Have you experienced an unexpected, undeserved, overwhelming gift?
There have been a few times that I have, including this past week. What kind of response did it generate in you? Most likely gratitude, thanksgiving, humility, and love.
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who authored this third sermon in the Book of Homilies on the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, was convinced that faith is a gift from God. As God opens the eyes of our heart to how faithful He is, we naturally respond in faith. Due to our faith, God credits us with his righteousness.
Naturally, we don’t have any inherent righteousness of our own. We cannot enter God presence or stand before him. Our factory default setting is unrighteousness and sin, as the previous sermon reminded us. What we need is an alien or external righteous credited or reckoned to us. This is what God does for us when we put our faith in Christ.
Because the entirety of our unconverted life was tainted by sin and therefore unworthy of God, there is nothing we can contribute to our salvation. The Roman Catholic Church taught (and teaches) that God provides enough prevenient grace to all people for them to be able to choose God or not. It’s up to the individual to make a choice to follow God. It’s our call. If we make the right choice, God gives us more grace.
However, Cranmer believed, like the other Protestant Reformers, that we are all spiritually dead in our sins and incapable of choosing God. Our wills are bound by our factory default setting of sin, and we are entirely unable to choose God. God must, by his Word and Spirit, take the first step towards us and convince our stubborn hearts of his love and faithfulness.
When we put our faith in Christ to save us (because of God’s underserved, unmerited, overwhelming, saving grace towards us), it produces in us an overwhelming for love for God. When we know that God loves us, we will love him back. Not a perfect love though, because of our sinful nature.
Christ is the root, and love for God and others is the fruit.
Justification by Faith Alone is, as a result, not a dry, stale doctrine; but a happy, joyous one as it produces in us a great love for and gratefulness to God.
Here are some excerpts from the groundbreaking sermon:
“Because all people are sinners and offenders against God, and breakers of his law and commandments, therefore no one can, by their own acts, works, and deeds (however good they seem) be justified, and made righteous before God. Everyone of necessity is constrained to seek for another righteousness or justification, to be received from God’s own hands—that is to say, the cancellation, pardon, and forgiveness of their sins and trespasses, in such things as they have offended. And this justification or righteousness, which we receive by God’s mercy and Christ’s merits embraced by faith, is taken, accepted, and counted by God as our perfect and full justification.”
How and when did Jesus pay the price for sin?
“When all the world was wrapped in sin by breaking of the Law, God sent his only son, our Saviour Christ, into this world to fulfil the Law for us. By shedding his most precious blood, he made a sacrifice and satisfaction, or (as we might say) he made amends to his Father for our sins, to satisfy the wrath and indignation he had against us for them.”
Can we in any way contribute to our salvation?
“He has shown us his great mercy in delivering us from our former captivity, without requiring any ransom to be paid, or amends to be made by us, which it would have been impossible for us to do. And since we did not have it in us to do so, he provided a ransom for us—the most precious body and blood of his own most dear and best beloved son Jesus Christ who, besides his ransom, fulfilled the Law for us perfectly. And so the justice of God, and his mercy embraced each other, and fulfilled the mystery of our redemption.”
“For all the good works that we can do are imperfect, and therefore not able to deserve our justification. But our justification comes freely by the mere mercy of God…”
“Justification is not our responsibility but God’s, for we cannot make ourselves righteous by our own works, neither in part nor in whole…our works do not merit or deserve cancellation of our sins.”
Why is there opposition to this Biblical doctrine?
“This doctrine advances and sets forth the true glory of Christ, and beats down the vainglory of mankind. Whoever denies this is not be counted a true Christian, nor as one who sets forth Christ’s glory, but as an adversary to Christ and his gospel, and one who advances the vainglory of mankind.”
Does the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone lead to reckless living because we are saved by faith alone without works?
“Yet this true doctrine must also be truly understood and most plainly declared, in case carnal people should make of it an excuse to live carnally, following the appetite and will of the world, the flesh, and the devil…”
But if the demons have faith, are they saved?
“These articles of our faith the devils believe, and so they believe all things that are written in the New and Old Testament to be true. And yet, for all this faith, they are but devils, remaining still in their damnable state, lacking the very true Christian faith. For the right and true Christian faith is not only to believe that holy scripture and all these articles of our faith are true, but also to have a sure trust and confidence in God’s merciful promises, to be saved from everlasting damnation by Christ.”
“No devil has this true Christian faith, nor does any person who in the outward profession of their mouth and in their outward receiving of the sacraments, in coming to Church and in all other outward appearances, seems to be a Christian, and yet in their life and works shows the contrary.”
Towards the end of the sermon we find these challenging words,
“We were condemned to hell, and death eternal, but he has given his own natural Son (who is God eternal, immortal, and equal to himself in power and glory) to be incarnated, and to take our mortal nature upon him, with the infirmities of it, and in the same nature to suffer most shameful and painful death for our offences. He did this to justify us, and to restore us to life everlasting, so making us also his dear children, brethren to his only Son our Saviour Christ (Hebrews 2:11), and inheritors forever with him of his eternal kingdom of heaven.”
The truths of Salvation by Grace Alone in Christ Alone by Faith Alone grounded in the Authority of Scripture Alone was foundational the Protestant Reformation. It was these rediscovered doctrines that caused the rift with the Roman Catholic Church, which taught Salvation by Faith and our Works, on the Authority of Scripture and the Church, based on the Merits of Christ, Mary and all the “Saints”.
These old, but ever-relevant, truths need to be re-emphasised today.
All extracts are taken from: Gatiss, Lee. The First Book of Homilies: The Church of England’s Official Sermons in Modern English. Lost Coin Press for Church Society. Kindle Edition.
Any comments or queries can be sent to andre@christchurchtygerberg.org.za