Antinomianism Refuted

Pastor Martin zooms in on Romans 6 as the watershed passage for definitive sanctification. He shows that verse 2 — 'we who are such as have died to sin' — contains the distilled essence of the chapter and answers the devil's logic drawn from the doctrine of justification. He unfolds Paul's extended analogy of sin and righteousness as two slave-masters, illustrates the change of ownership with a parable of a gracious sovereign slaying a rebellious slave to reclaim him, and shows how our union with Christ in his death and resurrection is both the power and pattern of liberation. He closes by insisting there is no such creature as a justified, adopted sinner who has not died to sin.

Pastor Martin establishes from Scripture that the word 'justify' is forensic and declarative - to pronounce, accept, and treat someone as righteous in relation to a standard of law - never to make personally righteous. He traces four lines of biblical evidence: passages where any other meaning is impossible, contexts where it is the opposite of 'condemn', equivalent expressions, and the formal usage in Romans and Galatians. Justification is therefore God's judicial verdict, not an inward transformation, and that distinction is essential to gospel comfort.

Pastor Martin establishes that justification is an act of God, not a process - one is either wholly justified or wholly condemned, with no degrees and no growing into it. From Romans 5:1, Romans 8:1, Luke 18:14, and John 5:24 he demonstrates the once-for-all character of justification, then applies the distinction practically: the believer must take indwelling sin seriously like Paul in Romans 7 yet rest in 'no condemnation' like Paul in Romans 8. He closes with the debtor's prison illustration introducing pardon and acceptance.

Pastor Martin opens the negative side of the catechism's statement of the ground of justification: 'not for anything done by them.' He establishes from Romans 3-4, Ephesians 2, Philippians 3, and Titus 3 that no human performance - whether before, at, or after effectual calling - contributes any thread to the ground of justification. He then applies the truth to those holding a damning confidence in their own works and to true Christians battling the conflicting witnesses of conscience and the gospel.