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Justification by Faith: The Preachers Life Preserver (David Schrock)

Preaching is serious business.  And preachers should feel the weight of rightly declaring God’s gospel. Yet, such a serious calling exposes preachers to what Spurgeon called “fainting fits.” When the harvest is plentiful, pride is the preacher’s temptation, but when the response is lean, despair hangs in the air. With such threats, what will preserve the life of the preacher?

Among other truths, the doctrine of justification by faith is a life-saving doctrine for the hearer and the preacher. It is vital for the content of the message, and it is just as essential before and after the sermon.

Credo-January-2014-Cover-JPEG-272x300First, justification by faith qualifies sinners to preach. Assuming that a pastor is biblically qualified (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9), justification by faith is the practical means by which a sinner might have confidence to speak for God. Without justification by faith, ministers of the Word would be torn asunder by their inability to live up to the message they preach.

As any preacher knows, the hours before a sermon are perilous. The Enemy accuses our conscience and cues all sorts of interpersonal strife. In those moments, when our sin is large and the time before service is short, the preacher must take solace in justification by faith. No other weapon will stand against Satan’s arrows. And gloriously, no other defense is needed. Christ’s righteousness is enough.

Second, after the sermon justification by faith is equally essential. Rightly, preachers desire that their message would be a means to the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of the saints. As a result, the moments after preaching are filled with inward uncertainty and outward anxiety—Did that word preached have any effect? In that unsettled hour, justification by faith is the surest medicine. Like Paul we must discipline ourselves to hear, receive, and believe the gospel we preach (1 Cor. 9:27). In fact, for preachers, it might be true that what we really believe is most evident in the hours after our message.

Do we gloat after a ‘good’ sermon? Or do we get moody after a ‘terrible’ sermon? While stoicism is not the goal, our self-worth cannot be found in our preaching. We are justified by our believing, not our preaching.

Thankfully, we preach as sinful men declared innocent by a just and justifying God. Justification by faith is the only thing that gives us legal standing before God and his church. This is the message preachers must proclaim when they preach, and it is the message we must believe entering and exiting the pulpit.

David Schrock (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Seymour, Indiana.

This column was from the recent issue of Credo Magazine. Read others like it today:


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Justification: The Doctrine on which the Church Stands or Falls

While we could point to many different factors that led the sixteenth century Protestant Reformers to break from Rome, perhaps one that would be at the very top of the list is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. For Luther and Calvin, this doctrine is the very hinge on which the Christian religion turns. In part this is because sola fide is what sets Protestants apart. While every other religion puts something of man into the equation, Protestantism removes man’s works from the justification formula altogether. Therefore, the “sola” in sola fide makes all the difference in the world.

With over 2,000 years of church history in our rear view mirror, it appears that sola fide is a doctrine that comes under discussion in every generation. Our generation is no exception. Much dialogue continues over the New Perspective on Paul, Protestant and Catholic statements of agreement, and the relationship between justification and the Christian life. In this issue I am proud to welcome some of the finest thinkers on the subject in order to better understand what Scripture says about how sinners can be made right with a holy God.

Contributors include Thomas Schreiner, Michael Allen, Michael Horton, Philip Ryken, J.V. Fesko, Matthew Barrett, Korey Maas, Guy Waters, Brian Vickers, Fred Zaspel, and many others.

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