Thank you, Tim. This morning, I got a message,
and you can see the title on the screen, Justified Before
God. And you know, it would seem like everybody would be interested
in knowing how God would justify You would think that, but it
seems like most individuals, they don't see the need to be
justified, really. Most all people will say, well,
I'm a sinner. But they really don't see that
they're a sinner. If they did truly see it, they'd
be wanting to know how God would justify. And this morning, we're
going to go over some of these things having to do with being
justified before God. The scripture here that we'll
begin with, Romans 8, 32-34, I'll begin reading here. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, that is, all of his elect. How
shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justify. 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 also maketh intercession for
us. There are few doctrines that
have come under fire from the enemies of the truth as this
gospel doctrine of justification by God's grace alone, by and
through the Lord Jesus Christ alone. The biblical doctrine
of justification lies at the heart of the gospel message of
how a holy and a just God can remain holy and just and still
justify a sinful people. Job, in the Old Testament, considered
this dilemma in asking the following questions in Job 9, verse 2. I know it is so of a truth, but
how should man be just with God? Job's friend Bildad posed the
same question, and in Job 25, 4, said how then can man be justified
with God? Or how can he be clean that is
born of a woman? That right there ought to tell
us a lot. All mankind born in this earth, born of a woman,
come here as unclean. We're sinners. We're sinners
and we need to be justified before God. We can't do it. All of our
works are as filthy rags before God. Biblical justification involves
two miracles of God's grace. First of all, the complete forgiveness
and pardon, and that on a just ground, which is the blood of
Jesus Christ as he came here, stood as our surety and redeemer
of God's chosen people. And secondly, of these two miracles,
first of all, the complete forgiveness of sin, and secondly, the reality
of a righteous standing for sinners before God, and that on a just
ground. which is Christ's righteousness,
the merits of His obedience unto death for His people, which is
imputed and charged to their account. The Bible teaches that
both miracles are totally and exclusively the work of God through
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, with no contribution from or
participation by those whom God justified. The Bible states clearly
that the only living and true God, the sovereign God of all
grace, justifies ungodly people. Romans 4, 5 says, but to him
that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
His faith is counted for righteousness. This means that there is absolutely
no condition placed upon sinners by which they are justified before
God. And there is no qualification
within a sinner for which they are justified. It is all by the
grace of God, based upon the qualifications that are found
in and the conditions fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ as a
surety, as a substitute and redeemer of God's chosen people. Well,
what are some of the qualifications for this great work that Christ
came to do? First of all, He's God. manifested in the flesh, God
with us, both God and perfect man in one person. Let's look at a couple of verses
here that tells us about this God-man. 1 Timothy 3.16, and
without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God
was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels,
preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up
in the glory. And then Matthew's 1 to 23, behold,
a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and
they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God
with us. Those, those scriptures are clear
concerning Christ as being God and man in one person. What condition
did Christ fulfill as the God-Man? He became incarnate as a God-Man
by His obedience unto death for the sins of a people that God
the Father chose and gave to Him before the foundation of
this world, and whose sins the Father imputed, charged to His
account. I remember the first time I ever
heard the word imputed, an imputation, and it was foreign to me. So
even back then, and this was years ago, some 40, I just went
to Webster just to see what Webster had to say about it. Webster
told me that it had to do with accounting or charge to your
account. And boy, that was music to my
ears as I went forward, to know that God was going to count my
sins to Christ. And he was going to count what
Christ did in my place to me. He obeyed the law unto death,
and he paid their sin dead and full. Being raised from the dead,
he fulfilled all righteousness. whereupon God's people are justified,
and from which they receive the gift of spiritual and eternal
life. Romans 3, beginning at verse
24, sin being justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus, whom God had set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for
the remission of sins, that are passed through the forbearance
of God, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness,
that He might be just, and a justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. In Romans 8, 10, And if Christ
be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life
because of righteousness. Then in Hebrews 2, 17, Wherefore,
in all things, it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren,
that he might be a merciful and a faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Our
Lord fulfilled all righteousness for all those that the Father
gave him before this world was ever created. This is the righteousness
of God that's revealed in the gospel, according to Romans 1,
16 and 17. The apostle Paul says, for I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of
God and the salvation to everyone that believeth, for the Jew first
and also the Greek. For therein, therein this gospel,
message, that's preached out here is the righteousness of
God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. There are common controversies
that are debated about this justification. One is how God justifies a sinner. The other one is when God justifies
a sinner. The most common controversy that
has been debated over the years has to do with how God justifies
a sinner. This debate can be framed in
different ways and by different terms, but they all come down
to the same question. Does God justify his people based
on Christ's righteousness imputed to him? or by Christ's righteousness
imparted, or imbued, or infused, different terms like that, is
the justification of sinners before God accomplished by a
work of Christ totally outside of those for whom he died and
rose again, and the merit of that work imputed to them. Or is it accomplished by work
of the Holy Spirit within those for whom Christ died and rose
again? First making them inwardly righteous, whereupon God then
imputes it to them. As you can see, these are two
opposing views of how God justifies his people. The next controversy
has to do with, and has been debated over the years, has to
do with when God justifies the sinner. This debate is not as
polarizing as the first because true believers can disagree over
the timing of justification and still remain true to God's grace
and the fellowship of faith. The three positions taken by
professing believers now on this issue of when God justified sinners
are, first of all, justified from eternity in the eternal
mind of God, which never changes. Secondly, justified at the time
of the cross death of Christ. when He redeemed His people from
sin. And then thirdly, justified at
the time of faith, when God the Holy Spirit in the new birth
gives people faith, gives His people faith. And I got to be
honest with you, I've dealt with all three of these phases here
in my life as a believer from the beginning like I said some
40 years ago. And I started out with justified
at the time of faith. Now I said that God had to impute
righteousness prior to him giving you faith. And I thought a lot
of things concerning that, but it wasn't scriptural, you know. But as a young believer, we grow
in grace and knowledge. We don't come here as a believer
and just have all knowledge, true knowledge zapped in our
minds. We grow in grace and in knowledge
over a period of time. We don't come here believing
all truth. We have to study and God has
to reveal these things to you. The question came up one time,
well, What about these individual believers? And we did count them
as believers. Once they see these things that
you pointed out to them in scripture, some of them still don't change
their mind. They still hang on to what they originally thought.
And I can't answer that question. But I know that a person has
to grow in grace and knowledge of these things, and even believers
can start out believing differently concerning the exact timing of
justification and of when God imputes righteousness to you.
As long as we believe that our justification before God is based
and grounded upon Christ's righteousness imputed, which results in God-given
faith in Christ. The issue of timing is not a
gospel issue over which professing believers should divide. However,
and we need to make it clear on this matter, any notion that
God justifies sinners based on or because of their believing
or their faith, or their being made righteous within by the
Holy Spirit rather than Christ's righteousness imputed, is a denial
of the grace of God in the gospel of Christ. Our pastor has written
a booklet entitled, When Are God's People Justified in His
Sight? And that's all that matters,
really. How does God see us? He's the one that justifies us,
and He tells us that in His Word. The subject of this booklet is
the essential truth on which all true believers must agree
according to the teachings of God's Word on how God justifies
His chosen people. In God's Word, the Holy Scripture,
we find five points of revealed truth that involve essential
elements of showing the answer to Job's and Bildad's question,
how should man be justified before God? I'll only deal with two
of those points this morning. That's all the time I'll have
time for. And I will use many scripture references to show
these points. I'll also attempt to maintain
the integrity of these references by not taking them out of context.
But I do urge you to take time to read and study the whole of
God's Word to see if these things be true. As stated above, the
passage upon which I will base most of my comments is the following
that I read to begin the message here earlier in Romans 8, 32
through 34. The first truth here, God is the only source of justification. This is stated in Romans 8.33. It's God that justifies. The
source of justification is the sovereign love, mercy, and grace
of God. And it's in and by the Lord Jesus
Christ. God's love to his children is
from everlasting to everlasting. without any variation in his
own heart, no matter how different the manifestation of it may be. God always rests in his love,
and he never alters. Nothing can separate from it. He is love itself, and it is
as unchangeable as God himself. The same today, yesterday, and
forever. Man's fall when we fell in Adam
made no difference in God's love toward his elect. Though the
special objects of his love fell in Adam, they fell in Adam's
transgression, they fell in the depths of sin and misery, all
mankind without exception. But they did not fall out of
Christ. We're talking about God's elect,
those that God chose and give to Christ. They were in Christ
from the beginning, remain in Him to the cross, and remain
in Him right now and will throughout eternity as their substitute
and surety. God continued His love and manifested
it and sending his son to be the atoning sacrifice for their
sins. And God demonstrated his love
by sending Christ to die for his people, even while they were
yet sinners, ungodly sinners. They didn't know God. At that
time when they were born into this world until they were regenerated
and converted, they didn't know the true God. Neither does the
sinful state and condition that they were brought into and continue
in from their birth to their conversion make any changes in
God's love. But notwithstanding that, for
the great love with which He loves them, He quickens them
when they were dead in trespasses and sins. He looks upon them
in all the impurity of their natural state that they're born
in and says to them, live. And at this time, as it is time
of life, it is the time of that open reveal love of God, their
father. When God saves them by his grace
as far as revealing this gospel to them, converting them as they're
born again. This shows that it does not matter
so much what we ourselves or others say about us as to salvation
or whether or not we're justified. The only real judgment that matters
is God's judgment. And the only way we can know
God's judgment for certain is to know his word and what he
says about himself. The Lord rebuked the self-righteous
Pharisees for justifying himself without knowing God's way of
justification. Luke 16, 15, where it says, and he said unto
them, speaking of Christ, ye are they which justify yourselves
before men. But God knoweth your hearts,
for that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in
the sight of God. But any self-justification is
futile. Job 9.20 says, if I justify myself,
mine own mouth shall condemn me. If I say I am perfect, it
shall also prove me perverse. So all true believers agree that
God alone, by His grace and sovereign love and grace, and mercy in
Christ Jesus is the only source of our justification. Christ
also acknowledges that even though the Pharisees appeared to be
right with God in their own eyes, as far as men could see it, but
because of their unbelief and self-righteous works, they gave
no evidence of ever having been justified with God. Look at Matthew
23, 28. Even so ye also outwardly, speaking
to the Pharisees, outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within
you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Again, we must recognize
that it's God that justifies. This shows us that true justification
is entirely the work of God the Father, acting as a sovereign
and righteous judge of all. Justification before before God
is entirely a legal matter. It's a legal matter having to
do with how we stand before the supreme judge of all and how
God views us. I remember one time someone asked
me and it had to do with my study of eternal justification. And
at that time, someone asked me, if it doesn't make any difference,
saved and lost, why do you want to continue looking into it and
stressing it? I said, well, I want to know
how God sees me, because that's the only one that counts, how
God sees me. It doesn't matter how men see
me, how God sees me. And so how God views us in the
light of his perfect law and his inflexible justice. Many
object to viewing justification as an exclusively legal matter
because they believe this diminishes the reality and the power. Some
even view this as some kind of pretense on God's part, some
kind of pasted on righteousness. They claim that it is God declaring
sinners to be righteous when they're not really righteous.
They reason that if God declares us to be righteous, we have to
be first made righteous within ourselves. Else God cannot declare
us so legally in righteousness. They go against everything that
God says in his word when they say something like that. I will
deal with this in another sermon, this misconception. Biblical
justification involves God's legal declaration and judicial
pronouncement of the standing he gives his chosen people in
and by his dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ. If God, according
to his law, pronounces a person forgiven and righteous, In his
sight, there's no greater reality than this. Romans 3, 4 says,
let God be true and every man a liar. Justification is not
God making us righteous inwardly. It is God declaring us legally
righteous without any change within us. As we'll see later,
justification certainly leads to a miraculous change within
God's people. But in itself, it is strictly
legal. It is true that having fallen
an atom, we're born into this world in a state of spiritual
death and depravity. This is why we deserve and can
earn nothing but condemnation and eternal death in and of ourselves
based on things we might do. This is why we need salvation
by God's grace and power in Christ. This is why we must be justified
by God's grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 3.24 says, being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And
because we're born into this world in a state of spiritual
death and depravity, we must experience a great change within
ourself. And this too is entirely the
work of God and based on Christ's righteousness imputed to us. Because our justification, because
of our justification, we must be born again. by the Holy Spirit
and brought by God given faith to believe in Christ and repent
of dead works and idolatry, that false god that we worship prior
to coming to faith and repentance. We must change gods. God will
not share his glory with a false god. And that's where all mankind
is by nature. As stated, our justification
before God, in and of itself, is not a change of our state
in this world. But it leads to, even demands,
a change of state in this world, which is the new birth. In time,
God comes to each one of his elect. And it's because of our
being justified. It's because of righteousness
being charged to our account, imputed to us, that we have the
new birth. Romans 8.10 says, and if Christ
be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit alive
because of righteousness. It needs to be emphasized that
justification before God is not an inward work of the Holy Spirit. It is totally a work of God the
Father and his eternal and immutable mind, a mind that does not change,
is his court of justice and is based on the work of the Son
of God on the cross. But we also need to see that
our legal justification before God and Christ is the source
and is the power of that change of state brought about by the
Holy Spirit and imparting spiritual life and all the graces that
we receive from the Spirit. The only matter of justification
worked in us by the Spirit is when we're justified within our
own consciences as the Spirit applies the blood of Christ to
our mind in the new birth. When we come to see who God really
is and who Christ really is, and we come to see that gospel
of God's grace, This is what many people mean by the phrase
justified by faith. Just as sin demands death, righteousness,
Christ's righteousness, demands life. Romans 5.21, that as sin
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The second truth, first truth,
has to do with God being the source. Second truth, God's elect
are the only objects of justification. This is clearly stated in Romans
8, 33. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is clear from the scriptures
that the objects of God's grace and every blessings and benefit
of salvation, including justification, are those whom God chose to save
by giving them to Christ before the foundation of the world.
They are identified in the Word of God by various terms. They are His people, Matthew
1.21, He shall save His people from their sins. They are called
sinners, 1 Timothy 1.15, Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners, of whom I am chief. They're called and described
as his church. Acts 20, 28 says to feed the
church of God, which he had purchased with his own blood. The word
church means those who are called out. of this world called out
by the gospel, empowered by the Holy Spirit. They're also called
his sheep. Christ says, I'm the good shepherd. The good sheep giveth his life
for the sheep. The good shepherd. I am the good
shepherd and know my sheep and have known a mine. They're identified
as those who believeth and those who live by faith. Romans, once
again, 1, 16 and 17, says, to everyone that believeth and the
just shall live by faith. There are many other names that
identify and distinguish the objects of God's justifying grace
in Christ. And here in Romans 8.33, as well
as other scripture, they're identified as God's elect. The elect are
those individuals whom God chose to save in and by Christ and
gave to Him before the world began. I'm going to read some
of these scriptures here that are so clear and so plain having
to do with our justification before God in eternity. John
17, 2 says, As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that
he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Ephesians 1, beginning at verse
3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who,
God the Father, have blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places, in Christ, according as He, God the Father,
has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Have
Him predestinated us into the adoption of children by Jesus
Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein God the Father
had made us accepted in the Beloved, in Christ. The elect are those
for whom Christ died and rose again for their complete salvation. He called them his brethren as
they were all adopted into God's family in the adoption of grace. Folks, God has loved us with
an everlasting love. A love that just did not, it
didn't begin when Christ came. It didn't begin when we believed.
It's from everlasting. He's all, that's hard to get
your mind around that, but he's always loved us. No matter what
the manifestations, the things that happen in time might be. Well, Let's look at Hebrews 2, 11 and
12. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified,
all are one. For which cause he is not ashamed
to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto
my brethren. In the midst of the church I
will sing praise unto thee. What a blessing. for Christ to
call us his brethren. We're adopted into God's family,
adopted in Christ as we stood in Christ. The popular heresy
that claims that God loves every person without exception and
that Christ died for every person without exception, it just can't
be supported in scripture. God saves those that he loves. and has justified. And He has
justified His elect whom He chose before the foundation of the
world, and He gave His elect to His Son to be their surety. Sure in certain salvation. Not
based on what we do, but based on what Christ did. Can't get a better surety than
Christ. And He fulfilled all the requirements. Assurity when
he came to this earth Went to the cross and he paid that debt. He paid it in full Christ is
our surety substitute Redeemer lives given and preserver They
all shall be saved all of God's elect John 6 beginning verse
37 All that, this is Christ speaking,
all that the Father giveth me, that right there ought to cause
people to really open their eyes and say, what's going on here? All that the Father giveth me,
give to Christ, shall come to me in time. And him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven,
not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all
which he hath given me in that covenant of grace from everlasting
in eternity and old eternity, as the brother Gary Shepherd
said, I should lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day. No uncertainty here. And this
is the will of him that sent me. that every one which seeth
the Son, and will see the Son in time, when God gives his life
at the new birth, and believeth on him, may have everlasting
life. And I'll raise him up at the
last day. God has justified his elect.
All that the Father gave to Christ will in time come to Christ. and each successive generation
of how long this earth stand. And Christ will lose none that
the Father gave him. They will all come to faith and
repentance. And Christ will raise all of
them up, all of them up at the last day, being justified before
God. What a blessing. Amen.