(Credit: Pastor David Platt – Lecture to Together for the Gospel Conference, 2016)
Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,
We are a Reformed Church. Reformed Churches trace their history back to the Reformation of the 16th century. That was a time when Martin Luther and others came to see that the Roman Catholic church needed reform because of unbiblical beliefs and practices.
Now, because what the Reformers said was seen as a protest, those churches that came into being after that time are known as Protestant. So you have the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant Churches; Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, Anglican, etc, all these are Protestant churches.
Was this a big deal back then? It sure was! And England is a good example of this. In 1553, Queen Mary became Queen. And she was Roman Catholic. And when she became the Queen, she vowed to destroy and burn every Protestant in England. And the way she and her church officials went about this was to question people about their beliefs, because certain beliefs identified people as Protestant. And one of these was the doctrine addressed in our Westminster Chapter – Justification. And we are going to see how what you believed about justification was identified and why it is that around 280 people were willing to be executed, in part, because of what they believed the Bible taught about this doctrine. And we are going to see why this is still important for you and me today.
And we will get there by starting with the other Rev. John Rogers. Many of you will know that Rev. John Rogers is currently the minister of the Reformed Church in the North Shore. But we are talking about the Rev. John Rogers who was Vicar of St. Sepulchre’s and Reader at St. Paul’s in London in 1553. This John Rogers had been ordained as a priest in the RC. But as he started to read the writings of Luther and Calvin and others, he became convinced that what the RC taught as its official doctrine was not what the Bible taught. And just a few days after Mary had become the Queen, she went to church and John Rogers was preaching. He preached about true doctrine and “exhorted the people to beware of the pestilence of popery, idolatry, and superstition.” He was then arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. During his imprisonment, his wife gave birth to their 11th child, but he was refused permission to receive a visit from his wife and the family. In fact, the only time he saw his youngest child was in the arms of his wife and next to his 10 other children as he was taken to the place of his execution.
And history tells us that John Rogers repeated the words of Psalm 51, our sermon text, all the way from the prison to the stake where he was burned. And he was not alone in doing this for history tells us also that many others recited Psalm 51 before they were executed. Psalm 51 was viewed as a Psalm of the Reformation. Psalm 51 was seen as a Psalm that taught the doctrine of Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So let’s see how Psalm 51 does this and why it was the Psalm of choice for many English martyrs.
I.In the first place, Psalm 51 empowered and enabled the English Martyrs because They Believed that They Deserved Damnation. And boys and girls, damnation means to be sent to hell by God. The English Martyrs believed that they deserved to be sent to hell by God.
A.The title of this Psalm reveals the circumstances behind the writing of this Psalm. King David had committed adultery. What becomes plain though is that David is not confessing one sinful act in this Psalm, as though if he could just get that weight of his shoulders all would be well. His use of plural words and his piling up of every possible way of describing sin reveals that David saw his adultery as part of a much bigger problem. So in verse 1 – transgressions, verse 2 – iniquity/sin, verse 3 – transgressions/sin, verse 4 – have I sinned and done what is evil, verse 5 – iniquity/sin, verse 7 – unclean/dirty, verse 9 – sins/iniquities. King David looked at his life and saw mountains of sin and guilt. And remember that King David is described by the Lord as a man after God’s own heart. David loved God’s Word and he strived to obey the commandments.
B.And verse 5 helps us see what David understood about sin. For there we see that the problem is not just the sin we do but also the sinful nature that we are born with: “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And David is not saying here that conception and birth are something evil but that we inherit a sinful and guilty nature from our parents. And we looked at this in connection with ch. 6 of the Westminster Confession. So our problem is threefold: We inherit the guilt of Adam’s first sin in the Garden of Eden, we inherit a sinful nature because of our biological connection with Adam, and we commit our own sin.
C.And what all this means is summarized by the end of verse 4 – God is justified in His words and blameless in His judgment. God would be within His rights to damn every human to hell.
1.Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death.”
2.Kind David saw himself as a sinner who deserved damnation. The English Martyrs saw themselves as sinners who deserved damnation. They didn’t go to the burning stake or the gallows or the chopping block crying out how unjust this was because they were basically good and kind people. They went to their death utterly convinced that they were miserable sinners who deserved damnation. They knew that the fire of the stake was nothing compared to the eternal fire of hell that they justly deserved.
So we should ask here if this is how you see yourself? The Apostle Paul called himself the “chief of sinners.” What about you? Do you think that on balance, God would find more good in you than evil? If so, then you don’t really understand God or goodness. 1 John 1:5, “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” God’s standard of goodness, is absolute perfection, in everything and always.
I have used this illustration before but if I were to offer you a large cup of clean water and I told you I had put just one tiny drop of arsenic poison in it, would you drink it? You would not because you know that one drop of poison is enough to pollute the whole cup.
Well, so it is with sin. Just one imperfect thought is enough to make you a totally guilty sinner who deserves damnation.
II.Kind David knew this. The English Martyrs knew this. They Believed that They Deserved Damnation. But secondly, They Also Believed that They were Saved by Grace Alone.
A.And we see this already in v1, which tells us where David looked for salvation – to God. David does not write down a plan about how he is going to pay for his sins and make himself right with God. David does not weigh up his life to see if there is more good than bad. He turns to God.
B.And what David was asking God for was mercy: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love.”
1.I have told you this story before but a boy who was guilty of stealing for the second time was bought before the Emperor Napoleon and sentenced to death. His Mother pleaded to the Emperor to show mercy to her son. But Napoleon said the boy had stolen twice and he deserved justice and justice was death. But the boy’s mother said, I don’t ask for justice, I seek mercy. Napoleon replied, But he does not deserve mercy! And the Mother said, It would not be mercy if he deserved it. And touched by her grief and passion, Napoleon released the boy. Mercy, then, is not getting what you deserve. And David knew he deserved damnation, so he begged for mercy.
C.And his request for mercy, as we look at this Psalm, basically amounts to “Un-sin me, Lord.” Verse 1 – Blot out my transgressions (Already that is a very powerful image – Watercolour painting – blotting paper – completely removes colour), verse 2 – wash me/cleanse me, verse 7 – purge me (remove/cleanse/rid)/wash me, verse 9 – hide your face from/blot out, verse 10 – create in me a new heart/renew a right spirit, verse 12 – restore to me/uphold me, verse 14 – Deliver me. David knew that he could not fix his sin and guilt problem, he just added to it each day. His only hope was that God would change his nature and remove his sin and guilt.
1.Look again at verse 10, where David says, “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.” Does that language sound familiar at all? Last Sunday’s Ezekiel 36 sermon. We saw there that God said to the people in exile, “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh … I will put my Spirit within you.” Salvation has to be the work of God because we are spiritually? Not sick, but Dead!
D.Well, David understood this. And the English Martyrs understood this. That is why Psalm 51 was so precious to them. It spoke beautifully and plainly and powerfully of justification being solely a work of God that He does in sinners.
1.Boys and girls, do you remember how we explain Justification? Just-as-if-I never sinned. Our Westminster Chapter explains justification as God “accounting and accepting [His chosen people] as righteous … for Christ’s sake alone … by imputing to them the obedience and satisfaction of Christ.”
a.Now, Imputing is a word that needs some explaining. Earlier we read from 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin … so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is the glorious double exchange – Christ receives our sin and we receive His righteousness. Our sins are imputed to Christ and His obedience and satisfaction is imputed to us.
(1).Pastor David Platt illustrates imputation this way – before he was married, he was a penniless student and his wife was working as a school teacher. He said, “I do,” and instantly he had cashflow! Because he was attached to her, he now had something in his account that he did not have before. That is what imputation means.
b.And this illustration highlights another very important part of this doctrine, which is that justification is something that happens fully and instantaneously when we are united with Christ by faith. David Platt received Cashflow the moment he said “I do.” And the moment we believe in Christ, our sins go to Him and His righteousness comes to us. Justification is something that God does in a moment; He declares us righteous. And that means that from that time onwards God views us as His righteous children – just-as-if-I-never-sinned.
2.So justification is all and entirely about the work of Jesus Christ. It is a one time and forever declaration of our being righteous that God makes. And we receive this by faith alone.
3.That is why Psalm 51 was so precious to the English Martyrs. My salvation is all of Christ!
So, how were the English Martyrs identified as Protestants? How were their views on justification discovered? Well, one way this was done was in connection with the Lord’s Supper. Church history books tell us that Rev. John Rogers was examined about his understanding of the Lord’s Supper, as was Rev. Lawrence Sanders. And it wasn’t just ministers who were examined on this: Rawlins White was a fisherman who was executed because of his views on the Lord’s Supper. And women too were examined on their views on the Lord’s Supper – Mrs Joyce Lewes, Agnes Snoth, Joan Cotner, Anne Wright, and Joan Sole – all of these were executed, in part, because of what they believed about the Lord’s Supper.
You might be scratching your head and wondering what justification by faith alone has to do with the Lord’s Supper? Well, the RC view of the Supper is that the body of Jesus is physically present in the bread. So if you eat it, because you eat the body of Jesus, you are united with Him and you receive grace, which is a part of how you are justified. The Lord’s Supper is a part of how you co-operate with God in the life-long process of being justified. And other ways you do this are things like baptism and confession, for example. All the holy things you do are how God feeds you the grace that justifies you. So we are justified by faith and by our ongoing activity to receive God’s cleansing grace.
I trust you can see them why that word alone was and is so important. There is nothing of King David in this Psalm. It is all God and it is all grace and it is all mercy. So when the Martyrs were asked if the body of Jesus was physically present in the Lord’s Supper, they replied NO, because they knew that the bread was only a symbol of the broken body of Christ. But this revealed to the church officials that they were those terrible Protestants who believed in justification by faith alone.
III.And this is where we move into the third part of how Psalm 51 emboldened and empowered the English martyrs, which is that they believed that they had to Speak the Truth whatever the Cost.
A. Look at vv13-15. Having asked the Lord to show mercy, and confident that the Lord would blot out all his iniquities, David says, “Then I will teach/my tongue will sing aloud/my mouth will declare… David was so thankful for God’s saving grace that he committed himself to BROADCAST this good news to others.
B. And we saw this also in 2 Cor 5. The Apostle Paul understood that he and all God’s children ARE new creations; they are not becoming new creations. He said of salvation, “ALL this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to Himself.” Past tense – it is done. Paul’s joy was that he was justified in Christ. And so, said Paul, “the love of Christ compels us … that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is what drove Paul to preach and proclaim Christ to others.
C. And think about this also in relation to the English Martyrs. You see, they were not martyred because of what they believed but because they broadcast what they believed. Rev. John Rogers, for example, could have preached anything that Sunday that Queen Mary came to church. But he preached the truth. He preached about Justification by faith alone. He declared that if you lose the alone you lose salvation. And that cost him his life.
D. Just 12 years before Roger’s execution, John Calvin had published a tract called The Necessity of Reforming the Church. In it, he identified Justification by faith alone as THE doctrine upon which depends “the safety of the church.” I trust you can see from all this then that Doctrine matters. And the Lord’s Supper matters. And how we worship matters. And how the church is governed matters. So much about the church today is driven by what we think works and/or what people like. We don’t say this in any way to pat ourselves on the back, but the Protestant church the world over is in many respects a total mess. Key doctrines that led to the Reformation are not understood or embraced by many who would identify as Protestants. How about you? How important is knowing right doctrine to you?
E. But earlier in the service, we confessed our faith, saying, “I belong to Jesus Christ because He has FULLY paid for all my sins.” That’s justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone! And it is this glorious truth, we went on to say, that “makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”
1. Being WHOLEHEARTEDLY willing and ready to live for Him meant being prepared to die for the English Martyrs. Well, you are not facing martyrdom. But perhaps one day you might. I hope you can see that this is a doctrine worth dying for. But today, it is certainly a doctrine worth living for! Amen.