Dale Partridge - Stop Working For Your Salvation - Dale Partridge

00:00:00.000 In this episode of Real Christianity, we tackle an important question.

00:00:03.360 How did God save people in the Old Testament?

00:00:06.920 If the cross had not yet come, how was a person made right with God?

00:00:10.340 This is a vital answer for New Testament Christians to have. 0.98

00:00:13.060 So get ready, all that and more coming up right now. 1.00

00:00:30.000 Welcome to Real Christianity.

00:00:35.020 My name is Dale Partridge. 0.60

00:00:36.160 Now, as you know,

00:00:36.780 this show is an audio and video ministry of relearn.org,

00:00:40.200 where our mission is to bring the church back to the Bible.

00:00:44.000 Question for you,

00:00:45.160 have you picked up a copy of my new bestselling kids book,

00:00:49.480 Jesus and My Gender?

00:00:50.840 You can see it on the screen

00:00:51.740 if you're watching the video version.

00:00:53.240 We've sold almost 5,000 copies in the last 90 days.

00:00:56.120 This book does not introduce any extra biblical transgenderism to your child.

00:01:02.680 This is just affirming your child's God-given gender.

00:01:05.940 It's an incredible rhyming book.

00:01:08.380 My kids loved it.

00:01:09.920 I've heard from so many different parents how it's been a great resource for them to have this discussion and topic.

00:01:15.200 And it's for kids anywhere between the ages of maybe, you know, two all the way to say 10.

00:01:21.760 And so if you want to pick up a copy, you can grab one from our store at relearn.org forward slash gender.

00:01:28.000 You could also pick it up at Amazon. Either way helps support our ministry.

00:01:32.540 So on that note, let's go ahead and get started. Dive into this episode, continuing our conversation and teaching through the book of Romans.

00:01:40.520 This great book of Romans is broken into several sections as we're getting through them here.

00:01:46.700 we've just entered into section two.

00:01:49.700 Now, the first major section ran from chapter one,

00:01:53.380 verses 18, all the way through chapter three,

00:01:56.360 verses 20, and presents really the fallen state of mankind

00:02:00.200 and the way of justification through faith in Christ.

00:02:04.080 The next section runs from the end of chapter three

00:02:08.000 all the way into the middle of chapter five.

00:02:10.960 And that's really a defense of justification by faith

00:02:14.020 through historical examples in the Old Testament.

00:02:17.440 And so last week, or in the last episode,

00:02:21.160 we saw Paul anticipate an argument from the Jews

00:02:24.500 that the doctrine of justification from faith alone is wrong. 0.90

00:02:28.900 So he's anticipating that objection.

00:02:32.540 And he expected the Jews would really counter his claims,

00:02:36.940 arguing that Abraham is certainly justified by his works,

00:02:41.500 by his work of circumcision.

00:02:43.240 He's the great father of Israel

00:02:45.060 and he had some sort of contribution to his salvation, right? 0.99

00:02:50.320 This is what the Jews would be asking Paul 0.61

00:02:52.220 and Paul is anticipating that response.

00:02:55.040 And so he writes the content

00:02:56.280 that we're gonna be reading here in chapter four.

00:02:58.920 Now, Paul refutes that idea by citing Genesis 15, six

00:03:04.060 that says, quote, Abraham believed God

00:03:06.800 and it was counted to him as righteousness, end quote.

00:03:10.480 And we went over that last week.

00:03:11.820 In other words, the Jews were struggling to distinguish the physical covenantal administrations from the spiritual covenantal administrations.

00:03:21.580 And I want you to follow along with me here.

00:03:23.120 You know, they needed to help seeing that circumcision, that the possession of the law, that the physical descendants of Abraham were the physical signs and symbols that helped give God's people reminders of the spiritual promises.

00:03:41.960 But at the end of the day, they in of themselves do not save.

00:03:46.880 Those weren't the things, your circumcision, your possession of the law that you were related to Abraham physically or by blood was not actually the thing that saved you.

00:03:57.200 And that's something that the Jews were struggling with.

00:03:59.240 No, the only things that could save are spiritual circumcision, the law written on the heart, the spiritual descendants of faith.

00:04:09.100 Those are the things that would actually bring about salvation in a person's heart.

00:04:14.960 In today's passage, Paul continues to defend against the idea that Abraham was justified by works

00:04:20.600 by leveraging the testimony of Israel's other great figure, King David.

00:04:25.900 And what he's doing here is that Paul isn't holding back any punches.

00:04:30.220 He's taking the two twin towers of Israel's history,

00:04:33.820 and he's proving that both of them held to the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

00:04:40.260 And the point he's trying to get across is that if these two great men of Israel

00:04:44.600 were not saved by works, but were saved by faith or justified by faith alone in Christ alone,

00:04:52.340 then you too must be saved or justified by faith alone in Christ alone.

00:04:58.420 So let's read chapter four, verses one through eight.

00:05:03.520 We're going to just familiarize ourselves with the context of the passage.

00:05:08.680 So verse one, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

00:05:16.620 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

00:05:21.540 For what does the scripture say?

00:05:23.820 Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

00:05:27.300 Now to the one who works,

00:05:28.520 his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

00:05:32.780 And to the one who does not work,

00:05:34.400 but believes in him who justifies the ungodly,

00:05:37.340 his faith is counted as righteousness.

00:05:39.880 Just as David also speaks of the blessing

00:05:42.680 of the one to whom God counts righteousness

00:05:46.360 apart from works.

00:05:48.380 Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven

00:05:51.780 and whose sins are covered.

00:05:54.280 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord

00:05:56.180 will not count his sin, end quote.

00:05:58.740 All right, so that was chapter four, verses one through eight.

00:06:03.700 So we're gonna just read verses four and five

00:06:05.580 just one more time.

00:06:06.460 And then we're gonna just break it down verse by verse.

00:06:08.760 So four and five.

00:06:09.440 Now to the one who works,

00:06:11.280 his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

00:06:15.980 And to the one who does not work,

00:06:17.820 but believes in him who justifies the ungodly,

00:06:21.100 his faith is counted as righteousness.

00:06:23.880 So it's important that we just look at this

00:06:26.380 and understand Paul has a gift or has a view

00:06:29.760 that faith is a gift.

00:06:31.060 We see this throughout scriptures,

00:06:32.320 especially in Ephesians 2, 8, and 9.

00:06:35.280 But in light of that doctrine that Paul holds,

00:06:38.300 he's making the point that if someone works,

00:06:40.920 then you can't consider his wages a gift, but what is due.

00:06:46.300 That's the point he's trying to make.

00:06:48.240 Robert Haldane wrote a commentary on Romans in the 1800s.

00:06:53.020 He says, quote, no reward can be said to be of grace

00:06:57.400 that is given for work of any description, end quote.

00:07:01.520 Ultimately, if salvation is an act of grace,

00:07:04.300 by its very nature, it cannot be earned by work.

00:07:08.120 On the flip side, if salvation is earned by works,

00:07:11.540 by what we do, by our sacramental works,

00:07:18.340 by our obedience, if it's earned by these things,

00:07:21.260 then God would owe us salvation to some degree.

00:07:25.560 In other words, any view that believes that works earn

00:07:29.320 or contribute to maintaining your salvation

00:07:32.680 or your justification puts God into debt to us

00:07:36.400 and makes salvation an obligation of God

00:07:39.640 to compensate us for our deeds.

00:07:41.600 And so this is obviously just breaking down

00:07:44.360 the gospel of grace.

00:07:46.080 But Paul has made that abundantly clear in chapter three

00:07:48.900 that none of us are righteous.

00:07:50.500 and that all of us are in need to be found righteous.

00:07:54.460 And so the truth is that we are,

00:07:57.620 as Paul says again in chapter three,

00:07:59.380 we're dirt that disobeys. 0.99

00:08:02.040 We're just people that are gross, deserving of hell, 0.99

00:08:05.940 not righteous, not even one. 0.99

00:08:08.460 Our mouths are like an open grave.

00:08:11.220 We speak all these lies and we're constantly sinning.

00:08:14.740 We don't fulfill even the greatest and first commandment

00:08:17.360 to love the Lord your God with all our heart,

00:08:19.040 with all our soul, with all our mind.

00:08:20.360 We can't love our neighbor as ourselves.

00:08:22.280 We are constantly in a place of sin.

00:08:24.120 Even saints are constantly in a place of struggling with sin.

00:08:28.920 I mean, I don't know about you,

00:08:29.720 but I woke up this morning and I sinned today.

00:08:32.140 And when you realize, oh Lord, I can't believe in the fact,

00:08:36.340 in light of the facts of grace,

00:08:38.280 in light of the gospel that I continue to sin this way.

00:08:40.860 And this is Paul, he talks about this in Romans.

00:08:43.320 I can't believe I do the things that I don't wanna do.

00:08:45.040 And why can't I do the things that I do wanna do?

00:08:46.600 And there's a real reality of attention,

00:08:49.500 of sanctification of the Lord that's constantly working

00:08:51.900 on our hearts in this time of salvation.

00:08:55.800 Now, again, our works don't contribute

00:08:58.400 to keeping ourselves saved.

00:09:00.000 We are resting on the perfect work of Jesus Christ,

00:09:02.300 but we're saints that sin

00:09:03.800 and we always need the gospel every day.

00:09:05.900 We need our sin forgiven because every day

00:09:08.200 we're continuing to fail and to fall short

00:09:11.100 of the glory of God.

00:09:12.300 this is what makes the gospel of grace so amazing i mean it really does the fact that when you can

00:09:20.300 have a biblical anthropology of a biblical anthropological view of who we are understanding

00:09:27.600 the doctrine of total depravity understanding how wicked and sinful we really are and then you

00:09:32.260 lay that doctrine next to the doctrine of the gospel and it's just an amazing sign of grace

00:09:39.520 And Paul says,

00:09:40.400 and to the one who does not work,

00:09:42.300 but believes in him who justifies the ungodly,

00:09:44.640 his faith is counted as righteousness.

00:09:47.620 Now, first I want to make an important point

00:09:49.740 that a lot of people miss when they read this text.

00:09:52.420 The first phrase is a statement of observation,

00:09:55.440 not a statement of duty.

00:09:57.640 And I'm going to explain that here in a second.

00:09:59.660 Paul is making an observation here. 0.98

00:10:02.060 He's saying the ones who don't work,

00:10:04.580 but believe, their faith is counted as righteousness.

00:10:10.520 And what I mean there is that Paul is not saying

00:10:13.380 in this passage, stop working and start believing.

00:10:17.180 He's not telling dead men to believe.

00:10:21.340 That's not necessarily what's being said here.

00:10:23.160 He's not making belief into a work,

00:10:27.880 something that you need to do to save yourself.

00:10:30.900 He's simply recognizing that those who believe

00:10:33.160 have been given the gift of faith.

00:10:35.460 And this is important because you need to understand

00:10:37.560 that your very reason, your very capability,

00:10:41.140 your very, the possibility that you even believe is a gift.

00:10:46.840 Meaning that God gave you that ability

00:10:48.960 to even have that belief, have that faith,

00:10:52.040 to put that trust in Christ alone.

00:10:54.800 Because without the spirit of God changing your heart,

00:10:57.180 you can't stop working and start believing.

00:10:59.960 You can't.

00:11:00.760 And we know that because scripture tells us,

00:11:02.280 It's 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14.

00:11:04.960 It says,

00:11:06.520 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,

00:11:09.880 for they are folly to him,

00:11:11.360 and he is not able to understand them

00:11:14.040 because they are spiritually discerned.

00:11:16.880 Romans 8, 7 says,

00:11:17.900 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God,

00:11:23.080 for it does not submit to God's law.

00:11:25.500 Indeed, it cannot.

00:11:27.140 End quote.

00:11:27.840 Now, Paul is telling the Romans,

00:11:30.220 Paul is not telling the Romans,

00:11:32.280 a command to believe in this passage.

00:11:34.740 He's telling the Romans a fact

00:11:37.260 that the believing ones will be saved.

00:11:40.660 Those that are believing.

00:11:42.220 Now, let me give you another example in John 3.16.

00:11:44.400 You can do this.

00:11:45.240 You can go to Google.

00:11:46.100 You can type in John 3.16 interlinear Greek

00:11:51.180 or just interlinear.

00:11:52.520 And it's gonna show you the Greek

00:11:54.480 and the English side by side.

00:11:56.540 And you're gonna read in John 3.16.

00:11:59.360 It says, God so loved the world

00:12:00.400 that he gave his only begotten son

00:12:01.620 that whoever believes in him should not perish,

00:12:02.920 but have everlasting life.

00:12:04.480 Well, you're going to know that passage

00:12:06.780 because you probably know it by heart.

00:12:08.460 And you go, well, whosoever believes.

00:12:10.780 That's what a lot of people say.

00:12:12.260 Well, in the Greek, it'll say something along these lines.

00:12:16.100 And I'll do a transliteration from English to Greek.

00:12:19.280 God so loves the world that he gave his only begotten son

00:12:22.360 that the ones believing or that the believing ones

00:12:25.060 should not perish, but have everlasting life.

00:12:27.820 That's what it says.

00:12:28.560 And that's what it'll show you in the Greek interlinear.

00:12:30.600 We just don't have the right words to translate it that way.

00:12:33.440 And I think it's actually an unfortunate translation that we even do have,

00:12:36.880 especially that most of us remember the translation from the KJV

00:12:40.500 or the New King James Version.

00:12:42.460 But it's the believing ones.

00:12:44.360 And so God loves the world that he gave his only begotten son,

00:12:48.220 that the ones that are believing, the ones that have been gifted faith,

00:12:51.640 they will not perish, but have everlasting life.

00:12:55.600 And so again, this is a subtle distinction

00:12:59.460 because the ability for a person to believe

00:13:01.680 is not possible with first God changing their heart.

00:13:05.460 So Paul is not calling for lost people

00:13:07.800 to exercise their carnal ability to trust Christ.

00:13:11.240 That would turn into persuasion.

00:13:13.260 That means that salvation is about persuading people

00:13:15.860 to exercising the faith

00:13:18.080 that they already have within themselves.

00:13:20.220 No, Paul teaches that faith is a gift of God

00:13:22.740 and repentance is even granted as a gift of God.

00:13:26.260 And that those things need to happen by God's grace

00:13:29.080 for you to even repent and believe.

00:13:31.340 And so that's why you can say for from him

00:13:33.040 and through him and to him are all things

00:13:34.820 to him be the glory forever and ever, amen.

00:13:37.740 Because even your faith and your repentance

00:13:39.600 is a gift of God.

00:13:40.500 And you can't take any credit of your own.

00:13:42.580 This is really the heart of the gospel of grace.

00:13:46.360 So let's continue on.

00:13:48.580 It says, now to the one who works,

00:13:50.240 his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

00:13:53.680 And the ones who does not work, but believes in him

00:13:56.500 who justifies the ungodly,

00:13:57.820 his faith is countered to him as righteousness. I want to continue to riff on this for a second.

00:14:01.620 Paul is making a contrast from his first point, which is if someone does work, then you can't

00:14:08.320 consider his wages a gift, but what is due. Here he says the opposite. He gives you kind of an

00:14:14.140 alternative view. If someone does not work, then you can't consider his wages what is due,

00:14:21.400 but as a gift. That's essentially what he's teaching here. Now, this does not mean that

00:14:27.700 we as Christians don't work. We do work, but we aren't working for our justification. We're working

00:14:35.520 from our justification. It means that our works have no ability to make ourselves righteous or to

00:14:42.820 change our standing before God. Our sinfulness has so far tarnished our mortal state. It's not

00:14:50.260 our moral state, that no amount of works can restore us to perfection. And this is why he

00:14:56.780 says, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly. That's our description. If you want a

00:15:02.600 biography or give an autobiography of yourself, just put that word there, ungodly. That's who we

00:15:08.700 are outside of Christ. So our sin is strong enough to make a person ungodly for eternity.

00:15:16.740 One sin is.

00:15:18.200 And we know that because our perfect record

00:15:21.800 is eliminated once we sin.

00:15:23.800 We no longer have that perfect record

00:15:25.440 and we need to be perfect

00:15:26.700 in order to be in the presence of a perfect and holy God.

00:15:30.820 You can't have sin in the presence of a holy God.

00:15:33.480 And so the only way that we can enter back in

00:15:36.160 to that holy, perfect presence

00:15:38.620 is to be holy and perfect like your father

00:15:42.000 who is holy and perfect.

00:15:43.420 And the only way that we can be those things

00:15:45.680 is if we have the holiness and perfect righteousness

00:15:48.580 of Christ given to us by faith.

00:15:51.700 James 2.10 says,

00:15:52.600 for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point

00:15:54.720 has become guilty of all of it.

00:15:57.520 And so our only hope again is to be made perfect

00:15:59.840 and righteous by Jesus Christ.

00:16:03.440 But again, this does not mean that we do not work.

00:16:05.640 It means that our work is driven by gratitude

00:16:08.220 for our justification,

00:16:09.160 not by striving to earn our justification,

00:16:12.360 which is the difference between legalism

00:16:14.700 and a gospel of grace. And so Paul goes on to anchor these truths to the testimony of David.

00:16:19.940 And I want to talk about that here. He says, just as, this is verse six, just as David also speaks

00:16:25.340 of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Okay. So he says

00:16:30.960 the words just as, that's a contrast clause. Sorry. No, it's not a contrast clause. It's a

00:16:38.060 comparison clause. I'm mixing my hermeneutics up here. Paul is saying a person is justified by

00:16:44.600 faith, just as David says in his writings. That's basically what's being said here.

00:16:49.760 Paul notes again, that justification is a blessing. Pay attention to that word blessing.

00:16:55.280 A blessing by definition is unmerited favor from God. And this is another way to differentiate

00:17:00.480 a justification from works or by compensation, right? If it's by compensation for our works,

00:17:10.100 then you can't have it as a blessing. Salvation cannot be a blessing if it's earned, essentially.

00:17:15.480 You don't say that my employer blessed me with my paycheck this week. No, you could say my employer

00:17:22.540 paid me this week. He gave me what was due. You can say that your employer blessed you with

00:17:26.800 dodger tickets because that would be a blessing. And it would also be something that

00:17:32.120 you didn't deserve. It would be extra. It's of grace. So there's a little bit of logic that's

00:17:40.260 going on here with Paul. And additionally, I want you to take note of Paul's use of interpreting

00:17:46.920 scripture with scripture here. So Paul is talking about Genesis 15, 6 with defending

00:17:53.200 justification by faith with Abraham. He's using Psalm 32 here, referencing David's talk and

00:17:59.900 discussion about justification. And so he's interpreting scripture with scripture. And this

00:18:05.660 is just an important ethic for you to pay attention to. It's a principle that's taught by Christ as

00:18:09.920 well. It's the practice of looking to the scriptures to confirm what is being said to validate the

00:18:17.720 gospel or to validate the truths of the gospel. We see this Acts 17, 11. It says, quote, now these

00:18:24.480 Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness,

00:18:29.520 examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so, end quote. These are the Bereans,

00:18:35.980 right, that are looking at the scriptures, they're listening to Paul, and they're looking at the

00:18:39.600 scriptures in the Old Testament and trying to determine if what Paul is saying is right and

00:18:43.020 lines up. And they obviously come and say, yes, they do see that what Paul is saying is true in

00:18:48.600 the Old Testament. And so we must always measure the preaching of men against the principles of

00:18:55.260 scripture. That's just something that you should remember there. Too many people in the church

00:19:01.120 have their theology formed by what's been preached to them and not by what they've read.

00:19:08.240 And so they, at some point you need to not just let somebody else read you the Bible,

00:19:14.160 you need to open it up yourself and read it.

00:19:16.900 And Jesus talks about this ethic as well.

00:19:21.040 Talking to the two men on the road to Emmaus and Luke 24, 25 through 27, he says,

00:19:26.820 And Jesus said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

00:19:32.660 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?

00:19:39.280 And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures,

00:19:44.440 the things concerning himself.

00:19:46.100 Again, even Jesus is using the Old Testament to justify and to validate and to verify who he is

00:19:52.020 and the doctrine of his gospel.

00:19:55.820 And so we always want to demonstrate the validity of the New Testament

00:20:00.980 by the testimony of the Old Testament.

00:20:03.680 I'm going to say that again.

00:20:04.400 We always want to demonstrate the validity of the New Testament

00:20:08.360 by the testimony of the Old Testament.

00:20:11.880 That's a very important principle as you are studying scripture.

00:20:15.760 Now, furthermore, Paul's reference to David's doctrine

00:20:18.000 is added evidence that justification has always been apart from works.

00:20:22.020 That's how it's always been.

00:20:23.380 And that means that the Old Testament saints

00:20:25.720 were saved the exact same way as the New Testament saints,

00:20:30.300 as you and I. And this is important because I opened up this episode asking that question,

00:20:34.740 how are Old Testament saints saved? And we're going to see that they're saved the exact same

00:20:40.440 way that we're saved. And while we look back to the cross and the promises that were fulfilled

00:20:48.960 on that cross, they looked forward to the cross and the promises promised about the cross.

00:20:55.040 And so while circumcision and the Passover were physical signs and seals that pointed to and prepared people for the coming of Christ, baptism and the Lord's Supper are physical signs and seals pointing us to the finished work of Christ, the fulfillment of those promises and the promise of Christ's return to come.

00:21:17.500 And so Paul, again, talks about this 32nd Psalm that is by David.

00:21:24.280 He says,

00:21:24.720 Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

00:21:28.420 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

00:21:32.160 So again, even in the Old Testament,

00:21:33.520 we see this two-part structure of the atonement and imputation of righteousness.

00:21:40.180 That's two parts.

00:21:41.100 You need to pay attention to that.

00:21:42.400 The atonement for sin and the imputation of righteousness.

00:21:46.200 And so under the old covenant,

00:21:48.160 you don't have one without the other.

00:21:49.900 You still have both, just like you do here.

00:21:51.920 You have the atonement of sin

00:21:52.980 and the imputation of righteousness.

00:21:55.840 And this is the underlying argument of Paul.

00:21:57.620 He's leveraging the testimony of the old Testament

00:21:59.360 to validate his gospel here in the new Testament.

00:22:01.960 And these doctrines are mentioned

00:22:03.560 in more places than just the Psalms.

00:22:05.580 And I'm gonna give you a handful of them

00:22:06.760 that talk about the messianic atonement of sin

00:22:09.580 or the covering of sin is what the word atonement means.

00:22:13.100 And we see this teaching in several places

00:22:15.260 including the day of atonement and Leviticus 17.

00:22:19.360 But more succinctly, this can be seen in Isaiah 43, 25.

00:22:24.000 It says, quote,

00:22:24.900 I, I am he who blots out your transgressions

00:22:28.200 for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

00:22:31.640 Isaiah 44, 22,

00:22:32.940 I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud

00:22:35.560 and your sins like mist returned to me

00:22:38.040 for I have redeemed you.

00:22:39.920 Micah 7, 19, he will again have compassion on us.

00:22:43.080 He will tread our iniquities underfoot.

00:22:45.960 You will cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea, end quote.

00:22:49.900 Jeremiah 31, 34, for I will forgive their iniquity

00:22:53.080 and I will remember their sin no more.

00:22:55.440 Obviously, that's a promise of coming to the new covenant.

00:22:58.780 Now, allow me just to digress just for a second here.

00:23:02.420 As I've taught in previous sermons, God cannot simply overlook sin.

00:23:07.260 God cannot overlook sin.

00:23:08.920 He can't just like save people

00:23:11.820 without dealing with their sin.

00:23:14.080 Somebody has to pay for the sin.

00:23:15.680 It's gotta either be laid on the shoulders of the savior

00:23:17.760 or laid on the shoulders of the sinner.

00:23:20.640 But somebody's gotta pay for the sin

00:23:22.180 because he's not an unjust God.

00:23:24.500 He cannot just choose to not remember our sin.

00:23:27.500 Otherwise he would be lacking justice.

00:23:31.740 So how does God save the Old Testament saints

00:23:34.220 if the atoning work of the cross

00:23:36.460 had not yet been accomplished?

00:23:38.380 that's a core question. And that's the basis of Romans 3, 21 through 26, which really talks about

00:23:46.260 the idea that the righteousness of God has been manifested. Christ has come. You can see him now.

00:23:54.820 And all that sin of the Old Testament that you might have thought was overlooked is now being 0.53

00:24:02.620 paid for on that cross. God was essentially not slow, but came at the perfect time so that he

00:24:11.640 could be, as Romans 3 says, the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

00:24:17.880 And so all that sin of the Old Testament saints was essentially paid for on that cross. And all

00:24:25.880 the sin of the New Testament saints was paid for on that cross. And so God sent Jesus again at the

00:24:32.920 appropriate time to demonstrate that he's not unjust and he did not overlook those sins of the

00:24:38.240 Old Testament saints and that essentially all sin will be paid for again by the sinner or by the

00:24:47.160 savior. And so to answer the question, how did God justify the Old Testament saints? We have to see

00:24:52.880 that while the cross had not occurred in physical time

00:24:56.680 until Christ came, God lives outside of time.

00:25:01.640 And so there's an eternal application

00:25:03.320 of the atonement of Christ

00:25:05.700 to all who believed before and after the cross.

00:25:09.820 And so Luke 24, 44 through 47 says,

00:25:13.580 then he said to them,

00:25:15.120 these are my words that I spoke to you

00:25:17.860 while I was still with you,

00:25:18.780 that everything written about me

00:25:19.840 in the law of Moses and the prophets

00:25:21.540 and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

00:25:23.980 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures

00:25:26.200 and said to them, thus it is written

00:25:27.940 that the Christ should suffer

00:25:29.480 and on the third day rise from the dead

00:25:32.160 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins

00:25:35.440 should be proclaimed in his name

00:25:37.180 to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

00:25:41.040 So again, even in the Old Testament,

00:25:42.760 we see this again, this two-part process

00:25:45.440 of atonement and imputation of righteousness.

00:25:49.360 And we talked about the atonement.

00:25:50.420 let's just briefly talk about the imputation of righteousness in the Old Testament. Isaiah 53, 11,

00:25:55.340 talking about the Messiah. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his

00:26:01.260 knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear

00:26:08.400 their iniquities. Zechariah 3, 4. And the angel said to those who were standing before him,

00:26:13.860 remove the filthy garments from him. That's the atonement, taking the sin away. And to him,

00:26:19.980 he said, quote, behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you and I will clothe you with pure

00:26:26.620 vestments. That's imputation. Isaiah 61.10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall

00:26:33.080 exult in my God for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the

00:26:39.000 robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress

00:26:42.960 and as a bride adorns herself with jewels, end quote.

00:26:48.420 Augustus Toddplay, or not Toddplay, Augustus Toplady.

00:26:52.440 That's a funny last name.

00:26:54.100 He wrote some great Psalms or in hymns with Charles Wesley.

00:26:58.740 And they have a famous song that you probably have sung

00:27:02.060 called Rock of Ages.

00:27:03.680 And in that hymn, there's a stanza that says,

00:27:07.080 let the water and the blood from thy wounded side,

00:27:10.060 which flowed. Be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. Okay, the double cure

00:27:18.260 here means this two-part structure. The imputation or the atonement of sin and the imputation of

00:27:26.480 righteousness. We must be saved from wrath, which again is that atonement, the blotting out of our

00:27:32.880 sins, and we must be made pure, which is the imputation of righteousness through faith. And so

00:27:38.440 as Paul demonstrates here in Romans by the evidence of the Old Testament, this is how God

00:27:42.100 has always saved his people by the atonement of sin through the Messiah that was coming

00:27:49.520 at the appropriate time and through the imputation of righteousness that was coming at the appropriate

00:27:54.780 time that we get to receive through faith. And so we have far more clarity on the side of the cross

00:28:01.160 than they did, but God's way of salvation has always been through faith. And so the central

00:28:07.200 focus is Paul trying to remove any grip that men might have upon their works, bringing about

00:28:15.360 justification before God. And to the Jews, they held on again to that circumcision. They held

00:28:20.180 onto the law. They held onto their descendancy by blood. And a lot of people today, the religious 0.82

00:28:27.200 person might hold onto their baptism. They might hold onto their confirmation in the Catholic

00:28:30.940 church. They might hold onto their membership or some sort of moralism. And Paul does not

00:28:37.200 negate the value of these things. He still is obviously pro the Lord's Supper and pro

00:28:44.640 baptism. He simply wants to reorient the minds of anyone who sees these signs and seals as some

00:28:52.680 way to make a person justified before God. That's not what they do. Only faith can do that. And so

00:28:59.640 to the Jews, physical circumcision must become spiritual circumcision. And to the New Testament 0.88

00:29:05.220 Christians, physical baptism, if you're a Presbyterian, needs to turn into spiritual

00:29:11.880 baptism. And even for the Baptists, there's lots of people that are Baptists that are physically

00:29:17.940 baptized, but aren't actually spiritually baptized by the Holy Spirit, meaning that they are born

00:29:22.940 again and regenerate. So ultimately, salvation comes not from what we do, but looking at those

00:29:31.040 sacramental truths, the Lord's table of reconciliation, baptism, the cleansing of

00:29:37.100 sins, you know, those things that for the Old Testament saints, the promise that was 0.73

00:29:42.020 made from circumcision, that something was to come for the need of man through the sexual 0.85

00:29:48.840 reproductive organ. There's going to be, you know, this depravity that comes from man and

00:29:54.440 there's blood that's going to come as a result. And, you know, the Passover and remembering these

00:30:02.600 things, all these things, again, had a purpose. They did not save anybody, but they did have a

00:30:08.220 purpose. And the Lord uses these things, but it's really our faith in Christ alone that will

00:30:14.440 secure our justification. So on that note, hopefully that was helpful for you guys and

00:30:20.240 edifying. This is my first episode back after having COVID on our second go. And so I can't

00:30:25.820 believe I made it through without coughing and hacking on the microphone for you guys. So thank

00:30:31.080 you for hanging with me here. This episode was, I think, very formative even for me when I was

00:30:37.800 doing my study on that. And I hope it was continuing to reform your biblical view of the

00:30:44.400 gospel and help you understand the mechanics of the gospel so that you can become gospel fluent,

00:30:49.540 so that you can communicate the gospel to others.

00:30:52.420 If you're a regular listener to this show,

00:30:54.380 you guys can leave a review on the podcast.

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00:31:04.500 and it helps more people find out what we're doing here.

00:31:08.900 But thank you guys for taking the time

00:31:11.100 and being a loyal listener.

00:31:12.560 We're gonna continue to pop out great content for you guys

00:31:14.980 that helps strengthen biblical

00:31:16.900 and theological literacy in the church.

00:31:18.420 on that episode, or on that note, I should say.

00:31:21.680 My name is Dale Partridge, and this is Real Christianity,

00:31:24.620 and we'll see you guys next week.

00:31:48.420 You

Dale Partridge - February 25, 2023

Stop Working For Your Salvation - Dale Partridge

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