Imperishable Inheritance

It’s inter­est­ing that God’s Son, God incar­nate amongst men, crit­i­cized all those around Him who had lit­tle or no faith. He called the reli­gious author­i­ties hyp­ocrites, because they didn’t fol­low the very Law that they sought jus­ti­fi­ca­tion through. They also received crit­i­cism for their blind­ness to the very thing that would jus­tify them’faith alone.

It’s inter­est­ing that the first time in the New Tes­ta­ment that Jesus praises one’s faith He does so to a Gen­tile. A Roman Cen­tu­rion came to Him beg­ging that his ser­vant be healed (Mat 8:5–6). When Jesus responds that He will go and heal the ser­vant, the cen­tu­rion rec­og­nizes the author­ity, power, and holi­ness of Jesus the Mes­siah (8:8–9). When Jesus sees the faith of this cen­tu­rion He responds:

Now when Jesus heard this, He mar­veled and said to those who were fol­low­ing, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with any­one in Israel. I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abra­ham, Isaac and Jacob in the king­dom of heaven; but the sons of the king­dom will be cast out into the outer dark­ness; in that place there will be weep­ing and gnash­ing of teeth.” (Mat 8:10–12)

It’s not only fas­ci­nat­ing that He praises his faith by illus­trat­ing that no one in Israel (Jews) has such a faith. He then teaches that many will come, mean­ing Gen­tiles, to recline with Abra­ham, Isaac, and Jacob in the king­dom of heaven; and those to whom He was promised who didn’t believe in Christ would be thrown into an eter­nal hell. I believe strongly that this cen­tu­rion not only had his ser­vant healed, but he also went home that day jus­ti­fied and a proven mem­ber of God’s elect.

In the very next chap­ter a par­a­lytic is brought to Jesus. He sees their faith and says: ‘Take courage, son; your sins are for­given’ (Mat 9:2). By this paralytic’s faith, his sins have been for­given before bap­tism or any other aspect of sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion. In Luke 7 we see the nar­ra­tive of Jesus being invited to the house of a Phar­isee. In this nar­ra­tive a woman described as a ‘sin­ner’ comes in with a vial of per­fume and anoints His feet with it. The Pharisee’s are shocked that Jesus would allow this woman to do this, but Jesus responds in a way that demon­strates the neces­sity of faith to cleanse any­one: ‘For this rea­son I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been for­given, for she loved much; but he who is for­given lit­tle, loves lit­tle.’ Then He said to her, ‘Your sins have been for­given’ (Luke 7:47–48). By this woman’s faith alone she is rec­on­ciled to God.

Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in Acts

Var­i­ous accounts of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion occur that prove that faith alone jus­ti­fies both Jew and Gen­tile, male and female, slave or free (Gal 3:29). The con­ver­sion of Saul of Tar­sus sets the stage for his numer­ous teach­ings on jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith alone. After Jesus approaches him on the road to Dam­as­cus He rebukes him, and the text says that he was filled with the Spirit, ‘And imme­di­ately there fell from his eyes some­thing like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was bap­tized’ (Act 9:18). Paul was given faith, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and shortly there after his jus­ti­fi­ca­tion he was bap­tized as a sym­bol of the right­eous­ness he received (Rom 6:3–7).

At the Coun­cil of Jerusalem there was a debate whether Gen­tiles need to be cir­cum­cised in order to be saved, and Peter cor­rects this error by stat­ing: ‘He made no dis­tinc­tion between us [Jews] and them [Gen­tiles], cleans­ing their hearts by faith. Now there­fore why do you put God to the test by plac­ing upon the neck of the dis­ci­ples a yoke which nei­ther our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.’ (Acts 15:7–11). For Peter, faith alone was enough to be jus­ti­fied and receive the Spirit; he even claims that ascrib­ing any­thing onto faith was a ‘yoke’ that would give hin­drance to the Gospel mission.

The last exam­ple I want to use from Acts is the Ethiopian Eunuch of Acts 8. Phillip received an angelic rev­e­la­tion to go to the road that con­nects Jerusalem and Gaza (8:27). Phillip found the eunuch read­ing strug­gling to under­stand Isa­iah. Phillip preached the Gospel to this eunuch, and the eunuch imme­di­ately desires to be bap­tized (the desire of a repen­tant sin­ner). Phillip says that in order to be bap­tized, you must ‘believe with all your heart, you may,’ and the eunuch declares his faith in Jesus: ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God’ (8:37). Only after the eunuch received the God-given gift of faith did Phillip agree to bap­tize him. His jus­ti­fi­ca­tion led the eunuch to be bap­tized not the other way around.