Word of Salvation – October 2018
B.C.23 – Justified: The Christian’s Standing
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Reading: Zechariah 3:1-5 & Matthew 22:1-14
Text: Romans 7:1-8 & 5:1
Theme: The Justification that makes us right with God.
Introd: Our age is very much preoccupied with SELF…. I suspect more so than any preceding age.
We people in the west believe life is basically about self-fulfilment and self-actualisation.
The theme songs of our culture are: “I’ve got to be me…”, and “I did it my way!”.
In previous ages human beings at least still had a sense of belonging to a tribe… a clan… a family.
Those interests of the family and the clan were still the highest priority.
But in our culture SELF is on the throne in a way never witnessed before.
We are a society of rugged individual where the major goal is self-realisation.
Repeatedly self-esteem and self-acceptance are seen as the answer to all our problems.
Yet all our striving for self-esteem doesn’t get us far.
We still seem to have as many problems in society as ever… if not more.
That shouldn’t surprise us.
Augustine, the early church father once put his finger on our problem.
He said “Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee!”
IOW – true fulfilment and peace come only in relationship to God.
We were made for God… so we only find our fulfilment and our peace in relation to God.
Paul zeroes in on that all-important relationship with God… but he links it to our justification.
Since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God.
IOW you can really only find an end to your restlessness if you have been justified by faith.
Or to put it in terms of what I was talking about before:
The only basis for a good self-esteem is the gospel.
Think of Martin Luther, who had tried every possible way to come to terms with life.
Everything from diligent work to self-flagellation.
But it brought him no rest… and no peace… and no sense of fulfilment.
Only when he discovered the truth of justification did Luther find peace with God.
So tonight if we want that peace and rest in God… if we want real lasting self-esteem…
then it is important for us to understand what justification is all about.
A] A LEGAL/FORENSIC TERM.
As we consider justification we want to ask two questions: What does it mean to be justified?
And how does justification happen?
- The words JUSTIFICATION and JUSTIFY aren’t really a problem for us.
We know what those words mean in everyday use.
For example: You may decide to sell your car tomorrow and buy a new one.
Then someone asks why you traded your old one in on a new model.
So you JUSTIFY your actions… by explaining your reasons for the trade.
You may say that your old car was costing too much in repairs.
That becomes the justification for your actions.
So when someone is giving us a justification for their actions
they are showing us that they were right in doing what they did.
It’s the same when it comes to the Biblical doctrine of justification.
God is showing us the rightness of His acceptance of sinners to Himself.
Obviously some people try to justify their actions when no justification is valid.
The burglar is caught in the act and tries to justify why he broke into the house.
But no amount of justification will ever make his actions right.
His justification for his actions is a false justification.
So too in our relationship with God there is a false justification.
In Luke 10 there is the story of a lawyer coming to Jesus to test Him.
He asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus agrees that God’s requirement is love for God and neighbour.
But then this man tries to justify himself by asking: Who is my neighbour?
A false justification that tries to get around the demands of God.
We have yet another illustration of false justification in the gospels.
The parable of the tax-collector and the Pharisee in the temple.
The Pharisee tried to justify himself by telling God all the great things he had been doing.
False justification.
The despised tax-collector only fell down crying for God’s mercy.
He realised he had no justification.
Yet Jesus says that it was this man and not the Pharisee who went home justified.
Scripture clearly shows that any attempt to justify ourselves is doomed to failure.
And our B.Conf. too reflects that and denounces self-justification.
IOW it is not up to us to provide the grounds, the reasons for our relationship with God.
All self-justification is false justification… only God’s justification of us is valid.
- We should also point out that the Biblical concept of justification has a deeper aspect to it.
It is primarily a LEGAL term… a FORENSIC term.
It is language borrowed from the law courts.
Quite literally means: to acquit someone… to declare someone righteous… innocent.
A colleague of mine tells the story of a friend of his involved in a car accident.
He was making a right hand turn from the middle of a major highway.
He waits for the light to change since he needs to turn across the traffic coming the other way.
As the lights change to amber, cars opposite stop and he moves across the highway.
But one car speeds through the intersection at the last moment.
In the other car a passenger is killed and both cars are written off.
Now just imagine that you were that driver.
It’s terrible to live with the knowledge that someone died in an accident you were involved in.
What adds to your worry is the uncertainty: Who was in the right & who was in the wrong?
The case is going to come before the courts and you wonder who will win the case?
Will you be convicted of manslaughter or will you be acquitted?
When the case finally comes to court you are acquitted.
That happens when the Judge hands down the verdict “not guilty”.
In the language of the Bible we could say that at this point you are justified: declared righteous.
Justification is a term borrowed from the courtroom.
Think of that reading from Zechariah 3 which pictures a courtroom scene.
Joshua the High Priest appears before the judgement seat of God…. God’s court-room.
And there is Satan as the prosecutor.
But in that court scene Joshua is acquitted… justified.
Justification then is a legal declaration that one is innocent.
- Please note this – it is a legal declaration, “Not guilty!”
This is a very important point to remember.
Justification is not MAKING someone righteous but it is DECLARING someone righteous.
It has to do first of all with our legal standing and not our condition.
It is vital for us to remember that.
Many Christians today are confused about that.
They say that when God justifies us He actually makes us holy and acceptable in His sight.
That is not the case.
When God justifies us thru faith He does not yet at that point MAKE us righteous
He simply declares us to be righteous.
Of course God also begins then to change that person… but that is not justification.
Let me illustrate what I mean.
Imagine again a burglar – he steals a painting from the art gallery.
Later the man is arrested… but the painting is never found.
The case comes before the court but there’s simply not enough evidence to convict that burglar.
He did it…. but the evidence doesn’t stick… the prosecution can’t really prove it.
So the judge acquits the man of theft.
Now when the Judge says “Not guilty” does that mean that this man really is innocent?
Of course not!
He has simply been giving the standing in society of one who is innocent.
His actual condition is that he is indeed guilty.
Yet his standing as far as the law is concerned is that he innocent.
Justification does not alter us inwardly.
Rather it is a statement about our standing before God and His law.
You see the basis for our acceptance with God is not something in us…
…it is not even something in a born-again believing Christian.
The only basis for our acceptance with God is our justification.
God’s legal declaration… that as far as He is concerned we are not guilty.
B] THE BASIS IN CHRIST’S WORK.
Okay – we’ve looked at the WHAT – we’ve seen what justification really is.
But let’s then now also consider the HOW – how can God do this?
- Today lots of people today have a real problem with this doctrine.
I can best sum up that problem by returning to that illustration of the art thief.
It is fine for a judge to give a criminal a standing of righteousness and innocence in society.
That’s fair when there is a lack of evidence to convict such a person.
After all the law is better off erring on that side… rather than convicting innocent people.
We would expect a human judge to do precisely that.
We would rather see people being given the benefit of the doubt.
So with our law it is always a case of ‘innocent till proven guilty’.
But the trouble is that God our Judge isn’t a human judge.
We expect His judgments to be perfect.
There is absolutely no doubt that God knows where the guilt lies.
There may well be a lack of evidence to convict that art thief.
But there is no lack of evidence to convict us… the evidence against us is overwhelming.
Every day we add to our sins. God knows we are guilty.
And so some people ask: Doesn’t this make God into a liar?
Can God call black, white… and white, black?
How can God call a sinner innocent?
How can God give us the standing of innocence while our condition is still one of sin?
- We can solve that by looking at two biblical principles – spelled out in Romans 4 and Zechariah 3.
The first principle is spelled out in Romans 4.
One of our very human tendencies is for us to approach God with a BOOK-KEEPING mentality.
It’s actually the most common way in which we repeatedly try to justify ourselves.
What do I mean by this book-keeping approach? This:
For being here in church this evening give yourself 30 points.
If you are here for a second time today make that 100 points.
Every meal-time devotion with your family is worth 20 points.
Prayers are worth 10 points each and Bible reading another 10.
However when you lose your temper this week take off 20 points.
Tell a dirty story and you lose 10.
Impatience is worth another minus 10.
Lustful thoughts… take off yet another 10.
A nice little spiritual book-keeping scheme.
And as long as your total score is positive you stay on the right side of God.
The only trouble is that our score will always be negative.
Scripture tells us that even our best works are tainted by sin.
So in Romans 4 God gives us His solution to our book-keeping problem.
He will give us so much credit in our account that it cancels out all our negative points.
Romans 4 is about God CREDITING us with a righteousness that we do not have.
That was already true for Abraham.
When Abraham as a sinner believed God, God counted Him as righteous.
Righteousness was, as it were, paid as credit into his account.
Abraham was morally in debt and God paid all that debt as He believed in God.
Eight times we read in Romans 4 of God CREDITING righteousness to us.
That is why God can call sinners righteous without being a liar.
God can declare us sinners “Not Guilty!” because He solves our book-keeping problem.
The second way in which we could think about this is in terms of Zechariah 3:
We could think of our relationship to God in terms of being properly dressed.
God will only allow into His presence those who wear the most beautiful clothing…
sparking, brilliant clothing… the very best there is.
But the trouble is that we have only dirty jeans and grotty tee-shirts.
Now again justification is possible because the Lord agrees to solve our clothing problem.
That is the thought behind Zechariah 3.
Joshua is standing there in his filthy rags.
He is unfit for God’s presence.
But as God justifies Joshua they bring clean, rich, beautiful garments for him to wear.
Of course this is only a picture of our own moral situation…. morally we are unclean.
Our own righteousness is like a dirty pair of greasy overalls.
But God gives us the bright garments of righteousness.
And because God Himself clothes us in that righteousness
He can call sinners holy with perfect justification.
Incidentally the image of clothing is a fitting picture of justification…
as it clearly shows that it is not an INWARD change in our condition.
So we find this picture of bright clothing right thru Scripture.
The Prodigal son on his return is given clean clothes to wear.
That man that was thrown out of the wedding feast was cast out only…
because he was not wearing the garment of righteousness.
Dirty sinners have their sins covered with the clean clothes God provides.
That’s why they can find acceptance in His sight.
- All this is of course only 2 different ways of speaking about the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ had a perfect obedience.
God was totally satisfied with His obedient life.
IOW if it came to scoring points in a book-keeping exercise then He has more than enough points…
enough to cover all the negative points of every last person on earth.
And God is willing to credit His points to the record books of all who believe.
Or to put it another way:
We were all bankrupt sinners and the wages of sin is death.
But the obedience and the death of Jesus has an infinite value.
So God is willing to have Jesus pay the debt… the bankruptcy of all who believe in Him.
Or let’s think of it in terms of that other illustration:
That bright clean clothing that we need to wear to be accepted of God.
That is only another way of saying that we are to wear the righteousness Christ earned for us.
In fact in other places the Bible simply tells us to “put on Christ” …and we do that by faith.
Martin Luther used this illustration to sum it all up:
Imagine that a well-to-do man marries a debt ridden woman.
When they marry everything each person has also becomes the property of the other.
The husband has all the good things.
The woman he marries has all the problems.
But when they marry he carries her problems and she shares his riches.
Luther said: That’s how it is when God justifies the sinner.
Christ has all the riches…all the good things.
The believing soul has all the sins and guilt.
But when Christ and the believing soul are joined in the marriage of faith
then what Christ has in riches also becomes ours
and what we have in problems and sin are taken by Christ.
And so great are His riches that it swallows up completely our poverty.
His final words on the matter are these:
“Is that not a happy household when Christ the rich, noble and good Bridegroom
takes the poor, despised, wicked little harlot in marriage, sets her free from all evil,
and decks her with good things.”
Justification… by faith.
Surely there is nothing like it to give us fulfilment and joy and peace.
Here is the greatest basis for our self-acceptance… and self-esteem.
Knowing that we are accepted by God – just as we are.
Therefore since we are justified by faith we have peace with God.
Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.