Preaching Justification by Faith in 45  AD

In 45 AD Paul and Barnabas traveled in the province of Pisidia (which is in the middle of
Turkey today). Paul’s first recorded sermon was preached in a synagogue in a city named
Antioch in Pisidia (This is not Paul’s home church of the same name, Antioch in Syria of
Acts 11:19-30 and 14:21-28, etc.).

We have in Acts 13 the text of Paul’s sermon preached in a synagogue ten years after
his Damascus Road experience. In Paul’s first recorded sermon a popular theme found in Paul’s letters to the Romans and the Galatians is already prominent – the doctrine of justification by faith.

The word justification (dikaioo in the Greek) is a legal term used in a court of law to declare a
person innocent because there are no charges, no evidence and no guilt. It is used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures (the Septuagint or LXX) in Deuteronomy 25:1:

“When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting (dikaioo) the innocent and condemning the guilty.”

Paul says in his first recorded message,

“Everyone who believes is set free…a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.”

Paul then warns his Jewish listeners of a warning Habakkuk wrote around the year 609 BC
while Jeremiah was preaching in Jerusalem before the Babylonian destruction of the Temple:

“Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.”
– Habakkuk 1:5 and Acts 13:41

Yes, it is hard to believe, but it is God’s plan – trust and believe to be saved; doubt and scoff to perish. It is God’s only plan – Justification by Faith.

"You are not educated if you don't know the Bible. You can't read Shakespeare or Milton without it...And with the schools now, they don't even teach it as a document."
- Christopher Hitchens