Justification
Making Sense of Salvation • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Icebreaker
If you have any skill or talent, what would it be? What holds you back from pursuing it?
Its good to get back together with you all this evening.
I am excited to discuss this next step and topic in our study of salvation.
Tonight, we are talking about something that God does for you at the moment of salvation.
Justification.
What do you think justification mean?
The root word is justice. There is definition that is about making a defense for yourself. Or to justify your actions.
But that is not the Biblical definition.
Justification is an instantaneous act of God in which He thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, and declares us to be righteous in His sight.
Justification is an instantaneous act of God in which He thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, and declares us to be righteous in His sight.
This is a legal declaration that you are innocent of your sins and deemed righteous in the eyes of the Lord.
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Who justifies us?
God does. What qualifies Him to do that?
But He is the Judge!
He makes a legal proclamation that you are righteous!
How does God bring this righteous declaration over you? What brings it into your life?
It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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.
It is by your faith in Jesus Christ that God declares you righteous in His sight.
But its important to understand this note from Grudem.
“Scripture never says that we are justified because of the inherant goodness of our faith, as if our faith has merit before God. It never allows us to think that our faith in itself earns favor with God. Rather, Scripture says that we are justified “by means of” our faith, understanding faith to be the instrument through which justification is given to us, but not at all an activities that earns us merit or favor with God. Rather, we are justified solely because of the merits of Christ’s work.”
In other words, justification is not an action by you but is a result of our faith in Christ and completely His work and not our’s.
Why is that important to consider?
Why faith and not our love, or our humility, or our obedience?
Why faith?
“It is apparently because faith is the one attitude of the heart that is the exact opposite of depending on ourselves.”
It is the exact opposite of trying to earn it or thinking that you in any way deserve it.
What work of Jesus do you have to have faith in to be justified in the sight of the Father?
Jesus’ finished work on the cross.
His sacrifice on the cross made it possible for you and me to be imputed with the righteousness of Jesus.
What does impute mean?
Impute - to ascribe to someone guilt or virtue.
In the modern world, an illustration of this idea is like an employee of a company breaks the law or does something illegal on the clock.
The company can be imputed with the guilt of the employee. Or they can be held responsible for that person’s guilt.
Scripture talks about imputing three different ways.
Who thinks that can guess them?
Adam’s guilt imputed onto us. God, the Father viewed Adam’s sin as if it belonged to us, and therefore did it.
When Jesus died on the cross, our sins were imputed onto Jesus. God though of our sins as belonging to Him. Therefore He was guilty of our sins.
The third time, Christ’s righteousness is imputed onto us! Jesus was perfectly righteous and now, through faith in Jesus Christ, God views Jesus’ righteous as belonging to you!
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Isn’t it amazing that God didn’t just find us innocent, which would have been amazing enough! That is itself is mind blowing and something should cause us to cry.
But to go even further and view you as perfect and righteous as Jesus Christ!
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
What does that stir up within you?
Now, the protestant view of Justification is that it is a one time experience. That the Father places on you the righteousness of Christ when you put your faith in Him.
He does that once because He only needs to do this once.
This is one point that contributed to the Protestant Reformation.
1. The Areas of Agreement (The Common Ground)
Both Catholics and Protestants agree on several vital points:
The Necessity of Grace: We cannot save ourselves. Apart from God's grace, we are dead in our sins (Ephesians 2:1-5).
The Role of Christ: Jesus Christ is the only Mediator. His death and resurrection are the basis for our salvation.
The Requirement of Faith: Both agree that faith is necessary to be justified. You can't be justified while actively rejecting God.
2. The Great Divide: Imputed vs. Infused Righteousness
This is where the "filter" of Scripture becomes essential. The difference largely comes down to how God views the sinner at the moment of salvation.
The Protestant Position
We hold to Imputed Righteousness. Think of this as a "legal exchange."
The Concept: When we trust in Christ, our sin is placed on Him, and His perfect righteousness is credited to our account.
The Result: Justification is a punctiliar event—it happens in an instant. You are declared 100% righteous in God's sight because you are "clothed" in Christ, not because you have become inherently perfect yet.
The Catholic Position
The Catholic Position
Catholicism teaches Infused Righteousness.
The Concept: Through the sacraments (starting with Baptism), Communion, confession and hail marys, ect. God pours (infuses) grace into the heart, actually making the person righteous internally.
The Result: Justification is seen as a process rather than a one-time legal declaration. It can grow or be lost through mortal sin. To a Catholic, being "declared" righteous without "being" righteous would seem like a "legal fiction."
In the Catholic worldview, if you die with "mortal sin" on your soul, you lose your justification and could face eternal separation from God. Therefore, the Last Rites act as a "final cleaning" to ensure you are in a "state of grace" at the moment of death.
Martin Luther wrote extensively about this topic of justification because what he saw in scripture is the justification is completely and totally a work of God through faith in Christ. It is not a work of man. It can not be earned or deserved by sacriments. And because it is a work of God not dependent on works of man, it can not be removed by the works of man!
Can you think of verses or other doctrines that might conflict with the Catholic view of Justification?
This is where Romans 3:20 comes into play to help us under the protestant view.
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
“in His sight” is an important distinction.
Justification is found in the way God views you as a believer. It is based on the impuning of Christ’s righteousness onto us.
Justification is in the view of God not a result of any actual change done within you.
It is a view of God upon you not work of God to make you righteous.
If God made you righteous, then it wouldn’t be Christ’s righteousness given to you. It would be a result of your righteousness.
Grudem says, “It is essential to the heart of the Gospel to insist that God declares us to be just or righteous not based on our actual condition of righteousness or holiness, but rather on the basis of Christ’s perfect righteousness, which He thing of as belonging to us.”
Does that make sense?
How does that make you feel?
So, how does sanctification come into this conversation?
We are going to cover it in greater detail in a couple of weeks, but
Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.
Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.
Sanctification is a working of God out of our salvation to bring us towards living righteous lives.
It is a work of God and man to make your life match the way that God sees you in Christ.
Grudem describes it like this.
The distinction between sanctification and justification is between the act of a surgeon and a judge.
The surgeon, when he removes the inward cancer, does something within us.
Thats not what the judge does, he give a verdict regarding our judicial status.
Now, is God also our surgeon? Yes!
But specifically in the work of Justification, He is the Judge and He makes a legal declaration that in His sight, your sins were placed on Jesus and Jesus’ righteousness was placed on you.
How does this doctrine effect your perspective of trying to earn more favor with God through “good works”?
How does the doctrine of justification effect your perspective of a christian that sins?
Is there a danger in the doctrine of justification creating a thought within us that sin doesn’t really matter because in God’s view I am righteous?
Is there a way to see justification as a motivation for sanctification?
Is there a way to add the truth of justification in our gospel presentations?
