Covenant Protestant Reformed Church
Ballymena
Rev. Angus Stewart
Lord’s Day, 11 January, 2009
“Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,
whose hope is in the Lord his God” (Ps. 146:5)
Morning Service – 11:00 AM Prof. B. Gritters
Psalm 101
I. His Public Resolve
II. His Real Godliness
III. His Divine Dependence
Psalms: 135:1-5; 10:1-6; 62:7-12; 101:1-5
Evening Service – 6:00 PM Prof. B. Gritters
Romans 12:1-2
I. What That Life Is
II. How We Live So
III. The Reasons For It
Psalms: 27:1-6; 10:7-12; 73:24-28; 19:9-14
For CDs of the sermons and DVDs of the worship services, contact Stephen Murray
If you desire a pastoral visit, please contact Rev. Stewart or the elders
CPRC Website: www.cprc.co.uk • Live Webcast: https://cprc.co.uk/live-streaming/
CPRC YouTube: www.youtube.com/cprcni
CPRC Facebook: www.facebook.com/CovenantPRC
Quote to Consider:
Herman Hoeksema: “Living from the principle of enmity against God, the world practices a form of life consisting of sinful works, sinful speech, sinful amusements, sinful pleasures, and sinful treasures. This is true of the world in every relation. The form of the home becomes carnal. You can see it before your very eyes. Why is the relation between man and wife being corrupted? It is corrupted in divorce. It is corrupted in the murder of the seed of the children that is called birth control. You see it in the pleasures of the world: the dance, the movies, the theaters. You can see the world’s sinful form of life in its attitude against all authority. You see it in the relation of employer and employee. Negatively, the admonition is this: let not your life be characterized by copying the form of this world. Do not copy this world. Be not conformed to this world” (Righteous By Faith Alone, p. 578).
Announcements (subject to God’s will):
We welcome the church visitors, Prof. Gritters and Peter Vander Schaaf, to our worship services again today. Prof. Gritters will be preaching at both services. Everyone is welcome to stay for tea after this evening’s service as we say farewell to the church visitors.
Our thanks to William & Alison Graham for their work arranging the congregational dinner and the quiz.
Catechism: Tuesday, 4:30 PM – Jacob Buchanan
Tuesday, 5:30 PM – Jamie & Debbie Murray
Tuesday, 7:00 PM – Campbells at the manse
Thursday, 11:00 AM – Beginners OT Class at the manse
Midweek Bible Study meets on Wednesday, 7:45 PM at the manse. We will look at “passing the time of your sojourn in fear” (I Peter 1:17-21).
The Reformed Witness Hour next Lord’s Day (8:30-9:00 AM, on Gospel 846MW), is “The Power and Necessity of Preaching” (Rom. 1:16) by Rev. Rodney Kleyn.
Offerings: General Fund – £678.90. Building Fund – £317. Donations: £20 (C. R. News), £59.89 (Limerick), £14 (bookstore).
Ladies’ Bible Study meets next week Tuesday, 10:15 AM, at the Murrays.
Upcoming Lectures: Portadown, Fri., 20 Feb., 8 PM – John Calvin’s Battle for the Reformation
S. Wales, DATE TO BE CHANGED, 7:15 PM – John Calvin’s Battle for the Reformation
Limerick, Fri., 6 March, 7:30 PM – John Calvin’s Battle for the Reformation
PRC News: Rev. Eriks (Hudsonville, MI) received the call to Calvary PRC (Hull, IA). Byron Center PRC plan to call from a trio of Revs. Slopsema (First, MI), R. Kleyn (Trinity, MI), and Haak (Georgetown, MI).
This is the 28th e-mail by Prof. Engelsma on justification
Dear Forum,
I begin by clarifying exactly where we are in our study of the biblical and Reformed doctrine of justification.
This is necessary because the last two instalments responded to questions and objections to an aspect of justification that I taught earlier.
In instalment 23, I dealt with an aspect of justification that I have found to be seldom, or slightly, treated, namely, the time of justification—the “when.” In keeping with justification’s being by faith, that is, an act of God in the consciousness of the elect believer, and in keeping with the truth, commonly acknowledged by Reformed and Presbyterian theologians, that justification is virtually the forgiveness of sins, I contended that justification, though a perfect act in every instance, is repeated whenever the gospel sounds the verdict of “not guilty” in the soul of the believer. I attempted to demonstrate and prove this from Scripture and the confessions.
In instalment 24, I proceeded to that aspect of justification that consists of the basis, or ground, of God’s declaring righteous the sinner who is guilty and, as Romans 4:5 describes him, “ungodly.” This basis is the cross of Christ, indeed the lifelong suffering of Christ, as well as the lifelong obedience of Christ in the stead of His elect, covenant people. The cross is the basis inasmuch as it was the substitutionary satisfaction of the justice of God with regard to men and women who are required to obey the law perfectly and to suffer the punishment of the curse of God for their breaking of the law. This basis, I urged, is an integral and essential element of the verdict of justification itself. The guilty sinner must always know that the verdict is based in the full satisfaction of the justice of God.
Instalment 25 showed the implications of false doctrine concerning the cross for the doctrine of justification and of false doctrine concerning justification for the doctrine of the cross. Because of the inseparable relation of justification and the cross, one cannot go wrong concerning the cross without also corrupting the truth of justification. Neither can one go wrong concerning justification without also corrupting the truth of the cross of Christ. I illustrated this from the Arminian error concerning the cross, on the one hand, and from the error of the federal vision concerning justification, on the other hand.
I may add, concerning the necessary denial of the cross of Christ by those who teach justification by faith and works—the Galatian error—that this is exactly the charge of the apostle in Galatians 2:21. Immediately after his ringing testimony to justification by faith alone and his explicit denial that justification is by works in verse 16, the apostle declares, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” The false doctrine of justification by works, as taught by Rome, by Arminianism, by the federal vision in reputedly conservative Reformed and Presbyterian churches in North America, and by the advocates of the “new perspective on Paul” in Europe necessarily implies that ‘Christ died for nothing.’
Theodore Beza, worthy successor of Calvin in Geneva, stated the connection between justification and the cross, negatively and positively: “It is apparent that those who teach that man’s salvation depends either partially or entirely on works destroy the foundation of the gospel of God (Gal. 2:21). And on the contrary, those who teach justification freely by faith are grounded on a sure foundation.” Significantly, Beza added these words, calling attention to the source of both justification and the cross in God’s eternal counsel: “for this is of God’s eternal counsel, upon which Christ himself and the Apostle Paul ground their doctrine” (taken from an unpublished translation of Beza’s “An Introduction to Election” that I have in my library). Concerning the ultimate source of justification with its basis in the cross in God’s eternal counsel, I plan to take this up later.
The next two instalments, numbers 26 and 27 departed from “the order of the day.” In them, I responded to questions and objections concerning my contention that justification is repeated daily, and indeed more often, when the child of God, stricken with the guilt of his sins, as the law of God is made by the Spirit of Christ to carry out its function of giving regenerated saints the knowledge of their misery, flies by faith to God for the pardon of his debts for the sake of the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
In the present instalment, I continue my examination and development of justification in light of Scripture and the Reformed confessions, picking up the thread of the teaching in instalments 24 and 25, that is, the truth that justification has a ground, or basis, and that this basis is the cross of Jesus Christ.
It is the basis of justification in the cross that gives the lie to the slander of the Reformed doctrine of justification as nothing but a “legal fiction.” This charge was, and still is, a favourite attack on the Reformation’s doctrine of justification by Rome. It has been picked up by other enemies of the Reformation doctrine.
By this charge, Rome means that according to the Reformation doctrine God declares a man or woman to be innocent and perfectly righteous, when, in fact, he or she is not innocent and perfectly righteous, but sinful and guilty. The doctrine of the Reformation is the same as an earthly judge’s finding a defendant not guilty when, in fact, the man is guilty as Beelzebub, and still possessed of a murderous nature besides.
In support of its charge, “legal fiction,” Rome appeals to the free acknowledgment by the Reformation that, as he appears before the tribunal of God in the matter of justification, the sinner is certainly guilty in himself of all the damning charges of the law of God and possessed of a totally depraved nature, which he retains after the verdict of justification is sounded.
Gleefully, Rome points to the Reformation’s own explanation of justification by means of the phrase, “as if”: “It is with the forgiven sinner as if he had never committed any sin”; “it is with the justified sinner as if he had perfectly obeyed the law of God and suffered the punishment of all his sins.” There is such a statement, for example, in the Reformed Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper: “[In justification one] doth believe this faithful promise of God, that all his sins are forgiven him only for the sake of the passion and death of Jesus Christ, and that the perfect righteousness of Christ is imputed and freely given him as his own, yea, so perfectly, as if he had satisfied in his own person for all his sins, and fulfilled all righteousness.”
“As if”!
But not, says Rome and all other opponents of the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone, really!
Nothing but a “legal fiction.”
The charge against the Reformation doctrine that it is nothing but a “legal fiction” intends to expose our doctrine as affirming that a man is righteous, when in fact he is not really righteous at all.
This, if true, is an absolutely devastating indictment against the Reformation doctrine of justification. For our doctrine leaves a man or woman “not really righteous at all.” The whole justifying judgment according to the Reformed teaching is a “fiction,” a “fraud.” This may serve an earthly criminal well: he goes scot-free, although guilty in hard reality.
But it leaves the Reformed and Presbyterian believer guilty in reality before a just God. This would be a state of condemnation and damnation.
What is our response to this charge?
Do we admit that our doctrine is a “legal fiction”? Do we then comfort ourselves by saying, perhaps, that such is the grace of God that He perpetrates and is content with a “legal fiction”?
Or, do we repudiate this analysis of the Reformation doctrine of justification and condemn the charge of “legal fiction” as a mere slander?
The answer to these questions will take us deeply into the mystery of the marvellous grace of God in His soteriological act of justification and its Christological ground in the cross of Christ.
Cordially in Christ,
Prof. Engelsma
