One of the ways Satan schemes to seduce man from the truth, the word of God , is thru who I call Mr. Justification, simply said because that is exactly how the lord said it to me.
He said whenever you hear Mr Justification talking, sin is always around the corner. Here is a perfect example Since God is sovereign, he can do what ever he wants, hmm very religious sounding, Mr Justification uses that lie all the time on this site, such as man can not respond to the gospel until he is regenerated and then...
The Gospel he who believes that Jesus is the Christ will be saved.
He that calls upon the name of the lord shall be saved.
The sovereign father can not lie, and he is the one that breathed the word of God.
A fact to weigh is that justification by faith has been the central theme of the preaching in every movement of revival and religious awakening within Protestantism from the Reformation to the present day. The essential thing that happens in every true revival is that the Holy Spirit teaches the church afresh the reality of justification by faith, both as a truth and as a living experience. This could be demonstrated historically from the records of revivals that we have; and it would be theologically correct to define revival simply as God the Spirit doing this work in a situation where previously the church had lapsed, if not from the formal profession of justification by faith, at least from any living apprehension of it.
This being so, it is a fact of ominous significance that Buchanan's classic volume, now a century old, is the most recent full-scale study of justification by faith that English speaking Protestantism (to look no further) has produced. If we may judge by the size of its literary output, there has never been an age of such feverish theological activity as the past hundred years; yet amid all its multifarious theological concerns it did not produce a single book of any size on the doctrine of justification. If all we knew of the church during the past century was that it had neglected the subject of justification in this way, we should already be in a position to conclude that this has been a century of religious apostasy and decline. It is worth our while to try and see what has caused this neglect, and what are the effects of it within Protestant communities today; and then we may discern what has to be done for our situation to be remedied.
But first we ought to observe how far-reaching such neglect is, and how much we stand to lose by it. For the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas: it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace. The doctrines of election, of effectual calling, regeneration, and repentance, of adoption, of prayer, of the church, the ministry, and the sacraments, have all to be interpreted and understood in the light of justification by faith. Thus, the Bible teaches that God elected men in eternity in order that in due time they might be justified through faith in Christ. He renews their hearts under the Word, and draws them to Christ by effectual calling, in order that he might justify them upon
their believing. Their adoption as God's sons is consequent on their justification; indeed, it is no more than the positive aspect of God's justifying sentence. Their practice of prayer, of daily repentance, and of good works�their whole life of faith�springs from the knowledge of God's justifying grace. The church is to be thought of as the congregation of the faithful, the fellowship of justified sinners, and the preaching of the Word and ministry of the sacraments are to be understood as means of grace only in the sense that they are means through which God works the birth and growth of justifying faith. A right view of these things is not possible without a right understanding of justification; so that, when justification falls, all true knowledge of the grace of God in human life falls with it, and then, as Luther said, the church itself falls. A society like the Church of Rome, which is committed by its official creed to pervert the doctrine of justification, has sentenced itself to a, distorted understanding of salvation at every point. Nor can these distortions ever be corrected till the Roman doctrine of justification is put right. And something similar happens when Protestants let the thought of justification drop out of their minds: the true knowledge of salvation drops out with it, and cannot be restored till the truth of justification is back in its proper place. When Atlas falls, everything that rested on his shoulders comes crashing down too.
How has it happened, then, we ask, that so vital a doctrine has come to be neglected in the way that it is today?
The answer is not far to seek. Just as Atlas, with his mighty load to carry, . could not hover in mid-air, but needed firm ground to stand on, so does the doctrine of justification by faith. It rests on certain basic presuppositions, and cannot continue without them. Just as the church cannot stand without the gospel of justification, so that gospel cannot stand where its presuppositions are not granted. They are three:
1. The divine authority of Holy Scripture,
2. The divine wrath against human sin, and
3. The substitutionary satisfaction of Christ.
The church loses its grip on these truths, loses its grip on the doctrine of justification, and to that extent on the gospel itself. And this is what has largely happened in Protestantism today.
GOD cannot lie, HE cannot at back at HIS words and HE is GOD, Perfect in all things.
I have people telling me situations like a GOD said I can marry you. I said strange...., the Holy Spirit will not tell one person to convey to the other. HE will tell both. How come the same Holy Spirit did not say to me ? Mr Justification is all over this site to hunt unaware of women and men.
Thank you for sharing... I wish I have a husband who can teach me the word of GOD everyday. It's all in GOD's hands and in a matter of time....just have to wait on HIM.
