The Unchanging Truth

Guest (Male): Welcome to the unchanging truth, the verse by verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jared Gilcher, lead pastor of Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. Through the living and active word of God, the unchanging truth exists to encourage your soul, transform your life, and help you trust and treasure Christ as redeemer, savior, and king. Now, opening the scriptures and proclaiming the truth that never changes, here is Dr. Jared Gilcher.

Dr. Jerod Gilcher: Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress, helplessly look to thee for grace. In other words, it is by faith in Christ and by faith alone. Verse 22, we are saved by the righteousness from God. Here it is through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. And there it is, faith is the means. Faith in Christ is how we get the righteousness of Christ credited to us. And that is massive. Faith, you understand, is massive. Because whatever faith is in its essence makes it the opposite of works.

If faith is anything, if faith is anything at all, faith is despair. A despair and your worthless works to save you and where you cast yourself upon Christ alone for his redemptive achievements, that is faith. And when we put our faith in Christ, listen carefully, all of the riches of redemption he bought with his blood became ours in full, including his very own righteousness by which we are acquitted and vindicated in the cosmic courtroom of God. Which is why Paul says at the end of verse 22, the righteousness from God is what does he say?

It's for all those who believe. It's for those who believe. I love grammar and I want you to love grammar. And that's called a preposition. And it is magical. It is beautiful for those who believe. Meaning it is a gift. It is given. It is It is granted to all those who who yield by faith and place their trust in the righteous one. And this matters to every single person on the planet in history. This solves the dilemma. How do hell deserving sinners get reconciled to God as the treasure of their souls? This is the answer.

Which brings us to the third weighty essential still review. Number three, the need for justification. The need for justification, and all I need to do is read the verse, verse 23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And that verse solves the riddle, doesn't it? Why do all people need the saving righteousness of God in the gospel? Why is this relevant? Why does this matter to the Jew in Jerusalem? And the Greek in Greece, and the Roman in Rome, and even the distant pagan nations who never even heard one word of the word of God, why does this matter to all?

Very simply, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, which at the very least means we were created to see and savor and enjoy God's glory for the treasure that it is. And sin is doing the opposite of that. Although we knew God, Romans 1:21, we did not glorify him as God or give thanks, did we? But we became futile in our speculations and our foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, we became fools. And we exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Verse 25, we exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And we worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Sin is outrageous. Not because it makes us sad or because it ruins our lives, because it takes the holy, majestic, sovereign, uncreated, self-existent God of Trinitarian glory and exchanges him for something that's not God. And loves it and worships it and tries to be satisfied in it as if it were God. And that is a crime that can't be repaired with the corrupted works of men. The filthy rags of righteous deeds is never going to work.

Which means if sinners were ever going to be saved and counted as righteous, it was going to have to be a gift by grace and by grace alone. Review is over. Number four. Number four. The fourth weighty essential of justification, the variables of justification. The variables of justification. What I mean is Paul is going to explain how justification actually works. And my apologies to the math majors and the number nerds, I just want you to know I hate math. There, I've said it. I absolutely despise it. Sorry, not sorry. And it's not like I don't get why it's important.

I totally do. It's just something happened, some sort of, you know, got clubbed in the head and and I just like I can't, you know, dropped as a kid. I I can't I can't get my head around math. Um and yet that doesn't mean I hate all math because there is a kind of math that is my favorite subject on the planet and it is the mathematics of redemption. The calculus of the cross, the the algebra of the atonement. What I mean is like a math equation, salvation has variables. Is that the right word for the little components in a in a math equation?

It has it has variables. In other words, this thing plus this thing equals this thing. At the very least, one of the things I do appreciate about math is that the numbers don't lie. It's real. It's concrete. It is undeniable. None of it is theoretical. Except for story problems which drive me crazy. But that's the thing about salvation and that's the thing about justification, church, is that the numbers don't lie. This isn't theoretical. The math adds up. And that's really helpful when it comes to the doctrine of justification because you remember that justification is law court language, right?

It's Bible legalese. All right, it's it's this it describes this this uh well, and I should say that that it just can kind of feel abstract and impersonal and technical and and cold. It was a legal declaration in in the spirit realm that we were not personally there to witness or hear. And and really justification kind of can kind of feel like a just take my word for it kind of doctrine. Just believe that it's true and believe that it 's real. Okay, I'm going to believe that I'm credited as righteous and that's how God sees me, which feels crazy.

How can God pretend that we are righteous when we are clearly not? And furthermore, how does the perfect record of another, namely Christ, get transferred to our account and we be counted as righteous? It's just pretend. It's monopoly money. The Catholic Church called this a legal fiction. Not pretend. Not theoretical. Not a fiction. Listen carefully. Justification is only weird when we divorce justification from the actual historical transaction of the cross. Do you see? If we forget the wrath bearing sacrifice of Christ that made justification even possible, it's going to feel like pretend. It's going to feel theoretical, but it's not.

It's not pretend. It 's not theoretical. It's not fiction. The math adds up. And in the salvation equation of justification, there are two variables that make it work. Two variables that make it work and you can see them, see if you can see them in verses 24 and 25. Paul says being justified as a gift by his grace. There's the number on the other side of the equal sign. There's the equals. Justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Hint, variable number one. Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation.

Variable number two. Through faith in his blood for the display of his righteousness because of the passing by of sins previously committed. And I hope you see the math or at the very least the logic. Verse 23 is why all people need justification because they have sinned and fallen short of his glory. Verse 24 is the solution for guilty sinners who have sinned and fallen short of his glory. And you can see there verse 24, the solution is what? It's justification. Being justified as a gift by his grace, that is the solution, one of the solutions for sin, justification.

And notice very carefully how much grace there is in every single word. Sovereign grace, notice first the word justified is in the passive voice. That means it happened to us and it was not by us. We did not achieve it. We had to receive it. It alone is the work of sovereign grace and we are but the undeserving recipients. Number two. Paul says that we are justified freely or as a gift, meaning we did not earn it. We didn't deserve it. God was under no constraint or obligation to give it and yet he did do that apart from any contribution of good works that we could ever possibly make.

And if we still don't get how gracious justification is and how little we deserve it, Paul says number three, we are justified as a gift by his grace. And we love grace. And we talk about grace. And we should love it and we should love to talk about it and yet what is it is the question. Here is grace. Grace is the sovereign love and pleasure of God to bring a sinner to saving faith based on nothing except his own divine initiative and choice. That's grace. I'll say it again. It is the sovereign love and pleasure of God, happiness of God to bring a sinner to saving faith based on nothing except his own divine initiative and choice.

That's grace. Or the grace of God is the good we get from God who owes us nothing but the wrath of God. And you remember, don't you, that that grace is not willy-nilly. It was not off the cuff. It was not spontaneous. God didn't just all the sudden wait a second. I'm going to just show them grace. No, you remember, don't you? Grace is planned. Grace is eternal. God decreed that he would show us grace even before the foundation of the world. You remember 2 Timothy 1:9, God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Even then, when only the Trinity existed, God decreed that we would be the recipients of grace. The question is, okay, how does the math of justification add up? How can God just pretend that we are righteous when the opposite is true? How is there really no wrath or guilt to bear? How can this be? And that brings us to variable number one in the equation. Notice verse 24, Paul says we are justified as a gift by his grace. Here it is. Through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. And that is why it's not pretend.

Redemption. Redemption is why justification is not a legal fiction. Sinners have to be redeemed before they are justified. And yet redemption meaning what? What does it mean to be redeemed? And here we've now moved from the law court to the slave market. This is the language of the slave market. That word redemption, there is the language for the ransom of slaves. In fact, the word literally means, get this, to release from slavery by the payment of a ransom price. To release from slavery by the payment of a ransom price. That that's the meaning of the word.

And that was that's a highly fitting word to use for us, isn't it? Because slaves is exactly what we were. John 8:34, we were slaves of sin. 2 Timothy 2:26, we were bound and blinded and chained by the devil. And the thing is we loved our masters. We loved our sin. We loved the devil. And we could not break free from their control even if we wanted to. And we did not want to break free. Which means someone had to break us free. Someone had to intervene and and free us from our idols by an unmatched beauty which is what redemption did.

Christ kicked open the dungeon with his death. He paid the ransom with his blood. He broke the chains with the bolt cutters of grace and then he set the prisoner free, not to live a life like the one they did before. But Romans chapter 6 Romans chapter 6 freed from sin and alive to God. Yes. Yes, we still feel the remaining power of sin and the effects of sin and the temptation to sin and the allurement to sin. But if you are in Christ, you are not slaves to sin anymore. Which means lasting, satisfying victory over sin is not merely a possibility, but a profound and inevitable reality.

I think it's very interesting, don't you? That Christ characterized his entire ministry as one of ransom. Even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Ransom, same word. Romans 3:24. And beloved, this is very practical because what this what this means is that if you are in Christ, sin doesn't have to have the upper hand. If you're in Christ, did you know you don't actually have to click the link. If you're in Christ, you don't actually have to touch the screen.

If you're in Christ, you don't have to say the word. You don't have to think that thought. You don't have to do that thing. Because you are were a slave. And now ransom by the payment of a ransom price. We're free. We're free. I I I think of Paul's words about sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 6. Do you remember? He says flee flee from immorality. Flee. Run from it. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body. But the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own?

You don't belong to you. You are not your own. Your life is not yours. Why? Because verse 20 he says you were bought, literally ransomed with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. Do you see the logic? And so I ask you, how are you enjoying your freedom? How are you enjoying your emancipation from sin slavery? How are you enjoying your liberation from sin's control? We're free. And and and just so we're clear on this, the question is, to whom did Christ pay the ransom? Be careful before you answer. To whom did Christ pay the ransom when he died?

Because I'll tell you who he did not pay it to. He did not pay it to Satan. He paid it to God. He paid it to God. Because we were not under Satan's condemnation, but God's condemnation. It was God's holiness offended. God's righteousness required a payment. It is God to whom sinners are in debt, in whose court they stand condemned. Ephesians 5:2, Christ gave himself as an offering and a sacrifice. To who? To God. Which makes me want to ask you, in all seriousness, whose slave are you this morning? Who is the master who owns you this morning?

Because everybody belongs to somebody. We either belong to the redeemer Jesus Christ who freed us by the payment of a ransom price or we are co-ruled by sin and Satan and there is nothing in between. And if you are not freed from sin, you can and must be freed by faith in Christ alone. Don't miss the point. The point is not necessarily redemption, but that redemption is the means to our justification. Do you remember? In other words, listen carefully. God God doesn't wave a magic wand and just simply declare you righteous. This wasn't some hocus pocus trick.

Rather, we are declared righteous, listen carefully, precisely because there was an actual historical transaction where our souls were purchased and paid for by the ransom price of Jesus Christ. It's staunching. It's rooted in the facts of history. Variable number two. Variable number two, verse 25 and this is massive. Look at the text, verse 25. Paul says we are justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Here it is. Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation through faith in his blood and there it is, propitiation. I love long theological words and I want you to love long theological words.

They look kind of intimidating, but inside them is contained absolute treasure. And and now you see now you see the equation. Do you see it? There's the equation. Redemption plus propitiation equals justification. Do you see? Redemption plus propitiation equals justification. The math adds up. It's the algebra of the cross. And the question is, of course, what is propitiation? What is propitiation? And I'll tell you what it is. It is the time and the moment and the place when the wrath and mercy of God met together at the cross. Because at the cross, listen carefully, the wrath of God was appeased.

The wrath of God was satisfied. The wrath of God was extinguished towards all those whom the father purchased and gave to his son for whom he would die and purchase with his blood because God was angry, wasn't he? He was angry with you and with me. We were children of wrath. We were enemies. We were sons of disobedience. Romans 2:5, we were storing up wrath for ourselves in the day of wrath and the righteous judgment of God. And the worst part of all is there wasn't a darn thing that you or I or anybody anybody else could do about it.

We were doomed. We were hopeless unless unless God made a way to satisfy his wrath and save wrath deserving rebels all at the same time. That's propitiation.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for the unchanging truth, the verse by verse Bible teaching ministry of Dr. Jared Gilcher and Christ Community Bible Church in Arlington, Texas. At Christ Community Bible Church, we exist to prize, portray, and proclaim the supremacy of Christ as we trust in his word and wait for his return. We hope today's teaching has encouraged your soul and helped you trust and treasure Christ as your redeemer, savior, and king. If you're in the DFW area and looking for a church home, join us for worship Sunday mornings at 10:30. To learn more about the mission of the church, meet the pastoral staff, or plan a visit, go to ccbiblechurch.com.

You'll find ministry services and additional teachings there as well. Just click on the resources tab to get started. That's ccbiblechurch.com. Join us again next time as we open the scriptures together and proclaim the truth that never changes. This has been the unchanging truth.