The Law of Faith – Part 2

Romans 3:27-31

Preached February 8, 2009, Grace Family Church of Americus

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You can download the complete sermon manuscript by clicking here. Here is an excerpt:

Someone rightly said that carnal men don't have a problem with a Christianity being God-centered, as long as it worships a 'god' who is man-centered. For that is the natural bent of our hearts. The inclination of fallen man is always to be one of entitlement…..of having a right to something….like God owes us something just because we are humans.

Notice…..verse 30. "since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith." (ESV). This brings up another point that is hotly controverted, that point being….that faith is something that the believer does or has prior to regeneration. Does regeneration happen as a result of faith, or does regeneration happen and then faith is the result? What does the text clearly say? God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Justifying BY and THROUGH faith. These two Greek words, BY and THROUGH, are the Greek prepositions ek, and dia, respectively. "Ek" is the prefix to the word "ek-klesia", the NT word for "Church", meaning "Called out". The ek is the "out" or "by" part of the word, and so the word means "out called" or "by calling". The dia is the prefix to the word used for dia-konos, the NT word for deacon. The dia is the "through"….through service. A church is who it is by the calling of another. A deacon is who he is through the calling of another to serve. These are both in the Genitive case, a preposition which expresses a relationship between the subject of the sentence and the object of the preposition.  The genitive case is defined as: constituting a grammatical case marking typically a relationship of possessor or source. Here, is would mark the relationship of the subject (God) to the object of the preposition (faith). Here, students, what do we clearly see is the subject of this sentence? GOD. And what do we clearly see is the object of the preposition? FAITH. And therefore, since the Genitive case shows that the object of the preposition has its source in the subject, where does this faith come from? GOD. God is the originator of faith! He uses faith to justify. It is His to give as a gift…..it is not ours to use and therefore be owed something from Him. Justification is by faith, through faith, and that not of ourselves….NOT AS A RESULT OF FAITH, lest anyone should boast!!!!!! Faith is a tool, an instrument, a channel, in the hand of almighty God, to use to justify sinners.

The Scriptures are clear….God causes a person to be born again, and THEN they see the Kingdom of God. Faith is the RESULT of regeneration! Regeneration is only of God's doing, and always precedes faith, therefore no one can boast (John 3:3, Romans 3:27-28, Ephesians 2:8-9).

Martyn Lloyd-Jones: "Faith is nothing but the instrument of our salvation.  Nowhere in Scripture will you find that we are justified because of our faith; nowhere in Scripture will you find that we are saved on account of our faith.....Faith is not what saves us.  What saves us is the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect work.  It is the death of Christ on Calvary's cross that saves us.  It is His perfect life that saves us.  It is His appearing on our behalf in the presence of God that saves us.  It is God putting Christ's righteousness to our account that saves us.  This is the righteousness that saves; faith is but the channel and the instrument by which His righteousness becomes mine."