[I have been reading Jerry Bridges’ book The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness (NavPress, 1994, 2006). He hits hard at the idea that we must appropriate the Gospel for ourselves every day, confessing our sins and turning to the cross. This is a necessary part of the turning to God in fasting and prayer that Fred and I have been calling us to over these last two months. Here are excerpts from chapter 3 of the book, “Preach the Gospel to Yourself.” I commend the entire book to you; for more information – and to read the preface and chapter 1 – follow this link – Coty]

The typical evangelical paradigm is that the gospel is for unbelievers and the duties of discipleship are for believers. But the gospel is for believers also, and we must pursue holiness . . . in the atmosphere of the gospel. To do that, however, we must firmly grasp what the gospel is and what it means in practical terms to preach it to ourselves every day. . . .

The single [Bible] passage . . . that most clearly and completely explains the gospel is Romans 3:19-26. A minister friend of mine calls this passage “The Heart of the Gospel.” So if we are going to preach the gospel to ourselves every day and learn to live by it, we need to understand Romans 3:19-26. . . .

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

As we look over this statement of the gospel, we can see seven truths that we need to clearly understand:

No One Is Declared Righteous Before God by Observing the Law (Verses 19-21) . . .

Only perfect obedience is acceptable to God. . . .  Yet the average person walking around today . . . is confident God will accept him or her because he or she is generally a decent sort of person.

As Christians we know better. We readily acknowledge that we can never through our own obedience attain a righteousness that is sufficient for salvation. But then as believers we act as if we can live lives acceptable to God. . . .  More than 80 percent of the people I’ve questioned in a group setting indicate they would be more confident of God’s blessing when they’ve had a “good” day [obeying God than when they’ve had a “bad” day]. None of them, however, would claim 100 percent obedience. Not one of them would want to stake his or her hope for eternal life on his or her performance on the very best day. Yet, in our everyday relationship with God, most of us are no different in our thinking than the unbelievers who think they will go to Heaven because they’ve been good enough. To live by grace, we must rid ourselves of such thinking.

There is a Righteousness from God that is Apart from Law (Verse 21) . . .

Our Lord Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the law of God both in its requirements and its penalty. He did what Adam failed to do – render perfect obedience to the law of Gad. Then by His death He completely paid the penalty of a broken law. So, from the standpoint of obedience to the law and of paying the penalty for breaking the law, He perfectly fulfilled the law of God.

Therefore when God justifies us, or declares us righteous, He does not create some sort of legal fiction, calling something righteous that is not. Rather, He declares us righteous on the basis of the real, accomplished righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed or credited to us through faith. . . .

This standing in Christ’s righteousness is never affected to any degree by our good-day or bad-day performance. Unless we learn to live daily by faith in (that is, by reliance on) His righteousness, however, our perception of our standing before God will vary depending on our good or bad performance.

This Righteousness from God Is Received Through Faith in Jesus Christ (Verse 22) . . .

[Faith] involves our complete renunciation of any confidence in our own righteousness and a relying entirely on the perfect righteousness and death of Jesus Christ. . . .

Jesus Himself is always to be the object of our faith. We sometimes say we are saved by faith alone, meaning apart from any works. That expression, however, can be somewhat misleading, as though faith itself has some virtue that God respects. It is more accurate to say we are saved by God’s grace through faith. Faith . . . is merely the hand that receives the gift of God, and God through His Spirit even opens our hand to receive the gift.

This doctrine of trusting in Jesus Christ alone for one’s salvation is a basic truth of the gospel. Without acceptance of it there is no salvation. . . . But it is important to realize that we were not only saved by faith at a particular point in time, but we are to live by faith in Christ every day of our lives. This means that . . . I must continue to renounce any confidence in my own goodness and place my confidence solely in Christ every day of my life, not only for my eternal salvation, but for my daily acceptance before a holy God. . . .

This Righteousness Is Available to Everyone on the Same Basis, Since All Have Sinned and Fall Short of the Glory of God (Verses 22-23)

God’s plan of salvation treats all people equally, since all are sinners. This is not to say that God notices no distinction in the seriousness and aggravation of different sins. But . . . any sin, however small and insignificant it may seem to us, is a violation of God’s holy law and subjects us to the penalty of death. . . .

If sixty is the passing grade on a college exam, it does not matter if you scored forty and I scored only twenty. We both failed to get a passing grade. There is no point in your boasting that your failing grade is superior to mine. The only thing that matters is that we both failed the exam. . . .

This eliminates any room for comparison of ourselves with others who may appear more sinful – or at least less holy – than we are. So if we are to live by the gospel every day, all tendency to compare ourselves with other believers, not to mention unbelievers, must be put away. Rather we must measure ourselves against God’s perfect standard and daily confess that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

All Who Put Their Faith in Jesus Christ Are Justified Freely by God’s Grace (Verse 24)

To be justified is to be absolved from any charge of guilt and to be declared absolutely righteous. We are not only discharged from all liability to God’s wrath because of our guilt; we are personally accepted by God because of Christ. Justification is like the two sides of a coin. On the one side we are declared “not guilty” before God, and on the other we are positively declared to be righteous through Christ. That is, we are counted in God’s sight as having perfectly obeyed the law of God. . . .

Justification is a completed work as far as God is concerned. The penalty has been paid and His justice has been satisfied. But it must be received through faith and must be continually renewed in our souls and applied to our consciences every day through faith. There are two “courts” we must deal with: the court of God in Heaven and the court of conscience in our souls. When we trust in Christ for salvation, God’s court is forever satisfied. Never again will a charge of guilt be brought against us in Heaven. Our consciences, however, are continually pronouncing us guilty. That is the function of conscience. Therefore, we must by faith bring the verdict of conscience into line with the verdict of Heaven. We do this by agreeing with our conscience about our guilt, but then reminding it that our guilt has already been borne by Christ. . . .

This Justification Is Through the Redemption That Came by Christ Jesus” (Verse 24) . . .

Christ paid the ransom that redeemed us from God’s just and holy wrath. . . .

At this point it will be helpful to distinguish between justification and a mere pardon. A pardon is excusing an offense without exacting a penalty. It may be granted gratuitously by a president or governor for no reason at all, and sometimes has been done at the expense of justice. . . .

In God’s plan of justification, however, justice is not violated by a gratuitous pardon of the convicted sinner. Rather, justice has been satisfied; the penalty has been fully paid by the Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense, to justify is to declare that the claims of justice have been fully met.

“God Presented [Jesus] as a [Propitiation] Through Faith in His Blood” (Verse 25) . . .

Propitiation in the context of salvation means that which appeases the wrath of God against sin. So the Lord Jesus Christ by His sacrifice on the cross appeased and turned aside God’s just and holy wrath, the wrath we should have borne.

We should notice two important points about this propitiatory act of Christ. First, God presented Him, or set Him forth as an atoning sacrifice. It is God the Father who initiated the whole plan of salvation. It is God the Father who provided the sacrifice of His Son to satisfy His justice and appease His own wrath. When we are acutely conscious of our sin and think that God’s wrath must somehow be hanging over us, we need to remember that God the Father Himself is the One who devised a way whereby His wrath against sin might be fully executed apart from our experiencing the force of that wrath.

The second point is that this propitiation is appropriated by us as sinners through faith in His blood. The blood of Christ, referring to His death, is to be the object of our faith by which we appropriate His propitiation. . . .

It is not our contrition or sorrow for our sin, it is not our repentance, it is not even the passing of a certain number of hours during which we feel we are on some kind of probation that cleanses us. It is the blood of Christ, shed once for all on Calvary two thousand years ago but appropriated daily or even many times a day, that cleanses our consciences and gives us a renewed sense of peace with God.

Preach the Gospel to Yourself

This then is the gospel with which we need to become thoroughly familiar and that we need to preach to ourselves every day. . . .

To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, that He is your propitiation, and that God’s holy wrath is no longer directed toward you. To preach the gospel to yourself means that you take at face value the precious words of Romans 4:7-8:

Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.

It means that you believe on the testimony of God that “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). . . .

The death of Christ through which He satisfied the justice of God and averted from us the wrath of God . . . is the basis of all God’s promises of forgiveness. We must be careful that, in preaching the gospel to ourselves, we do not preach a gospel without a cross. We must be careful that we do not rely on the so-called unconditional love of God without realizing that His love can only flow to us as a result of Christ’s atoning death. . . .

When you set yourself to seriously pursue holiness, you will begin to realize what an awful sinner you are. And if you are not firmly rooted in the gospel and have not learned to preach it to yourself every day, you will soon become discouraged and will slack off in your pursuit of holiness. . . . [No factor in the pursuit of holiness] is more important than learning to preach the gospel to yourself every day.