Justification in Relation to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Doctrinal Bible Church

Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom

Wednesday August 9, 2023

Justification Series: Justification in Relation to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Lesson # 10

In Romans 4:25, Paul declares that the Lord Jesus Christ died because of our sins and was raised from the dead because of our justification.

Romans 4:25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (NIV84)

“Was delivered over” is the verb paradidōmi (παραδίδωμι), which is used of the judicial act of God the Father in delivering His Son Jesus Christ over to the Jewish and Roman authorities in order that He might suffer spiritual as well as physical death, which constituted suffering the wrath of God.

John 3:16-18, 1 John 4:9 and 14 also teaches that God the Father delivered over His Son to death because of His love for sinners.

Peter declares on the day of Pentecost that it was according to the Father’s plan from eternity past and His foreknowledge that His Son was delivered over to sinners to suffer spiritual and physical death (Acts 2:22-24).

It was the will of the Father that His Son might suffer the wrath of God as our Substitute in order to rescue us from the cosmic system of Satan (Galatians 1:3-5).

Also the Scriptures teach that the Lord Jesus Christ chose to give Himself up for sinners (Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:1-2, 25-27).

Matthew 27:45 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (NIV84)

When the Lord Jesus Christ cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He was experiencing spiritual death meaning that He lost fellowship with His Father.

In John 19:30, the Lord triumphantly said, “It is finished” while He was still alive and which statement refers to the payment of our sins.

Therefore, it was His spiritual death that was the payment for our sins and not His physical death since the consequences of the human race possessing a sin nature and committing personal sins is spiritual death.

Our Lord suffered the loss of fellowship with the Father during those last three hours of darkness on the cross so that we might never suffer the second death in the eternal lake of fire, which is eternal loss of fellowship with God.

Therefore, God the Father considers Christ’s spiritual death to be the believer’s since this death dealt with the believer’s problem of spiritual death.

The fact that our Lord’s spiritual death was the payment for our sins and not His literal blood is illustrated in Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. (NIV84)

“The suffering of His soul” refers to the intense suffering of our Lord’s human soul as a result of suffering the loss of fellowship with His Father on the cross and experiencing spiritual death as a perfect sinless human being.

This suffering no angel or man will ever be able to identify with since no angel or man has kept themselves experientially sinless and is God and notice that Isaiah says that the anguish of the Son’s soul while experiencing spiritual death “satisfied” the Father, which refers to propitiation.

Thus, since our Lord died spiritually so that no human being will be separated from God for all of eternity in the Lake of Fire so Christ suffered the physical torture so that no human being will suffer physically forever in the Lake of Fire.

When Christ cried “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” He was suffering the “consequences” for our sins, which was separation from the Father and was “not” coming into contact with our sins, nor was He becoming literal sin.

Therefore, Jesus Christ died spiritually meaning that He was separated from His Father in the sense that He lost fellowship with His Father during those last three hours on the cross.

He suffered this spiritual death so that no member of the human race should have to for all of eternity and thus, the believer is identified with our Lord’s spiritual and physical deaths since these deaths spared the believer from the second death in the eternal lake of fire.

The physical death of our Lord is recorded in the Gospels (Matthew 27:47-50; Mark 15:22-40; Luke 23:33-49; John 19:16-30).

Romans 4:25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (NIV84)

“Was raised” is the third person singular aorist passive indicative form of the verb egeirō (ἐγείρω), which means, “to raise from physical death.”

“For our justification” is composed of the following: (1) preposition dia (διά), “for” (2) articular accusative feminine singular form of the noun dikaiosis (δικαίωσις), “justification” (3) genitive first person plural form of the personal pronoun egō (ἐγώ), “our.”

The noun dikaiosis (δικαίωσις), “justification” is a judicial act of God whereby He declares a person to be righteous as a result of crediting or imputing to that person His righteousness the moment they exercised faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

Consequently, God accepts that person and enters that person into a relationship with Himself since they now possess His righteousness.

In Romans 4:25, the prepositional phrase dia tēn dikaiōsin hēmōn (διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν), “for our justification” provides a parallel with the preceding prepositional phrase dia ta paraptōmata hēmōn (διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν), “for our sins.”

The preposition dia (διά) is employed with accusative form of the noun dikaiosis (δικαίωσις), “justification” as a marker of cause or reason, with focus upon instrumentality.

Therefore, the word marks the believer’s justification as the cause or reason why the Father raised His Son Jesus Christ from the dead.

The Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead because it provided evidence that God the Father had indeed accepted His sacrifice on the cross as the propitiation of the sins of the entire human race-past, present and future.

Therefore, the Father could maintain His perfect integrity when He declared the sinner justified through faith in Jesus Christ.

The resurrection also provided proof that Jesus Christ was the Son of God (Romans 1:3-4).