If we get the doctrine of justification wrong, we get the gospel wrong. Today, R.C. Sproul explains what it means to be justified, revealing where the Reformers and the Roman Catholic Church differed on this essential doctrine. Get the book The Legacy of Luther, plus lifetime digital access to R.C. Sproul’s teaching series Justified by Faith Alone and the accompanying digital style guide, for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3657/donate Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Full Episode
On what basis does God ever declare a person just? For Rome, it's because they are just. For the Reformed understanding, the sole grounds for the justification of a believer is the righteousness of Christ. It's Christ's righteousness and his righteousness alone that justifies us. In fact, the phrase justification by faith alone is simple shorthand for justification by Christ alone.
It is Christ's righteousness and His righteousness alone that justifies us. Now that's good news, and that'll be our topic today on this Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. The gospel is always under attack. Distortions seek to creep into the church. Pressure from the world seeks to force us to downplay the exclusivity of Christ or the reality of sin.
When you read Galatians, even then in the early church, the Apostle Paul was fighting false teaching and attacks upon the gospel. So series like the one you're hearing this week from R.C. Sproul are so needed to help us not forget the purity of the gospel and to help us take a stand against error. As Protestants, we believe in justification by faith alone. But what does that really mean?
Here's Dr. Sproul to help define our terms.
We've been looking at the posting of the 95 Theses by Luther in 1517 and consequently at the Roman Catholic understanding of justification. And in Luther's theses, he brought into question the whole system of justification that was embraced by the Roman Catholic Church. At this point, he still believed essentially in the Roman system, but questions were beginning to haunt him, and among them
was the question of the treasury of merits. And the treasury of merits was critical to the whole concept of indulgences. We know how the indulgence controversy created a firestorm at the time because the way in which Johann Tetzel was selling indulgences the indulgences, but the bigger question is what's this whole thing of indulgences about and where did it come from?
Well, again, it developed gradually over the history of the Roman Catholic Church. It was based ultimately on the idea that Christ gave to Peter the keys to the kingdom or the keys of the kingdom. And so the Pope was seen as holding the office of the keys. And the keys of the kingdom included authority over the dispensing and distribution of indulgences.
Jesus said to his disciples, whoever sins you remit on earth will be remitted in heaven and so on. Now, the treasury of merit became front and center in this whole idea of the sale of indulgences. And the treasury of merit is a treasury... that contains an infinite amount of merit, which is at the power of the church to distribute to those who were lacking merit.
Now, in the first place, the chief deposit to the treasury of merits was the merit of Christ. But it was not only the merit of Christ that was or is in the treasury, because the concept of the treasury of merit still exists in the Roman communion. But in addition to the merit of Jesus was also the merits of Mary. In addition to the merits of Mary were added the merits of the saints.
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