No Fear

At the conclusion of the message last Sunday, Hank pointed out the connection of our teaching on Christ’s perfect sacrifice to Martin Luther, who struggled with his sense of guilt and fear before God. Luther wrestled with the overwhelming sense of guilt before a just and holy God. He could not fathom how it could be at all possible for any kind of human action to atone or give penance for sin.

He despaired until the Spirit led him to study Paul’s letter to the Romans. There he discovered that his situation was indeed hopeless. There is no one righteous, not even one. But then he kept on reading. “For all have sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3.23-24).

The ah-ha moment for Luther was the fact that God justifies freely, by his grace, on account of what Christ accomplished.

So what was it about this that Luther understood? What gave him such a change in attitude? From what did he derive his happiness and joy?

We know what it is like to be convicted by the Holy Spirit, right? We know what it is like to fear God, to understand his wrath against sin. We know what it is like to realise that we’re guilty and that nothing we do is ever good enough. For, as soon as we conquer one sin, we fall into another. Or, if you think you’ve conquered something, then you realise that though you may have stopped physically from sinning, you’re still not taking every thought captive to Christ.

And, then, when you spend time studying God’s law, and you see how worked up he gets about mildew and bodily fluids, you realise that God is totally holy. You realise that there is no possible way to make yourself right with God. You want to try; you want to do all kinds of things, which is what Luther tried to do, actually hating God all the time he was trying to do it.

But then, the Spirit moves and you see, you realise, that it isn’t about you at all. It is all about God in Christ. Christ lived, suffered his whole life so that he could pay the full penalty of sin. He was fully human. He experienced human life fully. He was also fully God. He had to be in order to bear the eternal punishment that we deserved.

What has done is he has fully justified us.

Okay, great, what in the world does that mean?

If you’re into word processing, Justification means having the text aligned to both the left and right margins in a document. Justification of sinners is having your life aligned perfectly to God’s law, so that you no longer wander to the left or the right.

Since coming to Edson, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know several police officers, and I can honestly say that not once was it because of breaking any laws. It’s not as though I haven’t broken any laws, it just so happened that I never was caught. In getting to know these officers, I’ve been afforded with many stories of lawbreaking.

Some of the characters that go through the detachment have rap sheets as long as their arms. Charge after charge of wrongdoing. Some of them are brought to trial, but through the vagaries of our justice system, many just fall through the cracks, or manipulate the system.

But not so with God. No one escapes his purview. No one fall through the cracks, and the system cannot be manipulated. Technology allows cell-phone companies to keep track of cell-phones equipped with gps devices. Cars with On-Star or some such device probably transmit all kinds of information about the vehicle use, maintenance and care. I just wonder, not how long it will take for cars to drive themselves, but for cars with gps installed to have built-in governors that prevent a vehicle from going x number of kilometres above the posted speed limit. Think how many hours of traffic enforcement could be saved if no one could be allowed to speed!

God doesn’t need technology to know everything. By definition, God is all knowing, he knows everything, every single instance of sin committed by every single human being. He knows it all.

What God offers in Christ, is total forgiveness, a total removal of every record of wrong. How we receive this forgiveness is through faith. J.I. Packer puts it this way, faith is “an appropriating instrument, an empty hand outstretched to receive the free gift of God’s righteousness in Christ.”[1]

Faith connects us to Christ, and faith receives everything Christ offers. Christ offers to pay for all our sins, thus granting us forgiveness. This is what it means when we say we’re justified by grace alone (Christ didn’t have to offer it to us), through faith alone on account of Christ alone—there is no other way to receive forgiveness. The Gospel is this: God freely gives in Christ what he demands of us under the law.

So the doctrine of justification means that Christ, in his grace, has taken our penalty upon himself. We receive this justification through faith. We trust that it is so. We trust that when God looks at us, he no longer sees the record of wrong. In addition to that, God sees Christ’s righteousness covering over us.

Justification isn’t just about forgiveness. It is about receiving from God Christ’s righteousness, also by faith. It is the knowledge, the conviction, that not only have my sins been forgiven, but I have been given, freely, via faith, Christ’s righteousness!

It is the knowledge that the Holy Spirit avails to me Christ and all his benefits. All I have to do, all you have to do us trust that it is so. Abraham believed God it and it was accredited to him as righteousness. All we have to do is believe God and the righteousness of Christ is accredited to us.

Consider then, the peace that comes through this knowledge! What takes away our sin? Faith in Christ, and faith, as Paul explained in the letter to Ephesus, is God’s gift to us. What makes us righteous? Christ’s righteousness which is wrapped around us, as clothing, also via faith.

This means that before God, we have a clear conscience! We no longer fear! Though I find it very interesting that the psalmist states that with God is forgiveness, therefore he is feared! God is feared because he forgives and justifies sinners!

This means that while sickness and misfortune in our lives might come as a result of God’s providential purpose in our lives, or as a result of stupid acts we commit, never are they a retributive act from an angry God toward his people. Why? Because Christ suffered God’s retributive justice on the cross, for us.

That means we are nothing less than new creations. The old creations were unforgiven sinners, the new creations are clothed with Christ’s righteousness. This is a gift of God! This is why we have to be born again.

Jesus healed the man who was born blind. He totally transformed his life. People who met him, probably said he was like a new man! He was able to see! He could see and do far more what he was able to do before meeting Jesus.

Those who have been born again, born by the Spirit can see. That’s what happened to Luther. He finally understood the world as it really is! He could see God, not as a cruel tyrant, endlessly punishing people for being unable to keep his commands, which were so difficult that they could never hope to keep them, but as a gracious God, who put himself into our place.

Those who are born again, they are now able to reflect Christ.

If, according to Paul, all have fallen short of God’s glory, now, with Christ’s righteousness, that is with the power of Christ who lived perfectly, clothing us, we can aim for and hit God’s glory.

A person might well ask and wonder, what is God’s glory? It is his character, his love, his justice, his righteousness. God’s commandments give us an understanding of who God is. Furthermore, they are an indication of the life lived as God’s forgiven people. As image bearers of God, we reflect God’s glory, when we keep his commandments. We’re able to keep the commandments now, because Christ has given us his righteousness. It isn’t us earning it or somehow deserving it. It is a free gift.

How we receive it is through humility. Humbling ourselves before God, admitting, with all honesty, our sins, we claim nothing for ourselves or our merits. In humility, we lean and rest on the sole obedience of Christ crucified, which is ours when we believe in him.

Everything Christ did is enough. We don’t have to worry about our sins. Christ completely paid for them, past, present and future. The result is confidence.

We are confidently set free from the fear, dread and terror of God. When God came to Adam in the Garden, he ran away. When God approaches us, we depend on Christ and his benefits. There were two men crucified with Christ. One mocked him and rejected him, just like many of the people and the leaders. He was blind, he was spiritually dead. Not so the other guy. The spirit breathed life into, ironically, just moments before he breathed his last breath. But he was able to see, he was able to recoginse that Christ was dying for him. That he could trust Jesus to take away his sin. That this Jesus was going to the father, not running away like Adam. And that he could be with Jesus and not be afraid of God’s wrath!

The point of justification is give us confidence. We are forgiven! We are eternally justified, forever made right before God.

In 1859, famous tightrope walker Blondin walked across the Niagra River on a tightrope. On his first crossing (which took 20 minutes) he stopped halfway, lay down on his back on the rope, got up on one leg, lowered a bottle to one of the Maid of the Mist boats below, where it was filled with water which he then drank. He crossed over the falls several times, but the most daring crossing came later that year.

Using a specially designed harness, he crossed with his manager on his back. Consider the faith his manager exercised in Blondin! Christ has carried us all on his back. On his merit, his strength, his perfect character, we’ve crossed from death to life. Amen.

[1] Packer, “Faith,” p. 401.