What We Believe & Why - Chapter Five

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What We Believe and Why - Vol. II
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1982
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Chapter Five
Justified Before God

INTRODUCTION: TEXT: Romans 3:19-30

The doctrinal truth of justification before God is very rudimentary to the Christian faith, yet it is a truth that is largely misunderstood, even by some believers. They know that Christ has done something about their sin problem, which has made them right in God's opinion, although they are not sure just how God has handled this sin problem. Too many have the idea the sin is still there, but God just refuses to look at it in believers. The idea is that He has trained Himself to not see what is really there. Others have the idea that God has hidden our sins from Himself. It is as if He had a thick carpet through which He cannot see, and He has swept our dirt under that carpet.

God does not ignore or sidestep sin. He has met it head on and dealt with it directly. All men are sinners, (Psalms 53:1-3) but God, through Christ, has fully paid sin's penalty, and as far as God views the sinner, the sin issue is settled, and the sinner is right or just before God. It is not that sin was never committed, but rather that it was committed, then completely paid and resolved. Pure hydrochloric acid is acid indeed, but the introduction of a sufficient volume of sodium hydroxide will neutralize, through chemical reaction, the hydrochloric acid. Then, it is no longer acid. It has been successfully neutralized.

Justification is the Biblical term which conveys the message of God's dealings with sinners. As this lesson is designed to show, to be justified before God means your sins are not ignored or hidden from God, but rather that He has confronted and neutralized your sin problem. Believers are right with God because He has paid the price to make them right.

I. LET US FIRST CONSIDER MORE CAREFULLY WHAT IT MEANS TO BE JUSTIFIED.

A. The Greek verb for justify is dikaioo.

1. It is used sixty times in the New Testament and means to "show to be right."

2. Justified is the past tense of the verb and is used in the passive voice to speak of one who has been shown to be right.

3. Webster's New World Dictionary defines justify as "to show to be just, right, or reasonable; to be free from blame or guilt; to absolve."

4. Justify is a legal term and according to Webster, in law, it means "to show an adequate reason for something done."

B. To better understand justification, a definition of a few additional terms would be in order.

1. The adjective "just," Greek: dikaios, means "deserved, merited, proper, right, correct."

2. "Justice," Greek: dike, means "a being righteous or correct."

3. "Justifiable" refers to "that which can be defended as correct."

4. "To acquit" means to "pay off a debt; to release from a duty; to declare a person not guilty; to exonerate."

5. "Pardon" means "to cancel a penalty; to forgive; to excuse."

6. "To reprieve" means "to postpone punishment; to give temporary relief."

7. "Righteousness means "the character or quality of being right or just."

8. "Justly" means "in a deserved manner."

C. An overview of justification begins to develop once the definitions are considered.

1. A person whom God views as justified is one who, in His opinion, is righteous or correct. He can and will defend that person in his righteous condition. "I will be an adversary to thine adversary." (Exodus 23:22).

2. As God sees it, a work has been finished, whereby He can cancel or forgive the sinner. The sinner's sin has been dealt with in a deserved manner. God has had to violate no divine principle and make no exception in clearing the guilty sinner.

3. He has not given reprieve; He has acquitted the sinner. Sentence has not been postponed; it has been executed. The matter of sin has not been whitewashed; it has been permanently rectified.

II. THE FACTOR BY WHICH GOD IS ABLE TO JUSTIFY SINNERS IS THE FINISHED WORK OF JESUS CHRIST.

A. The penalty of sin is death:

1. Romans 6:23 states it, "For the wages of sin is death."

2. If that is what sinners deserve, and it is, God could not justify sinners (and Himself remain just) by requiring any less than death for sinners. If He simply declared sinners justified without a death, He would become a violator of His own law, thus becoming an unjust God. This has made it absolutely impossible for God to ignore the sins of sinners or whitewash their sins. God is "the just one," (Acts 3:14); and always acts with justice, (Isaiah 9:7). Job 8:3 asks, "Doth the Almighty pervert justice?" Abraham asks, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25) The answer is an emphatic "yes"! He does do right, never perverting justice.

3. Thus, when it came to the issue of sinners and how He could establish them to be justified in His sight by His own law, there was no way He could accomplish the task justly short of death for the sinner. The sin problem is there, and His own justice demanded that it be dealt with.

B. The way God dealt with the sin problem was to place all the sins of sinners upon His own son, then kill His son.

1. Isaiah 53:6 makes that very clear by saying, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." Peter said "Who His own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness." (I Peter 2:24)

2. By putting our sins on Christ, God was arranging the situation in such a manner as to execute the death penalty for our sins, without killing us in the process. As Isaiah put it, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him," (Isaiah 53:5). Romans 5:8 says, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

3. In simple terms, God was in Christ dealing with our sins in a just, deserving manner, according to His own previously declared laws of justice. As II Corinthians 5:19 puts it, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them." No, God does not impute our trespasses unto us; He imputed them unto His own dear son, and then righteously judged them in Him on the tree. None of the sins of the sinner were excused; they were judged justly in Christ. Listen again to Romans 3:24-26, "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus."

4. In view of the sacrificial work of Christ for us, which involved His death, burial, and resurrection, we are just. We sin continually (I John 1:8-10) but the sins have ALREADY been judged in Christ on the cross. In other words, the payment for our sins has already been made, the penalty satisfied, IN ADVANCE. Whatever we have done or ever will do, however evil, will not condemn us, because the work of Christ on the cross met the penalty for all our sins, past, present, and future. We are "justified by his blood." (Romans 5:9)

5. Car theft is a crime, but if a rich baron paid a car dealer billions of dollars for you, sufficient to cover any car you'd ever take off the lot at any time and under any given circumstances, then you'd never be a car thief for taking cars off that dealer's lot. The previous arrangement of dealer and baron would have you covered indefinitely. That is how God sees sinners who are in Christ. Whatever sins they commit have already been judged and paid for in Christ. That is why Ephesians 1:6 speaks of us and Christ and says God "hath made us accepted in the beloved."

6. In discussing our justification before God in spite of our continued sins, I Corinthians 6:9-11 says, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of God." If God held these sins against us, not one would enter the kingdom of God, but He doesn't. As He sees it, the penalty for all these sins has been met in Christ. Thus, in spite of those sins, we are justified in His sight.

7. God is not deceiving Himself when He looks at us as just. When He declares us justified, He is not declaring us to be what we are not. We are just! God has dealt with our sin in a just manner, meeting every divine requirement to fully settle the matter. Nothing remains to be paid. Like a criminal who has served all his time, like the debtor who has paid off his debt, God, in Christ, settled every charge against us due to sin. As Romans 8:1 puts it, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." We are just with God's law and God Himself is willing to, as defense attorney, judge and jury, forever defend us on that point. And mister, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)

8. As Romans 8:33-34 puts it, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who maketh intercession for us." When God says we are just, the opposition of men and devils dissipates like stubble in the fire.

9. Romans 5:1 establishes a beautiful truth. It says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "Being justified" denotes an event that occurred at some point in the past which had resulted in a continuous condition ever since. Oh, the beauty of eternal security! Upon the strength of Christ's finished work, God justifies sinners at the point of faith, and, at any point you ever consider them after that, they are still just before God. They will continue to remain so throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.

III. IT SHOULD BE CAREFULLY NOTED THAT THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION OF SINNERS BEFORE GOD APART FROM THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST UPON THE CROSS.

A. The one who thinks he can be just or righteous with God and have his sinful condemnation lifted, apart from Christ, is self-deceived.

1. There is no justification where the sin problem is not dealt with. Thus, those who think they can be just by ignoring, denying, rationalizing, or in some other way failing to deal with the sin problem, are still condemned and unjust before God. Thus, people who are thinking about being saved, living good moral lives apart from faith in Christ, or who have just never gotten around to facing the matter of sin, have the condemnation of God resting upon them. John 3:18 declares, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God."

2. Furthermore, all of those who think they have solved their sin problem by good works, baptism, church membership, and such activity, are not justified before God. As Job put it, "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall... prove me perverse," (Job 9:20) He also continued in verses 30-31, "If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean; yet shall thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." Here is how it is put in Galatians 2:16, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: and by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Galatians 3:11 says, "That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident."

3. The fact is that no man is capable of dealing with the sin problem. Not one of us can pay the penalty sin demands. All we can do with sin is sweep it under the carpet, overlook it, or whitewash it. We cannot solve it, or deal with it in a proper manner according to divine requirements. After all our very best efforts to solve it, sin is still there to condemn and to render us unjust before God.

B. Only when we accept by faith the work of Christ upon the cross does God make that work applicable to our personal sins.

1. It is then that God's cure in Christ is personally introduced to our sins by God Himself and the result is immediate justification before God.

2. Here is how it is stated in Acts 13:38-39, "Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses."

1. Job 25:4 asks, "How then can a man be justified with God?" The answer is as simple as it is beautiful. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God," (Romans 5:1). It is not what we can do for ourselves justifies us before God, but rather what God did in Christ that justifies. It is that work, and that work alone that enables God to view sinners as righteous or just.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"