Justification By Faith, Free Online Course 1, Lesson 4
Justification By Faith, Free Online Course 1, Lesson 4
Implications of Justification by Faith
To a modern reader a fundamental doctrine often looks just like another piece of theory. No practical implications can immediately be seen. The problem here is not with the doctrine, but with those who fail to expound the practical aspects after the explain the theoretical part. The more an expositor is removed in time from the Reformations, the greater is the possibility that he will fail to see this connection, making his preaching all the more ineffective.
All ideas have practical consequences. More so when the idea is in the form of a fundamental doctrine. This is illustrated by the Protestant Reformation which spread worldwide like a wildfire and created a vertical split in families, societies, and churches on the basis of a single idea — the doctrine of Justification by Faith. The Roman Catholic Church tortured millions of Protestants and killed hundreds of thousands. The consequences of this single doctrine were so life-transforming that millions chose torture over compromise. Obviously this doctrine has series implications for life, enough for people to become willing to forfeit life and property. All fundamental doctrines have similar life-transforming effect when they are taught and understood properly.
Teaching Justification Leads to Freedom: All man-made religions teach work-based salvation and no objective justification. Thus their adherents (including the adherents of the ‘Christian’ religion) slave all their lives without assurance of salvation.
All man-made religions demand work first and ensure salvation after that. But God offers salvation first, and then expects the saved men to work. This work is not "for" salvation or justification which has given us a new identity, but "because of" the new life granted.
Anyone who has worked hard to pass an examination or for a promotion knows about the toil, tension and uncertainty. But God does not want man to suffer this fate for salvation. And anyway man’s toils cannot earn salvation for him. So God provides promotion in grace, and then invites us to work (lead a holy life) because of what we received as a gift. There is no more uncertainty, fear, or doubt about the outcome.
Justification By Faith leads to true spiritual freedom. However, to enjoy this freedom, people first need to know about salvation by grace and justification by faith. They can know only when it is taught. It is the joy of this discovery, and assurance of the new life which motivated the Reformation Generations to pay the heavy cost.
Teaching about Justification leads to liberation, and liberation leads people to action. Doctrines do have practical consequences. This is the reason why Reformation was followed by the great Missionary Movement. What they experienced, they now wanted the whole world to experience. Liberty and liberation is contagious, specially when it comes after prolonged bondage. When right doctrine liberates people, they immediately wish to share it with others so they also might be liberated.
Suppressing Justification Leads to Slavery: We all know how leaders of all religions exploit their people. By making salvation uncertain and dependent upon the priestly class, they exploit the masses from birth to death and there is no rest for the relatives even after a soul leaves this world. With the "conversion" of Constantine, the Christian world also fell into the same pattern.
Actually the Christian faith is the sower of liberty. God does not ask people to slave to Him, to the Church, or to the priests for obtaining salvation. On the contrary He invites everyone to go unto Him and receive rest "freely". There is no need for fear, doubt or skepticism about one’s salvation. It is available without toil as a gift to anyone and everyone. But this message also spells the doom for the priestly class that indulges in luxury by enslaving people. But the material fortune of the priestly class changed with the "conversation" of the Roman Emperor Constantine to the Christian "religion". Truth was suppressed, and owning or reading the Bible became a crime. There was no more any mention (or even remembrance) of inconvenient doctrines like justification by faith.
Just look at what Christendom became in the sixteen centuries after Constantine. A good example of this perversion is the Roman Catholic Church. For salvation a person had to depend upon priests, and had to bribe the priests to administer seven or more sacraments, and had to live under life-long slavery to the church. Sins had to be confessed regularly to a priest, a perversion through which they enslaved everyone. Spiritual freedom and Biblically true teaching are non existent in the church. Hundreds of millions are being pushed into hell, after having the false assurance that they know Lord Jesus Christ. It is suppression of "Justification By Faith" which has helped the Roman Catholic church to run the biggest spiritual slavery in the name of Christ the greatest liberator.
The picture is not much different in most Episcopalian Churches. Among the Protestants the majority of denominational Churches are associated with the World Council of Churches and its national counterparts in each nation. The top men in this umbrella group are so degenerate that they see no difference between Protestant Churches, the Roman Catholics, the Hindus, the Animists, and people of other religions. Their proclaimed goal is the development of a one-world religion, not the conservation of the evangelical Christian Faith. Justification by "works" in their banner and justification by faith in Christ is anathema to them.
Then there are the Eastern Orthodox Churches and their counterparts, which includes the Jacobites and sister groups. They abandoned the doctrine of justification by faith hundreds of years ago, and today they are growing every day in their intimacy and communion with the Roman Catholic church. In fact in Kerala there is a faction of Orthodox Churches and Bishops which function under the Roman Pope as their head. Salvation by grace through faith is anathema to all these groups.
Except for a small groups of Evangelicals among them, the Anglicans were always closer to the Roman Catholic dogma rather than to Bible. Thus in 1970s itself some of their top leaders had begun to proclaim that all religions are essentially one and the same. Indian groups such as the Mar Thoma Church, the Church of South India (CSI). The church of North India (CNI), are also moving in the same direction. The majority of their leaders might be religious and pious, but are not born-again. They jeer at the idea of salvation through grace and justification by faith. Hundreds of millions of so-called "Christians" race towards the hellfire under these leaders. Millions live entangled in man-made rituals slaving all their life to the whims of priests, never enjoying spiritual freedom. The single reason is suppression of the ideas related to the grace-faith system that is taught clearly in the Bible.
Conclusion: Every person in every society and religious group lives with guilt in one form or another. They crave for justification, but know that a guilty person cannot be justified. Therefore they spend all their life trying to obtain remission or forgiveness of sins, but no amount of human efforts has ever given an assurance of absolution to anyone.
The Word of God assures that God grants both salvation as well as justification in His grace, but this truth was suppressed every time that "Christian religion" rose to power. Protestant Reformation was the result of discovering this truth after 1000 years of suppression by the Roman Catholic church.
The Word of God says that the moment a person accepts Lord Jesus as Saviour. God grants him salvation, union with Christ, and many other things through this union. One of these is justification granted through imputing or through accounting the righteousness of Christ to him. This is grace.
Once a position is granted justification, he needs to work in keeping with that position. His daily life should prove to people that he is God’s righteousness child. His conduct should match his new position. He should also spot and oppose all those developments which can snatch away the doctrine of Justification By Faith so as to enslave people.
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