SA Ep88 - Articles of Faith #11 Justification

SA Ep88 - Articles of Faith #11 Justification

In this episode, we examine the doctrine of justification. The Bible teaches that justification is the act of God whereby He declares the believing sinner righteous through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We will look at what justification means, how it differs from sanctification, and why it is central to the Gospel. This episode also explains the great exchange, our sin placed on Christ, and His righteousness credited to us. Justification answers the question: how can a sinner stand right before God?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelser from Iliad Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. What gives the criminal a right to stand before a judge and to plead innocence? Not just innocence as in turning over a new leaf or being excused or accepted for who he is and his quirks and personality, but that he has been cleared of all charges, as if they never happened. Who gives the person the right? What makes them think they can do that? Well, when we come to the doctrine of justification in the articles of faith, that's exactly what we're stepping into. The idea that people who are guilty of sin, Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that there is a penalty for that, a sentence that we must pay for the wages of sin is death, according to Romans 6.23, then what makes us able to stand before a God who cannot even be in the same, in the presence of sin, who is at enmity, who is at war with sin, for us who are sinful in nature to be able to stand before a God that that can't be in the presence of it and say, No, I never sinned. Those are not my sins. It's justification. And when we step into this doctrine of justification, we're walking into one of the most important and liberating truths in the Word of God. This is the answer to the question that has troubled man's heart from the beginning. From the time that Adam sinned and began asking the question, how can the guilty sinner be made right with the holy God? How can we have fellowship with him again? How can we walk in the cool of the evening again? We've already seen that all have sinned, and sin brings judgment, and salvation is by grace through faith. We see that salvation is applied in terms of standing before God, being in fellowship with Him. And in order to do that, there must be justification. And that deals with our position in the sight of God's law and his holiness. The word justification is a legal term. It comes from the courtroom. It means declared to be righteous. It doesn't mean to be made righteous as a sense of some inward change. That's more of a sanctification. Justification is being counted and declared righteous according to the law. It is God, the righteous judge, making a legal declaration concerning you and I, the sinners, who believe on him and who have accepted his son and the cross and the price that was paid at the cross. Romans 5, 1, Paul wrote, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Notice that something had been done. It's not just a process, it's a completed act that has already been done. The moment the sinner believes in Christ, our sin, our guilt is transferred and covered under the price that was paid at Calvary. Now there's a lot of people who probably are would disagree with that. And they would say that because Christ died, he only died for certain people. Because if if people don't accept, then the price was uh was uh he he he he he died for people uh that he didn't need to, and therefore it would have been a work in vain. That's not the case. And let me explain why. Very simple. Because when a sacrifice was given in Old Testament, it wasn't uh uh an amount of blood that needed to be given to cover the sins. Just look at the animals that were given. It could be uh uh a sheep, it could be a goat, it could be uh the the two little turtle doves. If you were a poor family, beggars, you could you could buy those for uh a penny. I mean, we were right, we read about that in in the in the New Testament in the Gospels that I mean they were so they were so cheap that you could get, you know, basically, you know, buy two, get five. They were nothing. So you could offer those. Well, those animals, they don't give the same amount of blood. So it's not that you had to have you know six of those little birds to equal the same amount of blood that it would take to cover. No, the price was that all the blood had to be spilled from that animal. Whether it was a ram, a goat, or a lamb or a goat, or whether it was the turtledove, the the price was that that animal had to had to spill all of its blood for you. When Christ died, if it had been just for one person, all of his blood would have had to been spilled. Period. There's no one drop. I know that in you know the the old-fashioned churches, we, you know, we like to say, you know, just one drop of blood, you know, that I know that we say that, and and I'm not harping on anyone for for saying that or using those terms, but that's just simply not true. It Christ had to spill all of his blood. That's the sacrifice, that's the requirement. And so, had it been for one sinner, for one family, for one nation, or for the entire world, all of his blood had to be spilled. And in that now, you and I can enter in under that sacrifice, under that payment. So it's not wasted if more, if there's not more. If there's one, it was enough. The miracle in all of it is that his blood is enough to cover all who come. That's that's the miracle in it all. So that raises the important question: how can God declare a sinner righteous without compromising his own holiness? I mean, I know I'm a sinner. I don't know about you. I can't speak for anybody else. Paul can. Paul said that all have sinned. I didn't say that. Um Paul said all of sin, so but I can only speak for myself. I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I am I'm guilty. So how can God look at me and just simply overlook my sin? Or is he overlooking my sin? Is he just pretending it didn't happen? I mean, he's just. His justice demands punishment. He is he is he is he is a God of complete love, a God of complete wrath, a God of complete judgment. And those those things they don't intermingle, they don't affect one another. He doesn't say, Well, well, I love you, so I'll just overlook your sin. He can't do that. But he doesn't say, Um, well, I've uh I'm a God of wrath, and therefore uh I'm gonna pour my wrath out on you no matter what. He can't do that because he's a God of love as well. You see, I mean it's it's it's it's a simple thought, but it's yet it's so complex. So what is it, what what happens? This is where the work of Christ becomes the central theme. Justification is possible because what Christ has done for you and I in living a perfect life, fulfilling the law that we have broken, and then dying as a substitute, as that spotless perfect lamb, he took the penalty that we deserved. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5 21, for he hath made himself to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made righteous, might be made the righteous of God in him. Some key important words in there, and I'll I'll just I'll I'll pull one of them out. It says that meet that we might be, we might, might, might be. What that's saying is not that you know you can ask, but you might might not be. That's not what that word means. That means that if you ask, then you will be made righteousness, and if you don't, you won't. So the might in that is based upon the belief, the faith of the sinner. Christ's work is done. Now it falls on us. This is often called the great exchange in in your Bible studies, a great exchange. Our sin was placed on Christ, and his righteousness was placed and credited to us. He imputed, as the Bible would say, it's a Bible word, he imputed his righteousness on you and I. That means when God looks at us, he doesn't see a record of sin that needs to be judged, he sees the righteousness of his very own son, and we are counted as heirs, and listen, joint heirs with Christ. It's not because of the work we've done, but because that he has declared righteousness of his son upon us. And yet today people still think that they can do something to earn it. That they can work their way in. That they can reason their way to God. And that that lowers the work that Christ did on the cross to such a degree whenever we can add our own work to it. There's no work that we can do. We must simply have faith and believe in what He has done for us. And I know that there's people out there that say, Well, you think awfully high of yourself to think that you have something to do with your salvation. The only thing I've got to do with it is believe in Him and that He is He is the one that justifies. Romans 3, 24 to 28 makes it very clear that self-righteousness is not possible, that that righteousness is only by grace through faith, not by works or of the law. No one can earn righteousness or right standing in the sight of God. If righteousness were to be earned by works, then Christ did die in vain. If it had to be his death plus our works, then his death was incomplete. But his work was complete, the law was there, it reveals the sin. And it's only by faith through the grace of God that he's poured out his great love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And that's how justification is revealed. It's revealed through the faith and grace. It's a you gotta have grace to have faith in it, and you've got to have uh grace for faith to be available. It's such a such a beautiful interaction between the two. And make sure that we don't uh uh misunderstand the difference in justification and sanctification. Justification is a one-time act. When salvation happens, justification happens. Done. Sanctification is that ongoing process. Sanctification is sometimes you'll hear the preacher say that um God saved me so he could save me and keep on saving me because we're we're held, we have that security. Uh he is constantly doing a work in us. That's that sanctification. That is that that's that constant, ongoing process. We still fall short every day, even though we have been gloriously saved by the blood of Christ, we still sin daily. And that sanctification is the ongoing process. The justification deals with our standing before God. Without justification, you and I couldn't do as Hebrews said to come boldly before the throne room of God. We couldn't do that. Sanctification deals with our growth in our Christian life. Justification declares us righteous in the sight of God now. Sanctification makes us more like Christ in our practice and our reactions and actions and uh thoughts of mind each day. Confusing justification and sanctification can lead to either legalism or discouragement. Because legalism says that you have to every day do something, whether it's confessing your sins. I know there are people out there who believe that if they don't confess their sins every day, and if they die, then they'll go to hell because they didn't confess their sins. That's ongoing justification. That's not biblical. And confusing sanctification and justification could also lead to the other end of that spectrum, which is uh simple discouragement. That there's nothing that we could ever do. We could never be right because we constantly fail and falter in in the sight of God. That's that's the the dangers of confusing sanctification and justification. So what this teaches us in our justification in the sight of God is should be one, humbling. Humbling that though we are guilty, if you believe that, and I pray that you do, there's many people who don't. I I I hate to I hate to say that there are people out there who believe that they are not sinners. There's some out there who don't even believe in sin. And some who do believe that they're not sinners because they have held the commandments. Had one um, I mean, went back and forth for a while with him, um contacted through social media, and uh told me I was uh uh preaching people into hell because uh I was telling them that they did not have to keep the commandments and law of God, that we are only saved if we keep those commandments. Boy, how far off the mark he was. Legalism. When we confuse those two, we we get into that area. But it should be humbling to know that as guilty as we are, as sinners as we are, that yet through that process of salvation that we have received justification in the sight of God. And it should also be comforting to know that that there is uh there is a place that you and I can go to take our prayers, to take our our petitions, our supplications into the presence of an Almighty and holy God that we don't deserve to stand in front of. Yet through the justification, through the blood that was shed for you and I, and by faith through grace, we can stand in that throne room. So justification for you and I answers the deepest need and question of the human heart. It answers the question of guilt. It answers the fear of judgment. It it is the way for a sinner to stand before God without fear. And yet it all again points to Jesus Christ, who has done everything necessary for all to receive justification. The question is not whether justification is available to you or not, whether you were chosen or elected. The question is whether you have received it by faith through grace. Because when God justifies, the matter is settled forever. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know, our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.