are borne in upon us. There is only one answer: God deals with us now concerning the moment which we are living now.

We can look back over life in one hasty glance and cry out to the Lord that the whole tangled skein needs to be cut loose by Him in order that the threads may be freshly woven in His pattern. Then He will hand you the fresh skeins at every moment in which you desire them from Him.

Then we can say, "This one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." May we be thankful from the depths of our being that we deal with the God who is the God of ever fresh beginnings.

And we pray Thee, our Lord and Father, that Thou shalt bless the truth to us in this hour. That it may go deep and that it find lodgment and bring forth fruit to Thine honor and glory, we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Guest (Male): The strong and the weak believer must always be in a relationship of love for one another because each is in a relationship of love towards God and each is answerable to God alone. You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. We hope you have benefited from today's message entitled "The Coin with Two Sides."

To listen to more Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online. Our web address is alliancenet.org. An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled "The Coin with Two Sides," or simply request message number R14-12.

We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled *Happy Though Poor*. Jesus prayed that his disciples would know the fullness of his joy. But the sad fact is that many believers fail to experience lives of happiness and contentment. This short but powerful booklet calls us to a life of yieldedness to the Lord Jesus Christ that he may give us fullness of joy and cause that joy to flow through us into the lives of others.

Do you struggle with unhappiness? Ask for your free copy of *Happy Though Poor* when you call or write. Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview.

Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

We also produce 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 complete list of stations carrying our programs, visit our website at 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 toll-free, 1-800-488-1888.

Again, 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 a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding reformed teachers and theologians, including Doctors Donald Grey Barnhouse, James Montgomery Boice, Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Philip Graham Ryken.

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