In the book of Romans, Paul makes a logical argument for and presents his legal defense of the doctrine of justification. In Philippians, he gives his personal testimony of justification and shows how this doctrine came to fruition in his own life. He contrasts his previous confidence in his own works-based righteousness with the gospel and the righteousness he received as a gift from God through Christ.
While the apostle Paul in Romans makes a logical argument for and presents his legal defense of the doctrine of justification, it’s in Philippians where he gives his own personal testimony and shows how this precious doctrine came to fruition in his own life.
Prior to his conversion, the apostle Paul’s total confidence of salvation before God rested in what he had inherited—and the things he’d done and accomplished. But once his eyes were opened by the truth of the gospel, Paul understood his only hope was to depend on the Lord Jesus Christ for His righteousness.
In Philippians 3, the apostle Paul describes the value he had come to place on his own accomplishments—he calls them rubbish. It’s the most polite Greek word for excrement. Put in graphic terms, the word illustrates just how worthless Paul considered his own righteousness was for salvation.
The philosophies and false religions of our day teach that man is inherently good and that he can save himself, or as some may think, has no need of saving! Such thinking, however, is contrary to what the Bible teaches. In Philippians 3, the apostle Paul freely acknowledges he could not earn a right standing or a verdict of “righteous” before a holy God based on anything he had done.
According to Scripture, if your reliance is on your merit, background, societal class, achievements, efforts, or even religious things like baptism and communion, you’ll never be in right standing before God. How then, you might ask, can anyone be saved?
God’s Word teaches that Justification is always accompanied by dramatic change. But what kind of change? In Acts 9, the apostle Paul experienced a divine encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. This left Paul with a radical change in his thinking—specifically, that all his works and merits would never grant him salvation before a holy God.
For the apostle Paul, he lost his lifestyle. He lost his home and friends. He lost his family, associations, property, possessions, inheritance, and his reputation. For Paul, coming to Christ indeed meant losing everything.
The Bible teaches that God is Holy, and His law is absolute perfection. While the kind and degree of everyone’s sin may be different, our standing and status before God is exactly the same—we are dead in our trespasses and sins and are guilty before Him, deserving only His wrath and condemnation.
The Bible teaches that every sin you have ever committed carries with it enough guilt to deserve God’s eternal wrath and judgment. This is true for every single person that has ever lived, with Jesus Christ Himself being the only exception. But why is that? Well according to the Scripture, Christ lived a perfect life without sin.
How do you know if you have truly been saved—truly been justified before God? While some traditions teach that man can never know for sure, the apostle Paul in Philippians 3 instructs us that a mark of a born-again Christian is one whose life is characterized by a love for and a willingness to obey Jesus Christ.
The biblical doctrine of justification, that man is declared righteous before God by faith alone in Christ alone, is a foundational doctrine of the Christian faith. As we’ve learned so far in the series, this great doctrine is always accompanied by a dramatic life change in the one who believes in Jesus.
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