A Series on Acts - #71 The Atonement – Justification
Speaker Notes
Acts 13: 38-41
38 “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses. 40 Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:
41 “‘Look, you scoffers,
wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
that you would never believe,
even if someone told you.’”
How do you get into a “right relationship” with God?
John R.W. Stott, in his book Confess Your Sins, quotes the head of a large British mental home as saying: “I could dismiss half my patients tomorrow if they could be assured of forgiveness.”
Paul’s Letter to the Romans 7: 14-25
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
In 1515 AD Martin Luther, who was an Augustinian monk, began to teach the epistle to the Romans to his classes at the University of Wittenburg where he was a professor. He became more and more impressed as he studied the Book of Romans about Paul's doctrine of justification by faith. He says 'I greatly long to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans. And nothing stood in the way but that one expression, the righteousness of God. Because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unrighteous. Night and day I pondered until I grasped the truth that the righteousness of God is that righteousness whereby through grace and sheer mercy He justifies us by faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be born again and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning. And whereas before the righteousness of God had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. This passage of Paul became to me a gateway to heaven.'
John Wesley’s Journal May 24, 1738 “I Felt My Heart Strangely Warmed”:
“Love never fails … Faith works with Love … Godly Wisdom never swings at what Satan throws … Grace wins the Game.” “If your Love, Faith and Wisdom had won the Game, you would thin that you had done it yourself. Love, Faith and Wisdom will get you on base, but only Grace will bring you Home.”