Justification and Ecclesiology A Community that Keeps the Commandments James W. Thompson Sermon Seminar 2014

Romans 6:1-11 “God will forgive. That is his business.” To discover grace is to discover God’s forgiveness—grace that covers all of our sins. Many of us recall the liberation that came from learning about God’s justifying grace— grace that was greater than our sin. And so a man leaves his spouse, concluding, “God forgives.” I have heard of some churches that were “grace churches.” What does that mean?

Believers are “justified from sin” (Rom. 6:7). Justification involves dying to sin (6:2, 11). – “We who died to sin... “ (6:2): The collective identity of the community. – “We were buried with him... “ we participate in the common experience that brings us together. – The church is a counterculture that has left the old world behind. – Justification involves a new existence in which sin does not reign (6:7). The church is the community of the new age, the community that is not ruled by sin.

The Community that Keeps the Commandments I am frustrated by those “they lived happily ever” after stories because they freeze the action at that moment when all of the threads come together in a happy ending. Acts tells of conversion stories where “they went on their way rejoicing.” But what comes next? Is justification by faith the end of the story?

What happens after justification? There is that moment: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” We look back to the past, and we see that we—those “in Christ”—have been justified. We have been liberated from sin through Jesus (8:2-3). What ultimately happens: “The just requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who walk … according to the Spirit. After justification, we are empowered by the Spirit to keep commandments.