PROPER9C 2007

Thirdin a Series on Justification

Today we are going to continue ourlook at the great doctrine of Justification by Faith. In essence, what thisteaching of the church address is the problem of how sinful and ungodly humanbeings can be reconciled to a God who is perfectly just and holy. We have beenlooking at three definitions of Justification and I want to begin by reviewingthem again.

The firstdefinition was:

“just as if I had never sinned.”

Thesecond is:

Justification is a judicial act of God,in which, God declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, thatall the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner. (Berkhof, SystematicTheology pg 513)

Thethird, from John Calvin:

Therefore, we explain justificationsimply as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteousmen. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation ofChrist’s righteousness. (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol 1, pg 727)

This morning I would like to drawour attention to a few great verses in Romans chapter 5.

Rom 5:6 - 11(NRSV) ⁶Forwhile we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for arighteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dareto die.  ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinnersChrist died for us.  ⁹Much more surely then, now that we have been justified byhis blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.^{£ 10}For if while we were enemies, we werereconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having beenreconciled, will we be saved by his life.  ¹¹But more than that, we even boast in Godthrough our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now receivedreconciliation.

In these few verses we have thewhole gospel contained.

First we again are confronted withthat terrible concept of the wrath of God. As we saw last week,  again and again Paul tries to teach usof the holiness and justice of God. Since God is perfectly justice,  any injustice,  even that done by us,  deserves God’s just condemnation.  We all have a sense of justice, andthis comes from God. We all have a sense of fairness, and this comes from God.Our problem often is, however, that we tend to understand justice as it relatesto us, thus skewing what truejustice really is. But this is not the case with God. God is perfectly just. We tend to “justify” our behavior sothat we feel good about what we do. One way to understand this concept ofjustice is to think about human laws. How many of you have ever driven over thespeed limit? But if the law says that the speed limit is 65, and you drive 66,you have broken the law!! Law, in and of itself, does not allow for mercy. WhatPaul teaches us is that all human beings have broken the law of God. As we sayin our confession every week, wesin against God in thought, and word and deed. We don’t love God with our wholeheart, nor do we love our neighbor as ourselves.

The first step in understanding thegospel of Jesus Christ is to realize that we stand under the just judgment ofGod for our behavior. When I visited Honduras and spent time with a Honduranpriest and his family, theinjustice of their lack of material goods compared to our over abundance wasglaringly apparent. Why should I have what I have when a fellow priest andhuman being struggles with very little. In the scales of justice,  I am found wanting. And this doesn’teven take into account my daily selfish and self centered behavior. Again, wetry and escape this truth by comparing ourselves with other human beings,usually those with whom we come out looking pretty good – maybe that wickedsister in law, or even those gangbangers and drugies we see on TV. When we want to justify our behavior, we usually don’tcompare ourselves to Mother Teresa, or to St. Francis, let alone to Jesus.  One of the main reasons for the givingof the law to the Jewish people was to teach them the futility of trying tojustify themselves by the keeping of the law. Jesus in Matthew has those greatsayings – “you have heard that it was said:” and he goes on to quotefrom the law. And then he teachesus that the law doesn’t just deal with behavior, but with our attitudes and inner thoughts. For instance, thelaw says: You shall not murder, but Jesus says: “if you are angry with your brother or sister,or say “fool”, you have broken the law of God.

Once we realize that we stand underthe just judgment of God, we arethen ready to “hear” the good news of the gospel of Jesus,  that “Christ died for the ungodly”… that “while we were yet sinners, Christdied for us”… that “while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son.”

Listen to the word Paul uses todescribe us: ungodly… sinners….enemies. These aren’t words that we normally use for ourselves. Butagain, if we want to understand the incredible grace and mercy of God, we haveto apply these words to ourselves. Once we do, then the whole concept of Justification by faith begins tomake some sense to us.

Since we were in this state:  ungodly, sinners, and enemies of God, justice declares that wereceive condemnation, that we are guilty and thus need to pay the price for ouractions. But the gospel is all about how through the life, death andresurrection of Jesus, thisproblem is dealt with.

First, Jesus lives the life that you and I did not, and he doesthis on our behalf. He does thisfor us.

Second, He dies on the cross and pays the penalty for sins.  The death of Jesus for us is not justabout God’s mercy. On the cross wealso see the justice of God. Justice and mercy meet. Peter writes:

1 Pet 2:24(NRSV) ²⁴Hehimself bore our sins in his body on the cross,^£ so that, free from sins, we might livefor righteousness; by his wounds^£ you have been healed. 

In the phrase,  “he bore our sins”,  we see that Jesus is taking thepunishment of our sins upon himself. Paul says over and over again, “Christdied FOR us…” He says that through the blood of Jesus we are justified,and thus saved from the wrath of God.”

This takes us to the third part of Justification,and that is that through faith, all that Jesus has done for us is credited to us. The word that Pauluses over and over again is reckon. Romans 4:5 says this:

Rom 4:5 (NRSV) ⁵But to one who without works trusts himwho justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 

Noticethe phrase: “faith is reckoned as righteousness.” When we putour faith in Jesus and what he has done for us, we are reckoned, or accounted as righteous before God. Martin Luther had a phrase thatwent something like: “at the same time a sinner, as the same time just.” In other words, when we put our faith in Jesus, it is not that we become perfect andrighteous people. We are still thesame struggling sinners that we always were. However, in God’s eyes,  because of what Jesus has done on  our behalf, God does not look on our sins, but instead sees us through the lens of Jesus.  There is a great illustration of thisconcept in the prophet Isaiah.

Isa 61:10 (NRSV)¹⁰    Iwill greatly rejoice in the LORD,     my whole being shall exult in my God;    for he hasclothed me with the garments of salvation,     he has covered me with the robe ofrighteousness,     asa bridegroom decks himself with a garland,     and as a bride adorns herself withher jewels.

I love the image of the robe ofrighteousness. This is exactly what Paul is talking about  in the concept of Justification byfaith. Though we are still who we are, when we trust in Jesus, weare given a beautiful robe of righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus, and we put it on and it coversall of our nakedness – our sin and our evil. When God looks on us, this is what God sees – not our sin, but the righteousness of Jesus.

And it is so important for us tounderstand that we receive this righteousness, not because we earn it, orbecause we deserve it, or because we are nice people, but simply because Godchooses to love us. For you see, the Gospel is that God loves us simply becauseGod loves us. And thus this love becomes the ground for our good works ordeeds. This is so important to grasp. Once we understand that there isnothing we can do to earn God’s favor, and we then understand that Jesus has lived and died and risen forus, and we accept this byfaith, we no longer strive to earnGod’s favor through what we do. We begin to live Christian lives out ofthankfulness `ginto live Christian lives because we want to, and really, in a real sense, we can’t do anything else. Usinganother illustration to explain our new relationship to God, Paul uses that ofadoption.

Gal 4:4 - 7(NRSV) ⁴Butwhen the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, bornunder the law,  ⁵in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that wemight receive adoption as children.  ⁶And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of hisSon into our^£ hearts, crying, “Abba!^£ Father!”  ⁷So you are no longer a slave but a child,and if a child then also an heir, through God.^£

Through faith,  we are children of God, and we areadopted into the family of God. We don’t have to strive and strive to earn thisstanding. It is a gift, received through faith. And once we really grasp thistruth, we live our lives willinglystriving to please God. I haveseen so many people fall away from God and from the Church because theirmotivation for action is all wrong. For a season they try to be Christians, butthen something happens and they fall away. They go to church but then thePastor, or someone else in the church does something they don’t like, and theyleave the church. Or now the children are grown and we don’t have to try andgive them a good moral foundation anymore so we don’t have to go to church.

I often think of the story of thecleansing of the 10 lepers. All 10 were healed, but only one returned to worship Jesus. This one understoodwhat Jesus had done. God has loved the whole world, but really there are not that many that truly grasp thisincredible love. Those who do, don’t “have to go to church”, or “have to make cookies”, or “have to teach the children”, or “have to care for others”, or have to do anything. They try and liveas children of God out of thankfulness, not as a slave, but as a child,  realizing all that Jesus has done forthem.

I am sure that there are some ofyou here who have never, willfully and intentionally, put your faith in Jesus.So often we go to church, hear the words, and then leave and go about ourregular lives. But let me challenge you, if you have a deep, gnawing sense that you need Jesus, that you know thatyour life falls far short of what it should be, that you intentionally surrender your heart and your life toChrist, and trust all that he has done for you. Imagine you are on your deathbed, and there is nothing left for you to do in this life---  ask yourself, in what, or whom, can I trust now? Every Christian downthrough the ages will know the answer. It is in Christ,  who died for us, when we wereungodly, sinners and even enemiesof God. Though we, in and of ourselves, deserve the just judgment of God,  we are clothed with the robe of righteousness,and it is in this we will trust. We will trust that we are justified, not bywhat we have done, but by what Jesus has done for us. If we can do thisnow, it will change our lives, andbeing a Christian will be more than having to go to church and doing a few gooddeeds, and it will become a life that will consume all that we are and do.  AMEN!