Justification Class notes (updated)


My notes for the class I'm teaching on Justification

I'm teaching a class, beginning today, for my church's adult education program. I'm really excited to teach again, as I find I'm always driven to study so much harder when I know I have a class to teach. I also learn so much more when I'm trying to explain something to other people, and I love being able to help fellow brothers and sisters in Christ grow deeper in their faith. I'll be posting my outlines here on the blog (in PDF Form), because I though it would make it easy for them to download and because I'd like to share the material with my readers here. I'll keep updating this post with new links to the notes for each class as I finish it, and I may do a post or two on things relating to each of the classes.

In our church, we have a concept we call the four pillars of our church. We see these four pillars - Proclamation, Education, Evangelism and Missions - as being the four main components of our church's existence and ability to fulfill the Great Commission. We've structured our budget around these four areas of interest, and our pastor has recently been doing a sermon series looking at each of the four pillars. But all of these four pillars are built on a foundation of the Gospel. What do we proclaim? The Gospel. What is it that we hope to educate our church about? The Gospel. What message do we bring to our friends (Evangelism) and to those with whom we do not share language or culture (Missions)? The message of The Gospel.

And the heart of the Gospel is justification. How can man, who is born inherently sinful, has committed vast sins that deserve the full measure of God's wrath, and has no good works of his own that are not tainted by this sin going to stand before a holy God who demands perfection and obedience? This is the question that the Gospel answers, and justification is the term we use for this. Through the sacrifice of Christ, we are justified before God because we have Christ's righteousness imputed to us.


Augsburg Confession, Article IV, Justification: "Our churches also teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits or works but are freely justified for Christ's sake through faith when they believe that they are received into favor and that their sins are forgiven on account of Christ, who by his death made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in his sight (Romans 3,4)"

Class outlines:
October 3rd - Romans 3:10-26
October 10th - (Aaron taught this class, I'll post his notes when I get them)
October 17th - Galatians 2:11-21
October 24th - Galatians 4:21-5:1
October 31st - Romans 10-10-17

Here are some useful online commentaries I've used to prepare each of these classes:
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Bible
Calvin's Commentaries
The Book of Concord
The ESV Bible
Crosswalk's Online Bible's and Commentaries

Posted: Sun - October 3, 2004 at 12:12 PM | | | | | | |

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