Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with the Moment of Truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, I want to challenge you to think through the issue of Reformation Sunday. This is in the church calendar, Reformation Sunday, when the frustrated monk, Martin Luther, posted 96 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Chapel in 1517. And he did so on October 31st, 1517.

Instead of going out trick-or-treating, Martin Luther posted 96 theses for debate and challenged the Roman Catholic Church, and nothing has ever been the same since. And we'll cover this here very soon, but I am Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and we celebrated Reformation Sunday in our worship service today. And I want to touch on this briefly because it has very much to do with what's going on currently in the life of the church, whether you're Roman Catholic or Protestant, whatever denominational flag you may fly, even non-denominational, you consider yourself an independent Christian.

And that's an oxymoron because no Christian is independent from another. We are all bound together in the Lord Jesus Christ. So you need to understand what has gotten you to this place and the historical background and perspective. But before I get into that, what I'd like to do is just invite you to our community Bible study on the book of Revelation. We have started this up again.

We paused during the lockdown and we are healthy and strong. Everybody who was at the Bible study before the lockdown indeed has survived and is healthy and strong. And, uh, in attendance again, now we have restarted that Bible study. It's been gone for a couple of weeks now. And, uh, I'd like to invite you to it because it's, um, not being held in a church and it's not just one church.

It's not just New Geneva who is sponsoring and teaching in this class. Um, both myself, uh, pastor David Bass at New Geneva and, uh, pastor Mike Gillia, um, are teaching this course. And so, uh, we're team teaching and we're inviting the entire, uh, community to come and join us, uh, whatever your denominational flag. And I think you'll enjoy the fellowship and perhaps, uh, see a perspective on the book of Revelation that you may not have ever seen before. And we meet at 7 PM on Thursday evening at Leo's place.

And, um, that is on the corner of first and homes. And we invite you to come and join us. Leo's has great pizza and, and other foods and beverages. And we meet in one of the side rooms. So we're, uh, sequestered away.

It's nice and quiet. And we just have a great time of fellowship and discussion, uh, bring your opinions, bring your points of view. And, uh, hopefully, uh, pastor, uh, Gilea and myself will be able to communicate a perspective on the apocalypse, the book of Revelation that you may or may not have heard before, but it'll be, uh, one that will be open for discussion and open for, uh, communication. Seven o'clock on Thursday evenings at Leo's place. Come and join us.

Well, let me get back to the idea of Reformation Sunday. It's very important in the life of the church. And, uh, most of you out there who consider yourselves Protestants, you need to understand that Martin Luther did a lot more for you than your pastors, your teachers may be communicating to you, your pastors, your teachers may be denigrating, um, Dr. Martin Luther. I found this to be the case in the past few years. And it's very disturbing for me to, uh, to know that there are Protestants out there, Protestants.

That's what that word is. We are protesting against the, um, teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, uh, because they do indeed inhibit salvation rather than encourage it. And so we are Protestants ever since the day of Martin Luther, and he has helped to define what it means to be a Protestant. So those of you out there who denigrate, uh, Dr. Martin, you need to, you say things like, well, oh, he baptized babies, or he helped Hitler hate the Jews, those kinds of naive and frankly, stupid, uh, assertions about Martin Luther.

You need to refresh, pick up a history book, pick up a church history book, and you'll see the great heritage that we owe to Dr. Martin Luther. He was, uh, born in 1483, died in 1546. And, uh, for much of his life, uh, Luther was frankly a miserable man until he discovered the gospel. He was wracked by guilt and fear. And no matter how long he confessed, he spent a lot of time in the confessional.

He had times he can confess up to six hours in a row. He never found peace for his soul. Now, he grew up then in, uh, Eisleben, Eisleben, excuse me, Germany, uh, in 1483. And, uh, he promised his father that he would indeed become a lawyer. Yes, a lawyer.

Just what the world needed was another lawyer. But his father wanted the distinction of having his son, uh, being a lawyer and the resources that came in from being a lawyer. But what happened then to him was that he had a very traumatic experience during a thunderstorm when he was trapped outside. A bolt of lightning struck very, very near him, knocking to the ground and terrified. He screamed, help me, St. Anne, I'll become a monk.

Yes, this was the part of the superstition of the Middle Ages was that indeed the saints stood ready to help one, uh, in dire straits. And he made a promise. Now, even though that promise was made under duress and in great fear, he nevertheless made a vow. And so he honored that vow by becoming an Augustinian monk. Uh, but monastic life was no better for his soul than being outside the monastery.

He afflicted himself, continued to do so, afflicted himself for his sins. He spent hours in confession, struggled to find the love of God. But frankly, he only saw a future of retribution for his sins. Guilt dogged his steps no matter how righteously he lived. Luther hated himself for his imagined sins and no amount of good work alleviated that negative stew of emotion that roiled in him.

No. Now, Luther was also a brilliant man, very bright, very smart, albeit a troubled one. He had earned his early degrees in the shortest time allowed by the university. So he was very smart. He went on to earn his doctorate in theology and ever the diligent student.

He also began to teach. And as he was working through the book of Romans, he came upon Romans 1 verse 17, and this would transform his life. And of course, Romans 1 17 reads the following, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith.

The clarion call of the Reformation, the righteous shall live by faith. Faith overworks. Now, to us, as Protestants, and I still consider myself a Protestant, pronounce it the way it's in the dictionary, a protestant, I am still a protestant, and it's a common and well-known doctrine. Faith overworks. But to Martin Luther and to many, many of the Catholics of his day, it was a new idea.

And it changed everything. For so long, Luther had tried to earn God's love, to be righteous in God's eyes by his works. And here, the Apostle Paul was teaching that all one needed was faith to be saved. He says in his journals, and I quote Luther, Night and day, I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that the just shall live by faith. Then I grasped that the justice of God is the justice which, through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith.

Thereupon, I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. Unquote. This is Luther's born-again experience, if we can put it that way. Indeed, Martin Luther, when it came to him in truth and reality that the just shall live by faith, that through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us through faith, when we understand this and grasp it and embrace it, we are born again as well. Ah, this passage from Romans unlocked the emotional shackles that Luther had put on himself.

And once he had challenged the idea of a works-based salvation, he had been taught and replaced it with a faith-based belief. Luther began examining other things that he had been taught, things like the need for priests to intercede for the believer between himself and Christ. He reexamined things like the mass, transubstantiation, where the bread and the wine become the literal body of Christ. He reexamined this teaching, praying to the saints, indeed for intercession, when Christ is all we need for intercession, or the doctrine of purgatory, which can be found nowhere in the scriptures. And then indulgences, too.

That is, that one can buy one's way out of purgatory or hell. So, if, as Martin Luther had come to believe, that faith was the key to salvation and the Bible, the key to understanding God, what good were all these trappings, then, of Roman Catholicism? Oh, and my dear Catholic brothers and sisters, you need to understand some of these things, too, because it was indeed Martin Luther's understanding of these things that helped to bring about a Reformation within the Catholic Church itself. Many of the course corrections that the Roman Catholic Church made, both morally and doctrinally, were precipitated by the ministry of Martin Luther.

And so, we need to understand that that is indeed one of the main factors for both Roman Catholics and Protestants in the Reformation of the Church, whether it's Protestant or Roman Catholic. And what I'd like to do is perhaps dwell just a little bit longer now on this verse under consideration, Romans 1, verse 17, because it is very important for us in understanding how, why, and where we need to acquire this righteousness of God, because the book of Romans is indeed an extended treatise on the righteousness of God.

What it is, why we need it, how we acquire that righteousness, how we acquire that righteousness, and what it has implication-wise for the rest of our lives, both here and in eternity, how crucial it is to acquire the righteousness of God. The book of Romans is an extended treatise on that very topic, and it's crucial for our salvation. So, let me look at verse 17, which indeed does have, in a very hard kernel-wise, an understanding of the righteousness of God.

So, once again, verse 17 is, Ah, Paul is continuing here in this verse to succinctly lay down motifs, themes, themes that will recur throughout the book of Romans, and he's setting them all up here in chapter 1. And as we move through the book of Romans, as you continue to read through the book of Romans, it will ring bells that chime and reverberate throughout this letter. Now, Paul begins to unpack the contents of the contents of the gospel. He says, for I am not ashamed. For, that is a deductive proposition.

That is, what follows serves as the ground, as the basis for what I have previously said. And so, when Paul says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, he's saying what follows then serves as ground for what went before. He says, for in it, that is, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Number one, the righteousness of God is revealed. Dear brother and sister, you're going to need the righteousness of God in the last day.

Do you realize that? Do you realize how important it is for eternity for you to be equipped with the righteousness of God? The good news is that a thing that is very important to God, not necessarily to man, and therefore not on man's radar screen, most men don't give a rip, do they, about righteousness of God, and it better will be to their own chagrin on the last day. The good news is, however, that a thing important to God is revealed, that is righteousness. To be revealed is to uncover, to make known, to fully articulate.

In the gospel, these things are fully articulated, the righteousness of God. Yes, that thing is the righteousness of God. Who would not seek to acquire, dear listener, that which the authority demands for the saving of your life. Yes, God requires this for the saving of your life. You may blow it off now.

You may dismiss it and poo-poo it, but on the last day, when you stand at the judgment seat of God, you're going to remember these words and say, why didn't I acquire the righteousness of God while I could? Ah, dear listener, your doctor gives you a list of things to bring or maybe to do before your surgery, doesn't he? Right? Fast, bring a sample of some kind, right? Or your accountant gives you a list of items to bring with you to complete your taxes, right?

Or maybe your prospective employer gives you a list of things to bring with you to your interview, right? We take these things for granted, but let me tell you, dear sinner, dear listener, who will not listen to his God when he reveals what he requires on that last day. The apostle Paul in the book of Romans is telling you what you need to bring with you on the last day, on the day of judgment. And it is nothing less than the righteousness of God that must also somehow be yours. Yes, this righteousness of God must be yours on that last day if you indeed are to spend eternity in his presence in bliss and joy and peace.

So it's important to know what the righteousness of God is and how do you acquire it. In Luther's day, he knew intimately the righteousness of God, but very little of justification by faith alone. In our day, we know, many of us Protestants, although I'm finding this to be less and less the case, that many Protestants don't know intimately justification by faith alone. We don't know anything about the righteousness of God, but so many Protestants don't know anything either about justification by faith. Well, then, what is it exactly, the righteousness of God?

There are several features to the righteousness of God, and let me go through them with you. Number one, it is the attribute of God's justice. The righteousness of God is the attribute of his justice. This is indeed the premier sense of the word, at least at the core of its meaning. It is God's justice.

His righteousness is his justice. He always does right. He is in perfect accord with his law and its requirements. Deuteronomy 32.4 puts it very succinctly. That verse says, The rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.

A God of faithfulness, and without iniquity, just and upright is he. Ah, so the righteousness of God is first and foremost his justice. And secondly, it is also God's faithfulness. His righteousness is sometimes equated with his perfect keeping of covenant with his people. God keeps all the stipulations on his side in every covenant, and a covenant is always a two-way street between the king and the vassal, God being the king in our covenant with him, and we being the vassals.

And God always perfectly fulfills every one of the stipulations of the covenant that he is responsible for. We don't do that very well, do we? But God does. So, his righteousness is oftentimes his faithfulness. He always keeps covenant to perfection, and thus is righteous.

Psalm 31.1 says, In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me. There's righteousness with a sense of faithfulness. Wow.

Thirdly, then, the righteousness of God is also the status of righteousness given to us by God. The righteousness of God is also the status of righteousness given by God. And here we have the classic understanding without which we cannot be just and thus cannot be saved. The free imputation of a just condition before God, that is what the status of righteousness given by God to us is. It is the free imputation of a just condition to us before God.

This is very important, dear listener, because it is a forensic. That is a law-oriented thing having to do with the courtroom and God's bar of justice. We will all stand before God's bar of justice. Will you be righteous in his sight? Luther puts it this way.

He says, God's righteousness here is not the righteousness by which he is righteous in himself, but the righteousness by which we are made righteous by God. Unquote. We are not made righteous internally, constitutionally. That is the doctrine of sanctification, where we actually internally and constitutionally become righteous. But no, rather, the justification by faith is that we are declared righteous in a courtroom, for the record, in a judicial sense.

So, that is the third aspect of the righteousness of God. That is the status of righteousness given freely, graciously by God. Then fourthly, the fourth aspect of the righteousness of God is the act of putting people in the right performed by God. Putting people in the right in that performed by God. The Old Testament gives evidence of God's saving intervention on behalf of his people.

It has a dynamic quality, not often brought out in English. They cannot be put in a box. They're not mutually exclusive. No. For Paul, as in the Old Testament, righteousness of God is a relational concept bringing together the aspects of activity and status that we can define it as the act by which God brings people into right relationship with himself.

That is the key then to understanding how we obtain righteousness. It is an act by God, not by ourselves, not by our own works, but it is an act by God, by which he brings people, us, the saints, the saved, the elect, the church. He brings us into right relationship with himself. God who does this. This is the righteousness of God, the core of it, which Paul is talking about.

What then is the means by which we become righteous? Oh, we see the cruciality, the utter insistence, the utter necessity of becoming righteous to be saved. Well, then, what is the means by which we become righteous, right? Our verse tells us it is acquired and practiced by faith from beginning to end, from faith to faith. We deal here with an expression over which a lot of ink has been spilled.

Now, it's an idiomatic saying. That is a saying that derives its meaning from its context and not a bare reading of the words, right? So ambiguous is the statement that it spawned several interpretations, but at the bottom line, it means faith and nothing by faith. We acquire God's righteousness by faith and nothing by faith. Oh, it's one of Paul's major motifs, and it's confirmed by an Old Testament quote that is, the one who by faith is righteous shall live.

That's from the book of Habakkuk, and that is the verse that Paul is quoting right here in Romans. Yes, how important it is to have what God requires. That is his righteousness, and it's acquired not by works. You cannot work for this because your works are as filthy rags, as Isaiah says. No, the good news is he has told us what it is.

It is revealed to us. So let us first make sure it is ours, right? Like the proverbial oxygen mask in a burning building or in a gas attack, right? And then let's tell others about it too, because that is indeed what we need. On the last day, you will be required to have God's righteousness, and you can acquire it now by faith, by confessing Christ as your Savior and pleading with him indeed to endow you with his righteousness purchased at the cross for you.

His righteousness can be yours so that on the last day you will stand in perfect, glistening righteousness of Christ. This is yours. Tell others and believe it yourself. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and I want to invite you again to join us for our Community Bible Study on Revelation. And we meet on Thursdays for that at 7 p.m. at Leo's Place.

It's been a great time of fellowship, and we've discussed the book of Revelation, beloved by so many, and perhaps you will gain a perspective on it that you may not have had before. That's 7 o'clock for the Community Bible Study on Revelation, 7 p.m. at Leo's Place. Come and join us. We look forward to meeting you. Also, New Geneva Meets for Holy Worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

Perhaps you've been thinking about crossing our threshold. Come and see us. Come and visit us, and we'll be glad to meet you. You'll find a friendly reception at New Geneva on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. For more information, you can call us at 208-523-0196. Area code 208-523-0196.