Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our third session
of our eight-part series of studies entitled, What is Salvation? Now, as I've stated in the previous
lessons, for the purposes of our study, I'm examining biblical
salvation under four headings that I call the four realms of
salvation. First of all, there's the eternal
realm of salvation, which is the origin and cause of salvation,
or salvation purposed and planned. Secondly, there's the legal realm
of salvation. Now that refers to the ground
of salvation, or salvation accomplished and secured. And then thirdly,
there's the spiritual realm of salvation. That refers to the
fruit of salvation in salvation applied and experienced. And then fourthly, the glorified
realm of salvation. Now that refers to the fruit
of salvation as salvation completed and perfected. And it's important
for us to remember that first, all four realms are of the Lord. And secondly, all are founded
upon and centered around the Lord Jesus Christ as the salvation
of his people. And thirdly, all four realms
present salvation as totally by grace. Now today, we're going
to consider the second realm, the legal realm of salvation,
or the ground of salvation, salvation accomplished and secured. Now,
you may recall in the introduction of this whole series how I stated
that if you have never thought about or considered this question,
if God is just, how can he forgive sin? Let me repeat it. If God is just, how can he forgive
sin? If you've never considered that
question, then you have not heard or believed the true gospel of
salvation. You see, this is the greatest
problem posed in the Bible. The moment anyone says God saves
sinners or God forgives sin, there's a great theological,
legal, and ethical problem that cannot be solved by man. None
of the major or minor religions of man have ever been able to
solve this problem or even come close. Think about this. If God is holy, just, good, and
righteous, which He is, He cannot forgive sin any more than a human
judge could justly set a proven convicted murderer free by simply
saying, I forgive you, go free. Now if I were to say to you that
God cast all sinners into eternal damnation and death, there's
no problem there. In that instance, God is just
giving us what we deserve and what we've earned because the
wages of sin is death. This is what justice demands.
The problem arises when we speak of salvation for sinners because
God must be just in all that he does. And when it comes to
salvation, which is a marvelous act of God's love, grace, and
mercy, God cannot ignore or deny or even compromise His justice,
His righteousness. Righteousness is perfect satisfaction
to God's holy law and inflexible justice. So if God forgives sinners,
if God saves sinners, He must do it in a way that honors His
holy law and inflexible justice. He must do it in a righteous
way. God must be a just God as well
as a Savior. So salvation from sin can only
be attained and maintained based on perfect righteousness, perfect
obedience, and perfect satisfaction to God's justice. Therefore we
see that no righteousness of sinful man will do. First of
all, men by nature have no righteousness before God. Secondly, because
we are born spiritually dead, that is dead in trespasses and
sins, and because we are sinners, we cannot produce the righteousness
required by God's holy law. In fact, the Bible tells us that
the best efforts of sinful man to produce righteousness always
fail. Over in the book of Romans, chapter
three, beginning at verse 10, it says this, as it is written,
There is none righteous, no not one. Now it doesn't say there's
none religious or none moral. It says there's none righteous.
None of us who by nature or by our works have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's justice. Verse 11 says there's
none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. That is the true and living God of all grace. Man seeks after
a God of his own imagination. And verse 12 says, they are all
gone out of the way. Christ is the way. Man by nature
has gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. That is good in God's side, according
to God's standard. And in verse 19 of Romans 3,
it says, now we know that what thing soever the law saith, it
saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. And verse
20 says, Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh
be justified in God's sight, for by the law is the knowledge
of sin. So whenever sinful men and women
seek to be righteous before God by their work so as to gain or
maintain salvation, they are rejected. Why? Because God is
holy and just and the best works of the best of men do not equal
perfect righteousness. Such efforts are acts of pride,
self-righteousness, and unbelief. The Apostle Paul wrote in the
book of Galatians chapter 2 and verse 21. He says, I do not frustrate
the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, that is by the
sinner's efforts to keep the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If I could be righteous by my
works and efforts or by any other way, even by my faith, My friend,
Christ would not have had to have come and his death is in
vain, but it's not. You see, the issue in salvation
then becomes the great question of all questions. How can sinful
man be justified before God? And how can a holy and just God
save sinners and remain true to himself? Or how can God be
just and still justify the ungodly? It is in seeing and understanding
the legal realm of salvation, as revealed in God's Word, that
we come to see the answer to this great problem. And that
answer is found in the Gospel. Now, the legal realm of salvation
involves a sinner's justification before God. To be saved is to
be justified before God. In the book of Romans chapter
8 and verse 28, we read, And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to His purpose. And then in verse 29 it says,
For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son, that his son might be the firstborn
among many brethren, and then listen to verse 30, moreover
whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified. You see that word justified.
And whom he justified, them he also glorified. Now that's the
whole realm of salvation. What does it mean to be justified? Well, the term justified is a
legal term that involves two things. Number one, it involves
being cleared of all the guilt of sin. To be cleared of all
the guilt of sin. Pronounced by God, the holy and
righteous judge, to be not guilty. And then secondly, to be justified
is to be declared or pronounced righteous by God. God declaring, pronouncing His
people righteous. Now whenever the Bible describes
a person as just, that term can also be translated righteous.
Over in the book of Genesis chapter 7 and verse 1, the Lord here
is speaking of Noah. It says, And the Lord said unto
Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I
seen righteous before me in this generation. The same word is
translated, the same word righteous in Genesis 7-1 is translated
just in Genesis 6-9 when it says, these are the generations of
Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect
in his generations and Noah walked with God. When Abraham was pleading
for God to spare the city of Sodom, he asked, wilt thou destroy
the righteous with the wicked? Genesis 18-23. Well, the righteous
are those whom God has justified, those whom God has forgiven of
all their sins, those who stand before God as just, and the wicked
are those who are not justified. In this justification, where
God declares His people righteous, we see one of the most glorious
and comforting truths of salvation. God not only pardons His people,
but he also brings them into his family by the adoption of
grace. Consider how an earthly king,
for example, may issue a pardon to a criminal that allows that
criminal to avoid suffering the punishment due to his crime,
but that does not make the pardoned criminal part of the king's family,
does it? The king does not make that criminal
his son and his heir, the heir to his kingdom. But what if the
king not only pardoned the criminal, but also adopted that same criminal
as his son, loving him as his son, giving him the full privileges
of sonship, right and title to the inheritance of the kingdom?
Well, this is exactly what God does when he justifies his people. Now, how can a holy and just
God do this? Well, the issues of the legal
realm and the ground of salvation are these. Number one, how can
a sinner be justified before God? And number two, how can
God be just and the justifier of sinners? What we're talking
about in this legal realm of salvation is how we stand before
a holy and just God who must judge according to truth in His
court of justice, before His holy law, and how God receives
us into His family and His fellowship. Now, whenever God judges us and
declares the verdict, guilty or not guilty, and then pronounces
the sentence, The sentence either of eternal death or eternal life. He must be just. He must judge according to truth. He cannot lie and he cannot pretend. So for salvation to come to sinners,
God must be just. His holiness, His truth, righteousness
must be honored. God cannot and will not save
sinners without honoring His law and justice. Whenever God
commanded Israel, the nation, to look to Him, not to themselves
for salvation, what did He say? He said, Look unto me, and be
ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and there
is none else. Isaiah chapter 45 and verse 22. But notice how God identified
Himself in Isaiah 45, 21. He says, tell ye and bring them
near. Yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath declared this from ancient
time? Who hath told it from that time?
Have not I, the Lord? And there is no God else beside
me. Now listen to how God identifies
himself. A just God and a Savior. There is none beside me. It's
true that God is gracious. God is merciful and loving, but
God must also be righteous and just in all that he does. God's
justice demands perfect righteousness. The problem then for us is that
we are sinners. We have no perfect righteousness
and we cannot produce one good enough to justify us before God. All our best efforts to be holy,
to be righteous, fall short of the standard. And the standard
is found in the perfect obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. All we can do by our best efforts
is earn and deserve eternal death. Now, the following is a clear
Biblical description of all of us by nature and I've read these
verses before but let's look at them again Romans 3 in verse
10 as it is written There's none righteous. No, not one There's
none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good No, not one now who is that describing? Don't get
the accept me syndrome when you read verses like that. Well,
that's got to be talking about somebody. Can't be talking about
me. There's none righteous. No, not one. Accept me? No. That's
all of us by nature. Romans 3 and verse 23. For all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Well, what's
the point of all this? is simply this, our justification
before God is not and cannot be by our works. Now that was
established early on in the Bible right after Adam fell and brought
the whole human race into sin and death. We all fell in Adam. The Bible's clear on that. Adam
was the representative and the federal head, if you will, some
old theologians call it, of the whole human race. So that when
Adam fell, we all fell. We fell into sin and into death. And because of that, by nature,
we're born dead in trespasses and sin. Now over in Genesis
chapter three and verse seven, listen to what happened to Adam
and Eve after they fell. It says, and the eyes of them
both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they
sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Now think
about that. Nakedness in the Bible is a metaphor,
a symbol for unrighteousness, for shame and fear because of
exposure to the wrath of God. The fig leaves that Adam and
Eve made, sewed together in war, were emblems, symbols of fallen
man's attempts to cover himself with his own work's righteousness,
self-righteousness. And he did that to hide his sin,
his nakedness, and shield himself from the wrath of God. Since
the fall of man in Adam, natural man has always tried to conceal
his sin, cover his sin, by seeking to establish his own righteousness
by his works. We see an example of this where
the Lord Himself said in Matthew chapter 7, And verse 21, he says,
Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven. Now to do the will of the Father
is to receive and believe and rest in the Son. But look at
what he says in Matthew 7, 22. He says, many will say to me
in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. In verse
23 it says, then will I profess unto them, I never knew you,
depart from me ye that work iniquity. These false professors believed
that what God had enabled them to do made them righteous enough
to pass the judgment seat of Christ. But the best works of
the best men cannot make a sinner righteous before God. And this
is the most basic issue in salvation. What makes a sinner righteous
before God? Is it what I do? Or what God
enables me to do? Well, the fig leaves of our own
works, not even our best works, not even what God enables us
to do, will make us righteous before God. So back in Genesis
chapter three, God first gave a magnificent and gracious prophecy
to Adam and Eve. This was after they had put on
their fig leaf aprons. This prophecy was given as God
pronounced his curse upon Satan, who was instrumental in bringing
about the fall of man into sin, death, and condemnation. It's in Genesis chapter three
in verse 15. Where the Lord tells Satan, I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Who is this
seed of woman? Well, it's none other than the
Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, who would be
the Redeemer and Savior of His people. He is the Son of God,
the second person of the Holy Trinity, truly God in every attribute
of His being. He is Emmanuel, God with us. You see, it would take this person,
one who is both God and man without sin, to save sinners. And then
it's recorded in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 21. It says, unto
Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin
and he clothed them. Now here God revealed that the
only way to make reconciliation for sins is the death of a suitable
substitute and sacrifice in the place of the sinner. Here God
revealed the fact that without the shedding of blood there is
no remission, no pardon or forgiveness of sins. Here God established
that sinners can only call upon Him and be accepted by Him and
commune with Him based on the blood of sacrifice. God established
here in type and picture, a shadow if you will, that Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, in the flesh, and by His death for the sins
of His people, He's the only way for sinners to be saved,
to be redeemed, to be justified, made righteous before God. All
the blood of lambs slain from Abel's offering and throughout
the old covenant times were types, pictures, and prophecies of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. You see, justification before
God has nothing to do with our works or our deeds. Justification
before God is the work of Jesus Christ alone in the place of
all those whom God had given him before the foundation of
the world. In the book of Romans chapter
8 and verse 31 we read, What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not
his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died, yea, rather,
that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who
also maketh intercession for us. The justification of a sinner
before Holy God is based upon the shed blood and the imputed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In order to save sinners,
Christ was made sin. How? By the imputation, the charging,
the legal accounting of the sins of His people, God's elect, His
Church, to Himself by God. God charged the debt of the sins
of His people to Christ. And it's Christ who of Himself
and in Himself knew no sin. He was never contaminated with
sin. He was never corrupted with sin.
But He became guilty by the legal imputation of sin, the debt of
sin, to Him. And as the result of his death
on that cross, he suffered and he bled and he died on that cross. As the result of that, righteousness
was established. And that's the righteousness
of God revealed in the good news of the gospel. It's the righteousness
of God that is imputed, charged, accounted to all of God's elect. Our sins are taken away and righteousness
is imputed if we're one of His. And my friend, where that righteousness
is imputed, the Holy Spirit will give life to His people and bring
them to a saving knowledge of Christ. Now, in the next lesson,
we'll continue studying the four realms of salvation, specifically
dealing with part two of the legal realm of salvation, which
involves the justification of sinners before God, in and by
the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you'll continue through
this eight-part series. And if you would like a free
copy of today's program or the entire eight-part study entitled,
What is Salvation? It's available upon request in
an attractive package set along with a complimentary booklet
of the same title, What is Salvation? I hope you'll join us next week
as we continue exploring this vital subject, what is salvation? We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, Write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
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today and may the Lord be with you.