PART II Justification Lets begin with justification. Its a legal word, a word that belongs in the courtroom. Justification means that a judge rules in your favor, that he declares you innocent. The Bible teaches that God is the Judge of all the earth and will always do right (Genesis 18:25). God is perfectly just. And as a just Judge, God must give every violation of his law the penalty it deserves. What would you think of a judge who is too soft to punish criminals, whos too nice to pass sentence on a rapist or a thief or a murderer? Youd want him to resign so that a real judge could take his place. If a judge is truly just, he will give every lawbreaker the punishment he deserves. The same is true of God. Gods law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, expresses his perfect will for us, and it also declares punishment for everyone who breaks that law by sinning. In Gods justice, every sin must receive its due punishment. That thought may not bother you too much at first. You know youre not perfect, but you figure youve been keeping most of Gods law most of the time. However, Im afraid thats not going to help you much when you stand before God. Imagine a murderer telling a judge, I think Im a pretty good guy. Sure, I committed murder, but there are laws I havent broken. I havent raped anyone or embezzled anything. And okay, so I killed one person. There are billions of people I didnt kill. The judge wont be impressed. Its not enough to keep most of Gods law most of the time. The Bible says, Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it (James 2:10). All of us have broken Gods law in one way or another--in fact, weve broken it repeatedly--and the divine Judge knows all about it. Because hes just, he must give every violation of his law its due penalty: death. But thats not the whole story. If it were, God would simply declare us all to be sinners and banish us to hell. But God isnt merely just. He is also loving, and he is determined to somehow save sinful people and declare them innocent instead of condemning them. But how can he possibly declare guilty people innocent? How can he justify sinners and remain just? The blood of Jesus answers this question. God decided to take upon himself the punishment we deserve, and he did that in the person of his Son. The eternal Son of God became human in the person of Jesus in order to bear the guilt of humanity. We cant fully understand it, but somehow God made a great exchange: He took all the sins of the world and laid them on Jesus his Son, and he took the perfect holiness and innocence of Jesus and declared that it belongs to everyone who believes in him. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). This means that when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you are declared innocent by God. You are justified. Now, you may find that hard to believe. Perhaps you have a troubled conscience, and you wonder, How can the Lord possibly declare a guilty person like me to be the righteousness of God? Before you try to answer that question, ask yourself another question: How could Jesus, who had no sin, be made sin? How could someone sinless become sin personified? I dont know how. But I know its true. The Bible says so. If God could make him who had no sin to be sin, then surely he can also declare us to be the righteousness of God. That is justification. The Son of God took upon himself what we deserve, and by faith in Jesus we can receive what he deserves: a verdict of innocent and a guarantee of eternal life. A just God could leave our sins unpunished only because he chose to take the punishment upon himself. God didnt merely overlook sin; in his justice he punished it. But he took the guilt and punishment upon himself, in the person of Jesus, who bore our sins in his body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24). God did this, says the Bible, to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26). When you put your faith in the blood of Jesus, you find out that your sin has been laid on Jesus, that his righteousness has been given to you, and that God therefore declares you righteous, just, right with him. This happens only through faith in Jesus blood. Its not based on any qualities or deeds of yours. Its based on Jesus perfect obedience and the infinite value of his blood. If you try to earn justification, if you think you can make yourself right with God, you insult the Lord, spit on Jesus blood, and say he died for nothing. Justification is a gift you receive, not a goal you achieve. That why Scripture speaks of being justified freely by [Gods] grace. Justification is free for us, but was not free for God. It was enormously expensive. The Lord paid a huge price. And that brings us to our second bloody big word. Redemption Redemption is a financial word. It means payment. Redemption can mean paying for a slave in order to liberate the person from slavery. It can mean paying for someone who has been imprisoned for not paying what he owes; redemption covers his debts and gets him out of prison. Redemption can also mean paying a ransom to free a captive. Jesus said he came to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Perhaps the best brief definition of redemption is: payment to purchase freedom. The Bible shows over and over that Jesus blood is the payment that purchases freedom. The apostle Peter says, For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from [your] empty way of life ..., but with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19). The apostle Paul speaks of the church of the living God, which he bought with his own blood (Acts 20:28). He says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). In Revelation 5:9 the inhabitants of heaven praise Jesus by singing, You were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. To redeem us, Jesus paid his blood; we dont pay anything. It all happens freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We could never pay what it costs to get us out of our predicament and give us the right to belong to God and live forever in heaven. On the contrary, all of us are deeply in debt and deserve only hell. We cant pay for eternal life--but, because of Jesus blood, we dont have to. When someone writes you a check for a large amount of money, what determines whether that check is good or not? It depends on whether the person who wrote the check has sufficient funds to cover the amount. It doesnt depend at all on how much money you have. If the check is for a million dollars and you have only fifty-three dollars to your name, youll still become an instant millionaire if the person who gave you the check is able to pay. Even if youre in debt, it wont invalidate the check. Should you refuse the check just because you dont have enough money to cover the amount? No, thats all the more reason to accept it. Youre in debt, you need the money desperately, and if a wealthy person is kind and generous enough to write you a large check, youd be foolish to refuse it. It would be equally foolish to refuse eternal life simply because you dont think you can pay for it. Of course you cant! Thats all the more reason to receive Gods payment for it. Redemption means that the price has already been paid. Only God can purchase eternal life. And Gods promise is based not on your value, but on the value of Jesus blood. So instead of asking whether you can pay for eternal life, ask whether the blood of Jesus can pay for it for you. Thats redemption. Now, although redemption is not something you have to pay for, it is something you must receive. Even if youre given a check by someone with sufficient funds to cover it, the check wont do you any good if you tear it up or throw it away or leave it in a drawer somewhere. You have to endorse it. You dont have to cover the amount yourself, but you do have to sign your own name, trusting that the person who wrote the check is able to pay the full amount. In the same way, you must endorse Gods gift to you. Trust that Gods promises are backed by the infinite value of Jesus blood. Sign your own name to those precious promises. In personal faith, believe that the ransom Jesus paid is more than enough to buy freedom and purchase the right to eternal life, and believe that the price he paid applies to you. Through faith in Jesus blood, redemption becomes yours. Propitiation Now for a third important word, perhaps the biggest and bloodiest of the three: propitiation. Its a word we dont often use, but the reality it describes is absolutely crucial. Propitiation means to appease someones anger. In the Bible it refers to appeasing Gods anger. Most of us would rather not think about Gods anger, but the Bible speaks about it frequently and plainly. Scripture says, The Lord is a jealous and avenging God ...The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. Nahum 1:2-3 When the Bible speaks about the wrath of God, it doesnt mean God is irritable or loses his temper for no reason. The Lord is slow to anger, so when hes angry, he has a good reason. There is only one thing that enrages God, and it angers him every time: sin. When we sin, God is not indulgent; he is indignant. And when hes indignant, its righteous indignation. The Lords wrath is not a flaw in his character. His wrath is part of his perfection. [His] eyes are too pure to look on evil; [he] cannot tolerate wrong (Habakkuk 1:13). Every time we sin, we offend Gods holy majesty. In fact, thats the essence of sin: acting as though our desires and ideas matter more than God. That makes God furious. So how can we escape Gods wrath? In the early history of his people, the Lord provided a way that would temporarily turn aside his wrath and cover up sin. He gave the Israelites a system of sacrifice involving the killing of animals and the shedding of blood. He said, I have given [the blood] to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for ones life (Leviticus 17:11). Propitiation is a blood sacrifice that absorbs and appeases Gods wrath against sin. The ark of the covenant represented Gods presence among the Israelites. It contained the Ten Commandments on the stone tablets God gave Moses, and the ark had a gold lid called the mercy seat. The high priest would sprinkle blood from a sacrifice on the mercy seat, because people who angered God by breaking his commandments could receive mercy only through the blood of a substitute. In the Bible, the word for propitiation is also used of the mercy seat. The blood sprinkled on the ark would appease Gods anger and make the ark a place of mercy. This may sound bizarre and repulsive to some, but only to those who ignore the unchangeable truth that when somebody sins, somebody pays. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), says the Bible, so without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). Whenever the blood of a sacrificed animal was sprinkled on the mercy seat, Gods people knew they could live only because a substitute had died in their place. But did animal sacrifices really provide propitiation? No, says the Bible, it impossible for the blood of animals to take away sin (Hebrews 10:4). The sacrifice of animals could only point ahead to a future, perfect sacrifice that would propitiate Gods wrath once and for all. God provided that propitiation when Jesus poured out his blood on the cross. God offered up his own Son as a perfect sacrifice. God, in the person of his Son, endured his own fierce wrath against sin. We really understand Gods love only when we know the fierceness of his wrath against sin. When we know how angry our sin makes him, then we know how awesome his love must be for him to absorb that wrath himself rather than destroy all sinners in hell. In this is love, says the Bible, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10 NKJV). To benefit from this, we must accept Jesus sacrifice on our behalf and count on the protection of his blood. Notice again the importance of personally believing in Christ. God has set [Jesus] forth as a propitiation, says the Bible, through faith, in his blood. So trust that Jesus suffered the punishment you deserve when he endured hell on the cross. Believe that Gods wrath against sin was propitiated. Give thanks that through faith in Jesus blood, you receive mercy instead of wrath, and in Gods amazing love he adopts you as his child.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 11:40:07 +0000
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