Living by Faith - Romans

Grace and Faith

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 64-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 064

Dictation Name: RR311ZG64

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth, give unto the Lord oh ye kindred’s of the people; give unto the Lord glory and strength. Honor and majesty are before Him, strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that all our days are ours, all the events of our lives come from Thine omnipotent hand. We thank Thee that Thou hast a purpose that transcends our wisdom and our knowledge, that encompasses all things. Thou dost make all things work together for good to them that love Thee, to them who are the called according to Thy purpose. Give us grace therefore to rejoice in all Thy works, to be confident all our days, knowing that greater is He that is with us and in us, than he that is in the world. Bless us by Thy word and by Thy Spirit, in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture lesson as we conclude our study of Romans, is Romans 1:16-17, and our subject: Grace and Faith. Romans 1:16-17.

“16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”

Our purpose this morning is not to review Romans; this letter is in itself a summary statement. Rather our purpose will be to emphasize one or two aspects of Romans because of the errors of our time. This history of doctrine, a most important area of study, is much neglected in our day. Some doctrines have been generally believed for centuries, but without full understanding, until an assault is launched against that doctrine. Then there is a re-thinking of all premises and a better understanding. This has been true of the doctrine of infallibility and inerrancy of scripture. It was believed over the centuries, but not until the past century and especially since World War 2 have the most important writing and thinking on the subject been done. Again, the doctrine of the atonement; the very serious thinking about it began with Saint Anselm, and continued through the Reformers.

We have been studying in part among other things, justification; because Romans does deal with the implications of it. Now, this doctrine also has had a curious history. Thus Saint Chrysostom whose dates were approximately 347-407 A.D. did not stress the doctrine in his excellent study of Romans to the same extent that modern writers do, he saw no need for so doing. The doctrine was not being challenged, he presupposed it. He understood it clearly, he saw faith as a gift of grace, and he said and I quote: “For you do not achieve righteousness before God by toiling’s and labor, but your receive it by a gift from above, contributing one thing only from your own store; believing.” He went on to say that salvation in both the Old and New Testaments is the same, by God’s sovereign grace.

And he also said concerning Romans 3:31 where it deals with the establishment of the law by Paul, and I quote: “What was the object of the Law, and what the scope of all its enactments? Why, to make man righteous. But this it had no power to do. “For all,” it says, “have sinned:” but faith when it came accomplished it. For when a man is once a believer, he is straightway justified. The intention then of the Law it did establish, and what all its enactments aim after, this hath it brought to a consummation. Consequently it has not disannulled, but perfected it. Here then three points he has demonstrated; first, that without the Law it is possible to be justified; next, that this the Law could not effect; and, that faith is not opposed to the Law. For since the chief cause of perplexity to the Jews was this, that the faith seemed to be in opposition to it, he shows more than the Jew wishes, that so far from being contrary, it is even in close alliance and cooperation with it, which was what they especially longed to hear proved.”

Clearly, Chrysostom had an excellent grasp of the meaning of justification, although I do not believe he actually used that word in his study. But the subject was not at issue then. Subsequently we find that there was confusion on the issue, but that Gottschalk, the monk of Orbais who died in 868 after 18 years in captivity, had a superb and clear vision of the meaning of grace and predestination, but was imprisoned because of the hostility of Hiucmar. Another theologian of the era, Florus, said that attack on Gottschalk was a hidden way of charging Augustine with heresy. This was however not a church-wide battle, but largely a local one.

In the later middle ages the state with various national states and the empire, regained control over the church. They wanted bishops to be less Christian and more congenial to political pluralities, and they controlled the church which became weak, and doctrines became blurred, leading to the kind of situation which led to the Reformation.

Kent, in the excellent article in the Old Catholic Encyclopedia on indulgences, admits the use of indulgences, while defending its doctrinal premises. More recently, Cardinal Ratzinger, the most conservative man in the Vatican, when asked about the disappearance of the concept of indulgences said and I quote: “I would not say ‘disappeared’, but it has lost a lot of meaning since it is not plausible in terms of today’s thinking. But catechesis has no right to surrender the concept. We need not be afraid to admit that — in a particular cultural context — pastoral practice has a hard time making a particular truth of faith understood. This may be the case with ‘indulgences’. But the fact that there are problems translating a truth into current language in no way means that the truth concerned no longer exists. This applies to many other areas of faith.”

Now the significant fact is that neither Kent writing at the beginning of the century, nor Cardinal Ratzinger writing just this past year are defending indulgences per se, but the doctrine of the church, which they felt undergirded it. Now, I mention this because this was the primary issue in Luther’s day, not justification by faith. Very often when people get into a conflict, or nations get into a conflict or groups get into a conflict, what triggers it, and what later is used as an argument to justify their stand can be two different things. Paul in writing to the Romans makes certain statements about justification which Luther preached a series of lectures on, some few years before the Reformation began. But we are told nowadays that it was Romans and Galatians that triggered the Reformation, Luther’s teaching on the two. But nothing happened. His Catholic superiors found no problem with his teaching, it created no ripple, no waves, nothing.

Now if we read the 1535 edition of Galatians, and we will be studying Galatians beginning next Sunday, we find that there Luther has a great deal to say about the Vatican, about the Pope, about the church, but not when he preached it almost twenty years earlier, not when he taught at first. So what later became an issue was not an issue at the beginning. Cardinal Ratzinger himself noted the fact that a great many Catholic leaders and thinkers, very enthusiastically celebrated Luther’s birthday anniversary, the 500 year anniversary recently. Thus we don’t have too clear a perspective on history, the problem when it began was the doctrine of the church. Then as it developed, both groups developed different doctrines of justification, to a degree, in order to justify their varying positions.

But the real difference took time to develop. In fact, the prevailing doctrine of justification in Protestantism today is not the doctrine of the Reformation; it emphatically is not. Because at the Reformation the issue was the sovereignty of God’s grace in our justification, and now we have the sovereignty of man’s faith as the result of Arminianism, easy believism; faith saving us, not God’s sovereign grace revealed by the fact of faith in us.

As a result, we have a warped view of history. Arend ten Pas’ in his study on the Lordship of Christ has commented on the thinking for example, of one person today who has for some years warped even further the doctrine of justification, R.B. Thieme of Houston. And according to ten Pas’ as he summarizes Thieme and quotes Thieme, who says: “You can even become an atheist, but if you once accepted Christ as your savior, you can’t lose your salvation. Did you know that if you were a genius you couldn’t figure out a way to go to hell? You can blaspheme, you can deny the Lord, you can commit every sin in the Bible plus all the others, but there is just no way.” Ten Pas’ then quotes Paul against this easy believism, for Paul said: “Ye are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached unto you.”

Paul was against easy believism. We see the evils of easy believism which have nothing to do with the doctrine formulated at the Reformation, all around us. For example, one young man told me once that he converted a whole bar full of homosexuals, every last one of them accepted the Lord when he went in there. And when I said: “How many followed you out to go to church with you?” “Well, none. Oh, but they accepted the Lord, so they are saved!” Now, that has nothing to do with scripture, nothing to do with what Paul taught.

Just this month, I received a letter from a woman who had heard about what I said about public schools teaching humanism, and their textbooks being humanistic; she heard me on the east coast recently. And she said: “Send me a list of all the publishers who put out humanistic textbooks for public schools, and I will call on them,” (She has more money than sense) “and convert every one of them, because I have never had any problem converting anyone I have called on.”

Now I am sure that if because of her prestige and position she gained access, they would agree with her and usher her out to get rid of her. Now I submit that there was nothing that was done at the time of Luther that was any more absurd than this kind of thing, and there were absurdities. There is no question about the fact that the Dominican Tetzel in preaching indulgences said and I quote: “Remember that you are able to release them,” (That is, your suffering loved ones in purgatory) “For as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” Monstrous. But monstrous also is that easy believism which we see all around us; neither has any relationship to what Paul, and to what all of scripture taught. I would submit that there isn’t a church living that has any right to throw stones at anybody else.

Faith today is very much misrepresented. Paul said the just shall live by faith, quoting the Old Testament. He did not say: ‘saved by faith’ although justification includes certainly salvation, and Paul never tells us whenever he develops the doctrine of salvation that ‘believism saves us.’ Now there is some of his, so to speak, short hand statements that could lead to that impression, but never when you read him carefully, and when you read his fullest statement on how we are saved, as in Ephesians 2:4-9, Paul says:

“4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

What Paul is saying is, that it is the grace of God that saves us, and then the grace reveals itself practically in our lives by the fact that one day we did not believe, the next we believe and act on that belief.

Thus, we are saved by grace. Faith reveals grace, it does not earn it. There is no conflict thus between faith and works, our faith reveals God’s grace when it has works. There is no conflict, although scholars have tried to manufacture one, between Paul and James, or between Jesus and James. As Cranfield, a contemporary scholar who is not other than a modernist has said, and I quote: “For Paul the law is not abrogated by Christ, for Paul the giving of the Spirit the establishment of the law, because the Spirit frees man, and the freedman gives up progressively the tampering with God’s commandments, in the hopes of exploiting them by his tampering, for self justification.” And Cranfield went on to say: “Paul’s authority cannot be justly claimed for that modern version of Marcionism, which regards the law as a disastrous misconception on the part of religious man, from which Jesus decided to set us free. We are true to Paul’s teaching when we say that God’s work in justification is one.”

When we look at the Oxford confession of faith, the great Lutheran confession, the article on justification says and I quote: “Also they teach the churches with common consent among us, that men cannot be justified, obtain forgiveness of sins and righteousness before God by their own powers, merits, or works; but are justified freely of grace, for Christ’s sake through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and their sins forgiven for Christ’s sake, who by His death has satisfied for our sins. This faith doth God impute for righteousness before Him.”

Luther’s small catechism reads: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord; who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned man, secured and delivered me (even) from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent sufferings and death; in order that I might be his own, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as he is risen from the dead, and lives and reigns forever. This is most certainly true.”

Now let us turn to the Counsel of Trent. Now, granted there are some things in the counsel of Trent that would differ from what we have just read, but we must remember that the counsel of Trent was a generation in meeting, and there are all kinds of levels in the thinking there. But listen to what they said very early about justification, I quote:

“Who are justified through Christ. But though He died for all, yet do not all receive the benefit of his death, but those only unto whom the merit of his passion is communicated.” Sounds like Calvinism and the limited atonement, doesn’t it; and the Counsel of Trent.

Continued: “For as in truth men, if they were not born propagated of the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust, — seeing that, by that propagation, they contract through him, when they are conceived, injustice as their own, — so, if they were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified;” Let me stop there again a moment. The only one of the Reformation statements that talks about being born again is the Counsel of Trent; the only statement of the era. And yet I have had both Catholics and Protestants tell me that Catholicism does not believe in being born again, they don’t use that language, they don’t affirm it. But it is here, firmly stated, in chapter three of the Counsel of Trent. And the Oxford Confession doesn’t use that.

“Seeing that” To continue with the Counsel of Trent statement: “in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of his passion, the grace whereby they are made just. For this benefit the apostle exhorts us, evermore to give thanks to the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light, and hath delivered us from the  power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, and remission of sins.”

Well, very obviously the problem at the time of the Reformation when it first began was not justification, it was the doctrine of the church. The Reformation began not as Luther’s preaching or teaching in Romans and Galatians, but with the 95 theses, which dealt with the power of the church.

Now, subsequently, on both sides, they reshaped their concept of justification in order to conform with their doctrine of the church, with unhappy consequences on both sides. We will deal with this in Galatians. Thus while there were differences in their emphases, the basic difference centered on the doctrine of the church, its authority and its rites; and related to that the authority of scripture. Time widened the differences, and Romans gained a more central role in the polemics which followed, so that the doctrine of justification gained a centrality it did not have at the very beginning.

Moreover, both Catholics and Protestants pushed their differences to extremes; faith alone versus faith and works became a key issue, one manufactured after the event. In the process it was neglected that Paul did not say that the just are saved by faith, but that the just who are saved by grace shall live by faith. The truth has always been: “For by grace are ye saved by faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

Both Catholic and Protestants with humility need to recognize that it isn’t their conflict that determines the truth, but the word of God. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee for Thy (?). May thy word govern our lives by Thy Spirit, and make us instruments of Thy kingdom; that all things may be conformed unto Thee, beginning with the church, and going on to include all things, to the end that all things may be brought into captivity to Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes.

[Audience Member] At the first part you were talking about Chris..?

[Rushdoony] Chrysostom.

[Audience Member] Chrysostom. Okay, the statement that he made that salvation is by grace and so forth, there was a statement made as to (?) but it says ‘by believing’ or something like that, I didn’t quite get that clear in my head.

[Rushdoony] Yes, what Chrysostom said among many other things and I quote: “For you do not achieve it” (that is, righteousness before God) “by toiling’s and labors, but you receive it by a gift from above.”

[Audience Member] And then there was something else there…

[Rushdoony] “Contributing only one thing from your own store, believing.”

[Audience Member] Well, now that adds to that, that other (?) because if you are believing then that means that you are doing something.

[Rushdoony] Except that he goes on to make it clear that the “believing” which is in quotes, is an aspect of God’s grace in us, so he quotes very clearly from Paul’s statement, “By grace are ye saved through faith.” And he goes on to demonstrate.

[Audience Member] …?... saved is a gift of God.

[Rushdoony] It is the gift of God, it is grace at work in us.

[Audience Member] So that gives us, faith is not our faith, it is the faith that God gives, in the new birth.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience Member] The other one, where it came to the difference between Roman Catholic and Protestant, you know, it was very similar as you were saying there; now one thing you mentioned there that in that Counsel there that is said, to become righteous, is it true, this is what my understanding has been, the difference; they tried to come together at that point, and the difference between them was the word of impute and imputed righteousness?

[Rushdoony] That was a later thing, imputed and imputed, there was some confusion on it before, but it did not appear in the Counsel of Trent’s statements on justification, it is one other thing that has since become important in the debate, but it was not at the time. Yes?

[Otto Scott] There was a, think of an old wonder in my mind, as to why in the United States there are always references to our three religions, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish, when actually it is only Christian and Jewish.

[Rushdoony] Exactly, yes. The differences have been cultivated, and so much of the teaching on both sides is aimed at one another, rather than aimed instructing the people in how to grow in terms of the Lord.

[Audience Member] However, they say Judeo Christian ethics, so I think in that they bring… to separate the two.

[Rushdoony] But it is ironic too that essentially the same position that Luther formulated had earlier been developed by Saint Thomas Aquinas in his unfinished commentary on Romans. Are there any other questions? Well, if not let us bow our heads in prayer.

Oh Lord our God, we thank Thee that you art He who dost overrule the follies of men, and are able to take men and nations, states and churches, with all their foolishness and self will, and to bend them to Thy purpose. We thank Thee our Father that Thou dost use even the wrath and the folly of men to serve Thee, and in this confidence we look unto Thee, that in the days to come it is the kingship of Christ which shall prevail, and shall govern men, nations, churches, families, and all institutions. Bless us to this purpose. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.