Preparing for Part II of our series on “Justification by Faith” and came across this article by Joel Beeke. If you have time, read the whole thing.  It’s worth every second. If not, here’s an excerpt  in which Dr. Beeke conveys the urgency of this all important doctrine upon which the church — and every Christian will stand or fall before God.

“The precious and momentous doctrine of justification by faith alone, when biblically preached and rightly balanced, is not a denominational or sectarian peculiarity. It is not a mere species of Christianity. It is the heart of the evangel, the kernel of the glorious gospel of the blessed triune God, and the key to the kingdom of heaven. “Justification by faith,” John Murray writes, ” is the jubilee trumpet of the gospel because it proclaims the gospel to the poor and destitute whose only door of hope is to roll themselves in total helplessness upon the grace and power and righteousness of the Redeemer of the lost.” In our decadent and desperate day there is a crying need to reestablish and defend, with prayer and hope, in the power of the Spirit, the scriptural proclamation of this doctrine. The relevance and urgency of this doctrine relate to the identity of the church, the essence of Christian theology, the proclamation of the gospel, as well as to the scriptural-experiential foundations of the Christian faith for every one of us. Not only is justification by faith still, in Luther’s words, “the article by which the church stands or falls” (articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae), but by this doctrine each of us shall personally stand or fall before God. Justification by faith alone must be confessed and experienced by you and me; it is a matter of eternal life or eternal death.”

And to that I say, “Amen!”

Click here to read the whole article.