Commentary on "Justification and the Law"

PHIL HARRIS

 

Day 1: Sabbath Afternoon, July 24, 2010 - Introduction

 

Overview

The lesson for today has an interesting statement:

“In many ways, Romans 4 gets to the foundation of the biblical doctrine of salvation by faith alone. By using Abraham—the paragon of holiness and virtue—as an example of someone who needed to be saved by grace, without the deeds of the law, Paul left readers no room for misunderstanding.”

Since the title for this week is ‘Justification and the Law’, we need to clearly understand the biblical meaning of ‘justification’ and the ‘faith of Abraham’ before we can understand how this relates to the requirements of the Mosaic Law.

 

Observations

For starters, it should be noted that in Romans 4:3 it simply says; “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness”. Believe what you may but it says nothing about him being “the paragon of holiness and virtue”.

Let’s consider these verses to develop a biblical understanding of the meaning of God’s justification in our lives:

and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (Rom. 3:24 ESV)

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5:1 ESV)

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom. 8:30 ESV)

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (I Cor. 6:11 ESV)

so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:7 ESV)

Where justification is mentioned we find it is a gift offered by God to us through the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ. When we respond in faith to the gospel message we are declared justified and have peace with God. We are cleansed of our sins and declared both sanctified and justified. This is the grace of the Father who sees us as heirs to his kingdom with the unshakable hope of eternal life.

We must conclude that justification is not a process that covers an expansion of time. In an instant before salvation we are dead in our sins. Justification is a point in time without measurement. The moment we believe in the gospel message of Jesus Christ, that he died and was buried for our sins and arose from the grave to give us life eternal, he imparts the regenerative indwelling of the Holy Spirit into our lives as the promise and Seal of our salvation.

 

Summary

1. Our central topic this week is that aspect of salvation called justification where the bible instantly declares we are counted as righteous in the sight of God.
2. As we progress through this week’s material we will see major internal contradictions in some of the lesson statements where an attempt is made to conform to the language of orthodox Christianity while combining it with the official doctrine of the Adventist denomination.
3. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
4. Our justification is totally and solely through the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ.
5. Justification is not a process. It was declared complete nearly two thousand years ago. Anything we add to it is a non-gospel which Paul warned us to avoid in Gal. 1:6-9.
6. The lesson does well to state that justification is by faith alone. The problem here is that this is not in conformance with Adventist doctrine that states a person must perfectly obey the written Mosaic Law and pass the Investigative Judgment before they can be permitted to enter into eternal life and join the Kingdom of God.

 

GO TO DAY 2

 

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