Romans 3:21-4:25 “True Faith” September 30, 2007
Heidelberg 21-23
What do you have to believe in order to be a Christian?
Have you ever faced that question?
Often it is put in the form of, “what is the minimum requirement?”
How little can you believe and still be a Christian?
Can you deny the Trinity and still go to heaven?
What about Freidrich Schleiermacher, who rejected so much of historic Christian faith,
or Karl Barth, who often says things in a very orthodox manner,
but then turns around and says some really weird stuff, too?
What is the least that a person can believe and still go to heaven?
Quite frankly, that is like the fellow who asks,
“how far can I go with my girlfriend without sinning?”
It is entirely the wrong question.
The fellow who asks about how far he can go with his girlfriend is really saying,
“I want to come as close to sinning as I can!”
And the fellow who asks about the minimum requirement is saying,
“I want to come as close to error as I can!”
The Heidelberg Catechism wisely avoids getting caught in that trap.
There is no answer to the question “what is the least I can believe?”
Rather, the focus of the Catechism is on what must I believe?
And to that question the catholic church –
in all its varied forms from the days of the apostles to the present –
has maintained one answer in twelve points.
The Apostles’ Creed may not have been written by the apostles,
but it is an excellent statement of the basic teaching of the apostles.
Some have complained that there is no teaching about justification or regeneration
or other points of the doctrine of salvation,
but the reason why the Creed does not focus on such things
is because you are not saved by believing in the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Satan believes the doctrine of justification by faith alone – and he hates it!
It is not believing a doctrine that saves you.
You are saved by believing in the Triune God
and what he has done in history through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, this is not just acknowledging it as true,
but it is also the firm confidence that he has done this for me.
21. What is true faith?
True faith is a sure
knowledge whereby I accept as true
all
that God has revealed to us in his Word.
At the same time it is
a firm confidence that not only to others, but also to me,
God
has granted forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation,
out of mere grace, only for the sake of
Christ’s merits.
This faith the Holy
Spirit works in my heart by the gospel.
The Heidelberg Catechism suggests that faith is “a sure knowledge”
and “a firm confidence.”
By faith, I accept as true all that God has revealed in his word.
You see this in the passage from Romans that we read this evening.
Faith is rooted in the promises of God.
Abraham believed God’s promises.
He believed God’s word, even in the face of his own withered body,
and Sarah’s barren womb.
There may be times when it is difficult to believe that all that God has said in his word is true.
You may be tempted to doubt that certain things really happened in the past.
You may be tempted to doubt that God will really do what he promises in the future.
But true faith is a sure knowledge
whereby I accept as true all that God has revealed to us in his Word.
But faith does not stop there.
There is a sense in which even the Devil accepts the truth of God’s word.
But true faith is also “a firm confidence”
that not only has God done what he has promised,
but he has done it for me.
As Paul says in Romans 4:23-25,
But the words “it was counted to him” were
not written for his sake alone,
but for ours also.
It will be counted to us who believe
in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,
who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Notice Paul’s focus on what Jesus did.
Faith looks to Jesus.
Because Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses.”
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.
And all this for our sins.
But Jesus was raised for our justification.
The resurrection of Jesus was so that we might be declared righteous.
As he was vindicated through his resurrection from the dead,
so now are we declared righteous in him.
The Heidelberg summarizes this by saying that faith:
is
a firm confidence that not only to others, but also to me,
God has granted forgiveness of sins,
everlasting righteousness, and salvation,
out of mere grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.
It is only because Jesus has merited life and righteousness that we receive it in him.
What does “Christ’s merits” mean?
At its most basic meaning merit means “praiseworthy,”
or “deserving of reward.”
At this level, nobody could possibly deny Christ’s merits.
His life and death were praiseworthy and deserving of reward beyond all measure!
But over time the word merit took on a more precise meaning,
so that “merit” now often refers to a reward due to strict justice.
In the medieval Roman Catholic system, they referred to the “treasury of the saints”
where the church stored up extra “merits”
of those who went above and beyond their duty.
But no one has ever done more than God commanded!
When we have done all that we can do,
we still can only say, “we are unworthy servants.” (Lk 17:10)
But if you think about the other ways in which we use the word merit,
it should be clear that “merit” is not the same thing as earning wages.
We speak of “merit-based scholarships.”
But if you have two students who did equal work, and only one scholarship to give,
then it is plainly not a matter of one student “earning” it and the other not.
And for that matter, if a person does a mediocre job, he still receives his salary.
He has earned his money, even if his performance was not particularly meritorious.
The “merits” of Christ do not refer to wages that he earned,
or a stockpile of “credits” that he can now dispense to others.
Rather, when we speak of the merits of Christ,
we are referring to how he has justly deserved all that the Father has given him.
In other words, we are contrasting Christ’s merits with our demerits.
His work is praiseworthy.
Ours is not.
We cannot stand before God alone and say “I am blameless!”
But Jesus can.
Therefore, the only way that we can stand before God
is if we stand in the merits of Jesus Christ.
There is nothing you can do to deserve God’s favor.
The only way to have peace with God
is if we are justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ!
And
This faith the Holy
Spirit works in my heart by the gospel.
It is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God – as Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9.
And faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God –
as Paul says in Romans 10!
The Word of God – the gospel – the good news of what Jesus has done –
is what the Spirit uses to work faith in us.
22. What, then, must a Christian believe?
All that is promised
us in the gospel,
which the articles of our catholic and undoubted Christian faith teach us in a summary.
Okay,
we’ve been talking about ‘the gospel’ an awful lot.
What is the gospel?
Paul states this very simply in 1 Corinthians 15 (please turn there).
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the
gospel I preached to you,
which you received, in which you stand, and
by which you are being saved,
if you hold fast to the word I preached to
you – unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:
(Okay, here Paul is going to remind them what the gospel is!)
That Christ died for our sins in accordance
with the Scriptures,
that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day in
accordance with the Scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve…”
Think also about what we have seen in the book of Acts.
When the apostles preach the gospel what do they do?
They show how the OT scriptures are fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The gospel – the good news – is the message of what God has done in Jesus.
It is the proclamation of a historical event.
That is why when the Heidelberg Catechism asks, what must a Christian believe,
the answer is found in the Apostles’ Creed:
23. What are those articles?
I. 1. I believe in God the Father
almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
II. 2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his
only-begotten Son, our Lord;
3. He was conceived by the Holy
Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary;
4. suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell.
5. On the third day he arose from
the dead.
6. He ascended into heaven, and sits
at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
7. from there he will come to judge
the living and the dead.
III. 8. I believe in the Holy Spirit;
9. I believe a holy catholic
Christian church, the communion of saints;
10. the forgiveness of sins;
11. the resurrection of the body;
12. and the life everlasting.
Questions 24-58 will then expound the Apostles’ Creed.
The Catechism divides the Creed into three sections with twelve parts.
The three sections are rooted in the Trinitarian structure of the Creed.
There are three statements starting “I believe in”
--God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There is also a fourth “credo” – I believe a holy catholic church
(you may have noticed that the Heidelberg inserts the word “Christian.”
I wish they hadn’t – since I don’t think we should be tinkering with the Creed)
But this is not a statement of faith in the church.
You do not say “I believe in one holy catholic church.”
Rather, it is a statement that you believe the church.
But then the Catechism also divides the Creed into 12 statements.
So you might say the next part of our series will be a series on the Apostles’ Creed!
The Apostles’ Creed has its roots in the second century.
There is no evidence that the apostles’ wrote it,
but it is a summary of the apostolic teaching.
In the second century, every church required candidates for baptism to confess their faith
using a simple Trinitarian formula.
If you look at these early baptismal creeds,
they all have the same basic pattern,
and they all include the same basic information.
The structure of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is universal,
as is the basic content of the gospel –
that Jesus died, rose again, and ascended to the Father.
There are all sorts of local variations as to wording,
and there are slight differences in details,
but every baptismal creed followed this pattern.
That is why it is properly called the Apostles’ Creed,
because it is a faithful summary of what the apostles’ said
were those things necessary for us to believe.
I hope that you all believe in the doctrine of justification by faith alone,
because if you believe that your own works are contributing to your justification,
then you are simply wrong!
But what saves us is not believing in the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
What saves us is believing in Jesus!
What saves us is believing the gospel –
the good news of what Jesus has done in his death and resurrection.
So then, church of Jesus Christ:
21. What is true faith?
True faith is a sure
knowledge whereby I accept as true
all
that God has revealed to us in his Word.
At the same time it is
a firm confidence that not only to others, but also to me,
God
has granted forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and salvation,
out of mere grace, only for the sake of
Christ’s merits.
This faith the Holy
Spirit works in my heart by the gospel.
22. What, then, must a Christian believe?
All that is promised
us in the gospel,
which the articles of our catholic and undoubted Christian faith teach us in a summary.
23. What are those articles?
I. 1. I believe in God the Father
almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
II. 2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his
only-begotten Son, our Lord;
3. He was conceived by the Holy
Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary;
4. suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell.
5. On the third day he arose from
the dead.
6. He ascended into heaven, and sits
at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
7. from there he will come to judge
the living and the dead.
III. 8. I believe in the Holy Spirit;
9. I believe a holy catholic
Christian church, the communion of saints;
10. the forgiveness of sins;
11. the resurrection of the body;
12. and the life everlasting.