What is justification
I have been reading, “The Warriors” by Jesse Glen Gray, who had just earned his PhD in Philosophy when he was called up to fight and spent 4 years from 1941 to 45 in the US army following the Second World War as it trailed through North Africa, Italy, France and Germany. Among many thought provoking observations, the book opens with a quote, “It is quite in keeping with man’s curious intellectual history that the simplest and most important questions are those he asks least often.”
War brings life and death, so close together that it makes it harder to dismiss the really important questions, which comfortable men in complacent peace time might succeed in ignoring.
We read earlier Job asking such a simple and important question “…how can a man be righteous before God?”
What we’re looking at this morning is the answer Paul provides to that question in Galatians 2 and 16 when he writes:
“yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”
The word justified appears here 3 times, but what is justification, it’s one of those church words that we might use, but do we know what it means?
John Wesley in his sermon “Justification by faith” says “The plain scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the forgiveness of sins.”
When I read Galatians earlier I deliberately read from the New Living Translation, because it is very clear and plain, it does not use the word justified, but in the 3 places where the word appears it says “made right with God” it goes:
“Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
Justification is where we are made right with God, because the sins that previously had made us not right with God have been forgiven. Our catechism says it like this, “We are put right with God (that is, justified) when God forgives our sin, accepts us, declares us to be his children, and restores our relationship with himself, on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done, to which we respond by faith in him.”
That not only explains justification but also answers the simple and important question which we really must not ignore or shy away from, “How can I be justified?” I emphasise the I, because this question is personal and each one of us has to find the answer. How can I be justified, how can David Cather be justified, how can you sitting here be justified.
Maybe you’re sitting there and you’re thinking steady on, maybe I don’t need that much justification, I’ve never robbed, or killed anyone,
but I’m sorry to tell you that the bible is very clear it says in Romans 3 and 23 that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Job 15:15 tells us that “even the heavens are not clean in the sight of God”, so how much less us.
And God will come and judge this wickedness: Solomon tells us that in Ecclesiastes 3, 16 & 17 when he says,
“I also noticed that under the sun there is evil in the courtroom. Yes, even the courts of law are corrupt! 17 I said to myself, “In due season God will judge everyone, both good and bad, for all their deeds.”
Okay, okay so we’re not up to God’s standard, but why this big deal about justification, can’t he live on his level and leave us alone at our lower level minding our own business?
But if God were to tolerate evil, then he would not be good, notice Solomon is prompted to conclude that God will come to judge precisely because he sees that at present there is injustice in the courtrooms.
Deuteronomy 25, verse 1 says “If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty”
It is understood here and elsewhere in the bible that it is the job of a judge, a good judge to justify the innocent, but to condemn the guilty. A judge who does the reverse is not a good judge.
Proverbs 17:15 says “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous
are both alike an abomination to the LORD.”
God can’t simply justify everyone because He is nice, just ask anyone who has lived under an ineffective or corrupt judicial system.
However, God has not rushed into judgement, in fact it is clear that for a time he has left our sins to go unpunished. By giving us time to repent God has, temporarily left evil unpunished, we can see this all around us, but in his very mercy He has opened Himself up to question from many quarters. Many who doubt God look at the evil in the world and say “How could a good God let this happen?” Maybe you’ve even asked it yourself. Jeremiah asks it in chapter 12 “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive?”
And the psalmist says in Psalm 73
“For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
With God’s justice openly questioned, the time will have to come when God will show himself to be good and just, which means that he will vindicate the righteous and he will punish the wicked. 2 Peter 3:9 says “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
But God is good and he will not postpone justice forever, the delay has only ever been a stay of execution, justice is delayed, but it is not going to be denied.
But then the very thing we cry out for, is the thing we really ought to dread, for justice means justice for all. The judge is on the bench, we are in the dock and if we are not justified we will very soon and quite rightly be hearing the judge pronounce his judgement upon us.
So all of a sudden Job’s simple question is very important to all of us, “How can a man or woman be righteous before God?” Or how can a person like me who knows that they are not now righteous be made righteous before God?
“How can I be justified?”
Going back to the catechism
“We are put right with God (that is, justified) …on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done, to which we respond by faith in him.”
Or as the 11th Article of the Church of England, says “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings.”
We are made right with God because of what Jesus has done, by His sin bearing death on the cross, and not by anything else. This is what Paul’s story in our reading from Galatians is all about. There were at that time in the early church some who wanted to say that to be saved people needed to perform all of the Jewish law including the ritual parts, like circumcision, food laws and so on. So Paul, with Barnabas and Titus took the issue to the elders of the church in Jerusalem, including Peter, John and James the brother of Jesus. The events are recorded in Acts 15, that they offered Paul the right hand of fellowship and that they added nothing to his gospel message for there was noting to add. And Titus who was a gentile believer who went with them was not circumcised, because circumcision could add nothing to the grace he had already received through faith.
Pauls says, “But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you.”
This was a key moment in church history, would the truth that God saves people by the work of Jesus be preserved, or would it become Jesus plus some extra things.
Now I always get uncomfortable here, because people who don’t understand grace take this to mean that nothing is now sinful and we can just live however we like. But if you were to have tried to argue that to Paul he would have issued one of his “by no means” statements. For example in Romans 6 he says:
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
I like how the New Living renders this verse:
“Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?”
So we are saved apart from works, but if we’re really saved then our hearts should long to obey, this is the fruit of salvation, but to be clear, salvation apart from works doesn’t make it okay to rob banks, because I don’t want to get called as a witness.
Works salvation is one of the most prevalent heresies in the church, I would go so far as to say it emerges in the heart of every believer, every day of the week.
It appears in one of two forms. Either people look at their good works and take confidence from those rather than from Christ’s sacrifice, or people look at their bad deeds and despair. They think that they must fix them and become good enough before Christ will accept them.
Both of these are false and which ever you tend to fall into, know that it is a deception.
Paul makes his point clear, he says
“And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching.”
There was nothing to add we are justified by faith in Christ. This is the gospel by which the church stands, Warren Wiersbe in his commentary on Galatians says “They could add nothing to Paul’s message or ministry, and they dared not take anything away.” The church today must be the same, justification by faith is not an interesting point we might think about every now and again, it is the point. If we try to add anything to it we nullify it!
If we leave it out, if we’re uncomfortable telling people that they need to be justified, then we have nothing to say to this world at all! If we don’t tell people about justification then we are just speaking a big pile of nothing, vacuous, empty, void, nothingness!
Luther declared that justification by faith was, “the article by which the church stands or falls.”
This is the gospel of the church, it won’t please everyone. But in every age it has drawn some people out of the world. I don’t know if we preached it more would we have more people in our churches, but to be frank people pleasing messages, substituting something more inoffensive hasn’t exactly filled the mainstream churches either.
Maybe we’re living through a great falling away and no matter what we preach people just won’t listen, but I’d rather die with my boots preaching what the church was always meant to preach.
We’ve answered 2 of the simple and important questions to our existence, what is justification and how can I be justified. A third simple and important question I will leave with you, because I cannot answer it for you. Knowing what justification is and how a person gets justified, you must ask yourself, “Am I justified?
There is no benefit in knowing the answer to the first 2 questions, if you can’t answer yes to the third. I’m always happy to talk to anyone afterwards. You must believe in Jesus for yourself. So carefully ask yourself the most important question of all, “Am I justified?”
Amen