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Commentary on "Justified by Faith"

MARK MARTIN

 

Day 3: Monday, July 19, 2010 - Faith and Righteousness

 

Overview

This lesson on Romans 3:21 discusses that righteousness is not by the law by by “faith”. It features a quotation from Selected Messages, book 1, p. 367, in which Ellen white says we owe righteousness to the law, but the only way we can do this is by faith to bring the “merits of Christ” to God, and He “places the obedience of His Son to the sinner’s account.”

The lesson begins its conclusion by saying, “The faith of Jesus Christ is here, doubtless, faith in Jesus Christ.” It says true faith is accepting Jesus as Savior, Substitute, Surety, and Lord and trusting Him and “seeking by faith to live according to His commandments.”

 

Observations

This lesson misses the depth of the day’s text that “the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witness by the Law and the Prophets.”

While on one hand Ellen White makes a good point that God must apply Christ’s own righteousness to our account. At the same time, the lesson is confusing in it’s “faith of Jesus Christ” and “faith in Jesus Christ” revision. Nowhere in the lesson besides this sentence is the phrase “faith of Jesus Christ” used, so the revision is out-of-context and meaningless.

If the point, however, is to cause the reader to internalize the idea that it is his own faith in Jesus that produces our righteousness, the lesson succeeds in making an unbiblical point. Our faith, as chapter 4 explains, is faith that God gives us to believe that God will keep His promises and thus to act on them. This faith equips us to accept Jesus’ own righteousness as being accounted to us.

One of the big issues with Ellen White is that she speaks out of both sides of her mouth on many issues. One is left wondering which Ellen White to believe.

If Ellen White truly has the latter-day prophetic gift, then she must speak with clarity. Yet on the simple subject of the gospel and salvation, she is all over the place.

 

Summary

  1. This verse (Rom. 3:21) is one of the most powerful verses showing the Christian is no longer under the management or supervision of the law; the lesson obscures this message.
  2. Ellen White gives mixed and unclear messages about salvation.
  3. The law foreshadowed the external-to-us righteousness of Christ; now that He has come, we find righteousness in Him, not as a shadow revealed by honoring the law.

 

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