Law and Gospel

Pastor Martin concludes his series on adoption by setting forth the responsibilities that flow from it, framing every obligation with the gospel pattern 'do because you have.' Following a thread he credits to J. I. Packer's Knowing God, he unfolds three great obligations of the adopted: pleasing the Father (drawn from Matthew 6 and 2 Corinthians 5:9), imitating the Father (from Matthew 5:43-48 and Ephesians 5:1-2), and glorifying the Father (from Matthew 5:13-16 and 1 Corinthians 10:31). He illustrates throughout with the pardoned criminal brought into the king's household and closes by urging believers to meet every temptation with 'I am a child of God.'

Pastor Martin treats the second great error concerning propitiation: neutralizing the need for it. He exposes the heresy of the enemies of the gospel who deny divine wrath as an attribute of God (refuted by explicit Scripture statements, historical manifestations, and Calvary itself), and the serious error of the friends of the gospel who present the gospel without starting from divine wrath. He criticizes modern 'God loves you, smile' evangelism and the 'Four Spiritual Laws' approach for violating the pattern of Romans 1-3 where Paul begins his gospel exposition with the wrath of God.

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.