Well, this has been an incredible
day, has it not? I feel like a tsunami of sound
doctrine has just swept over my soul, and I can't think of
another conference in which I have ever preached that there has
been so much theology and doctrine that has been given to us. And
this has really been an all-star lineup. Josh Weiss, thank you
for the invitation that you've given to all of the men who are
preaching in this conference. And it's really like an all-star
game in some ways. And to hear each of these men
preach the Word of God, focusing in upon the doctrine of salvation
has been refreshing to my heart and to my soul. And this has
been a full day, and so you're still here. And you're an example
of the perseverance of the saints as you have come through the
tribulation. I have the wonderful, wonderful
assignment of preaching on justification. And there's probably not a person
in this entire worship center who has not sat under preaching
on the doctrine of justification. It is a doctrine with which I
trust that we have great familiarity, but I can only pray that God
will give us ears to hear afresh the truth of His Word. And so
I want you to take your Bible and turn with me to the book
of Romans, Romans chapter 3. And I want to begin by reading
the text, be verses 21 to 26, and I'm not certain if we're
going to be able to get all the way through all these verses.
Romans 3, I want to begin reading in verse 21. The Apostle Paul, as he is writing,
as you well know, his magnum opus, his greatest writing. He wrote 13 epistles, but this
one towers over them all. There are 21 epistles in the
New Testament. This one is always listed first
in every Bible in this worship center today. It was not the
first epistle to be written. It was the seventh epistle to
be written. yet it always occupies the lead
place in the order of the books in the New Testament because
it rises like Mount Everest that towers over, I think, the rest
of Scripture as the most important book in the Bible. And we come
now to this section that many regard as the high point of the
entire book of Romans. If you are to understand any
portion of the book of Romans, you must understand this. So
beginning in verse 21, Paul writes, But now, apart from the law,
the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed
by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God
through faith in Christ Jesus For all those who believe, for
there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through
the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly
as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate
His righteousness. because in the forbearance of
God, He passed over all the sins previously committed for the
demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present
time so that He, God the Father, would be just and the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus. In these verses, we see what
I have already said. what many regard as the most
important passage, not just in the book of Romans, but in the
entire Bible. No less than Martin Lloyd-Jones
himself, the premier expositor of the 20th century, believed
that these verses are the most important verses in the entire
Bible, that they tower over even John 3, 16. and that when Lloyd-Jones
came to edit his now famous series on Romans, he did not begin his
editing and publication with Romans 1 verse 1. He did not
know how long he had to live. And he went straight to this
very text and he began his commentary series of Romans with Romans
3 verses 21 to 26 because that was of greatest importance to
Lloyd-Jones. To understand this is to understand
the gospel. Martin Luther, the great German
reformer, said much the same as he called this paragraph that
I just read, he called it, quote, the chief point and central place
of the entire epistle of Romans, and then he added, and of the
entire Bible, close quote. because this text focuses on
what Luther believed was the heart of the gospel, which is
justification by faith alone. Luther called this truth of justification
from this text, quote, the article by which the church stands or
falls. Without this truth, we have no
church, close quote. Everything in the Bible is inspired,
inerrant, infallible, authoritative, invincible, eternal. But some
portions of Scripture are far more important than other portions
of Scripture. And nonetheless, then, Martin
Lloyd-Jones and Martin Luther believed that this text rises
like Mount Everest over the terrain of Scripture. Luther said, quote,
when the article of justification has fallen, everything has fallen. You don't have to be a Christian
to believe in the doctrine of election. You don't have to be
a Christian in order to believe effectual calling. But you do
have to believe in justification by faith in order to be in the
kingdom of God. It is that essential. This is
not a matter of peripheral importance, but of primary importance. Luther went on to say, this is
the chief article from which all other doctrines have flowed. This doctrine of justification
by faith is the head and the cornerstone. In other words,
every other doctrine must be brought into alignment with this
doctrine. Luther went on to say, justification
alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and defends the church
of God. Without it, the church of God
cannot exist for one hour. Justification is the master. It is the Prince. It is the Lord. It is the ruler, the judge over
all other doctrines. Whoever departs from this doctrine
of justification does not know God. Without this doctrine, the
world is in utter death and darkness. So we cannot be wrong about justification
by faith and be right with God. To be wrong about this doctrine
is to be wrong with God. And so what is this doctrine
of justification by faith? Why is it so essential? What
this doctrine says is that though you and I are sinful beings who
have fallen short of the glory of God, that if we will put our
faith in Jesus Christ, God the Father will declare us to be
righteous before Him on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus
Christ. It means to be given a favorable
verdict in the courts of heaven. It is the very opposite of being
condemned. To be justified by faith means
there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Justification is related to the
concept of God as judge of all the earth. How can God, who is
perfectly holy, receive sinful creatures into His presence? The answer is justification by
faith alone. The key word in this text, verses
21 to 26, is the word righteousness. It is found four times. It stands
out in this cluster of verses. You will find righteousness in
verse 21, Verse 22, verse 25, and verse 26. It is the same
root word that is found in justified in verse 24, just in verse 26,
and justifier in verse 26. That's a total of seven times
in these few verses. And the word righteousness conveys
the idea of conformity to a standard. to be justified is to be declared
righteous by God, whereby you now meet the standard that God
requires for admission into His kingdom. Though it is not of
our working, it is entirely of God's grace in His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. So what we are talking about
here is matters of the gospel of Jesus Christ. John Calvin
said, it's the very hinge on which all religion turns, this
very doctrine. So, I want us to walk through
this passage in the time that we have this evening, and I want
to give you several headings concerning the righteousness
of God. Number one, it is apart from
works. That's where Paul begins. In
verse 21, Paul begins his positive presentation of the gospel by
setting forth that the righteousness of God comes to us apart from
works. He begins in verse 21, he says,
but now. And that signals an abrupt change
from everything that has preceded. Starting in chapter 1 verse 18,
he said, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men who suppress the truth
in unrighteousness. And it continues all the way
through chapter 3 verse 20. It is the quintessential presentation
of the radical corruption and total depravity of the entire
human race. And Paul has put the entire human
race under sin and under the wrath of God this very moment. It is in the present tense, for
the wrath of God is revealed presently, right now. It is resting
upon this entire world. Everyone outside of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so when he says in verse
21, There's almost a sigh of relief.
It's as if there is a ray of gospel light that now shines
into the darkness of the human race condemned by the law of
God. But now, apart from the law,
the righteousness of God has been manifested. When he says
apart from the law, he means apart from keeping the law, apart
from obeying the law, apart from doing the law, apart from striving
to comply with the law. He starts with a negative denial.
And there's a certain jolting impact about beginning with a
negative denial before he comes to the positive assertion. So
he's saying, this is how someone is not made right before God. He says, apart from the law,
verse 21, the righteousness of God has been manifested. And when he says the righteousness
of God, he is talking about the righteousness that every one
of us in this room desperately needs in order to be acquitted
of our sins and to be presented faultless before the throne of
God. This righteousness of God is
the righteousness that comes from God. God is the source. God is the giver. God is the
provider of this righteousness that every one of us in this
room so desperately need. In other words, we cannot work
it up from within. It is an out-of-this-world righteousness. It is a righteousness that Martin
Luther referred to as a foreign righteousness, as an alien righteousness,
meaning it must come from another land. It is a righteousness that
is derived from another world. It is a righteousness that only
God can give. It is a righteousness that must
come down from the throne of God above. This righteousness
is God's saving righteousness. It is His justifying righteousness. It is His imputed righteousness. It is His saving activity to
give to us what we desperately need, which is to give to us
the righteousness that He requires. And the message of the gospel
is, What God requires, God gives to us. No amount of law keeping
can cause God to impute His righteousness to sinners. No amount of worshiping
God, Sabbath keeping, Honoring parents, preserving life, working
hard, truth-telling, heart contentment can cause God to reward the sinner
with perfect righteousness. Salvation is not a reward for
the righteous, it is a gift for the guilty. It must come from
God. And Martin Luther himself came
to this very point where he finally realized, after 15 years of almost
killing himself, trying to meet the standards that are in the
law, finally came to the realization that no matter how hard he tried
to gain this acceptance with God, he could not do it. Listen to Luther's testimony.
When I was a monk, I wearied myself greatly for almost 15
years with daily sacrifice Torturing myself with fastings, vigils,
prayers, other very rigorous works, I earnestly thought to
acquire righteousness by my own works. I tortured myself. with prayer, fasting, freezing. The frost alone might have killed
me. He would sleep outside in the
frost and in the cold to show God how earnest he was and how
sincere he was to try to meet the standard of God's law. He said, if ever a monk got to
heaven by his monkery, it was I. But even Luther, who virtually
killed himself trying, could not attain to the righteousness
of God. The term righteous, righteousness,
it comes from a word of the marketplace. A woman would go into the marketplace,
and she would want to buy a measure of grain. And she would go to
the to the businessman. And she would say, I want a measure
of grain. He would pull out the scales.
There would be two dishes on the scales. And he would pour
a measure of grain into one dish, and he would put the rock on
the other dish. And the rock was the standard.
And he would pour grain onto the other dish until they were
said to be perfectly even, and when they were perfectly even,
they were righteous." And so the gospel says that we
are weighed in the balances. And on one side in the dish is
the perfect holiness of God. flawless, sinless, transcendent,
impeccable. And on the other dish is poured
your life and my life. And we have all been weighed
in the balances and there is no righteousness that we can
provide to this side of the dish to bring us equal to God's standard
of Himself, of His own holiness. We have all sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God, as verse 23 says. And the only way
for these scales to be perfectly righteous on this dish is the
flawless, peccable, infallible holiness of God. God is light
and in Him there is no darkness at all. And on this side, There
has only been one who has ever lived a sinless and perfect life.
There has only been one who has met all the standards of God's
moral law. There's only been one who has
been fully obedient to God. And through his one act of obedience,
he's made the many to be righteous. Jesus Christ, who is God in human
flesh, He has been put on this side of the scales, and God's
holiness is on the other side of the scales, and they are perfectly
righteous. And when we put our faith in
Jesus Christ, God declares us to be righteous. But it'll never happen by our
good works. It'll never happen by our morality. It will never happen by our religiosity. Isaiah 64 verse 6 says, All of
our righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight of God. The best that we bring to the
table, the best that we can offer God. That word is used of the
woman's menstrual rags. is loathsome in the eyes of holy
God. So Paul begins unfolding the
doctrine of justification by faith. And is it not interesting
that his whole presentation of the gospel begins with justification
by faith. As he comes out of the doctrine
of total depravity and radical corruption, he pivots even now
and he makes a beeline to the doctrine of justification by
faith. So number one, it is apart from
works. Number two, this righteousness
of God that we so desperately need. Number two, it was attested
long ago. It was attested long ago. He goes on to say in verse 21,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets. And what Paul is
wanting the church in Rome to be fully established in, this
fact that the doctrine of justification by faith is not a new doctrine. It's not, if you will, a novelty
that has come onto the scene in the first century. that this
doctrine is rooted and grounded in the Law and the Prophets.
And when he says the Law and the Prophets, that is a shorthand
for the 39 books of the Old Testament, the entire Old Testament. And
what this is telling us is that there is only one way to be made
right before God. Whether you lived in Old Testament
times, or whether you live in New Testament times, there was
not one way to be made right with God in the Old Testament,
and now a different way to be made right with God in the New
Testament, that there is a perfect continuity from the Old Testament
to the New Testament in the doctrine of salvation that anytime, anywhere,
anyone has ever been saved, it has been by grace alone, through
faith alone, in Christ alone. And in the Old Testament, they
simply looked ahead to the first coming of Christ, and we now
look back to the first coming of Christ. We're not saved by
looking for the second coming of Christ. We are saved by looking
back at the first coming of Christ. Anyone, anytime, anywhere who
has ever been made right with God, it has been by grace alone,
through faith alone, in Christ alone. This doctrine was attested
in the Old Testament. Genesis 15 verse 6, Abraham believed
in the Lord and he, God, reckoned it to him as righteousness. And then Isaiah 53 verse 11, The righteous one, my servant,
referring to the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, will justify
the many as He will bear their iniquities. And what is so interesting
to me in the book of Romans is that as Paul makes his case for
justification by faith alone, and he looks for people who have
been justified, he doesn't look to the example of Matthew and
his conversion. He doesn't look to Mark or to
Luke or to John to his conversion. He doesn't even look to his own
conversion. He looks to Abraham and he looks
to David to make the case for how someone is made right before
God. And by the very examples that
he uses, he is showing us the perfect continuity from the Old
Testament to the New Testament, which speaks to the singularity
of the gospel. It speaks to the exclusivity
of the gospel, that there is salvation in no other name. For
there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby
we must be saved." That there is one God and one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for
all, the testimony born at the proper time. So, it was attested
long ago. This is not a new truth that
has just more recently come onto the scene in New Testament times. It is God Himself who was the
first gospel preacher. In Genesis 3 and verse 15, the
Proto-Ewangelion, the first mention of the gospel, it was God Himself
in the garden who took the pulpit and who preached to Adam and
to Eve and to the serpent and declared this message of salvation. So, number one, it's apart from
works. Number two, it was attested long
ago. Number three, It is acquired
by faith. And we've already alluded to
this, but as we come to verse 22, he begins, even the righteousness
of God. You see that? That repeats what
he said in the previous verse, in verse 21, as to underscore
the emphasis that he's making here. This is all about the righteousness
of God. This is all about God's gift
of righteousness being given to sinners who have no righteousness
of their own. So he begins, even the righteousness
of God, he says, through faith in Jesus Christ. So this righteousness is credited
to our account. This righteousness is imputed
to us. This righteousness clothes us
as a result of our faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith means our trust
in Christ and Christ alone. It means our reliance upon Christ
and Christ alone. It means the commitment of my
life to Jesus Christ. It involves repentance and turning
away from sin. It involves saving faith and
embracing the Lord Jesus Christ. And this righteousness of God
comes to us through faith in Christ alone. This righteousness
is that which we have already said, which comes down from above. And we need to understand this.
Faith is no better than the object of faith. A drowning man who
lays hold of something that will not float, he will drown. It is not really faith that saves.
It is the object of our faith that saves. Jesus Christ is our
Savior. And then he says at the end of
verse 22, for there is no distinction. And when he says, there is no
distinction, what he is saying is, there is no other way for
you to have this righteousness. There is no other line for you
to get in. There is no other way for you
to have it. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter
what you are. It doesn't matter where you are.
It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Gentile. It doesn't matter
if you lived in Old Testament times or New Testament times.
It doesn't matter if you're circumcised or not circumcised, nor if you're
a Greek or a barbarian, or if you're wise or foolish, if you're
male or female, slave or master, young or old. It doesn't matter
who you are. It doesn't matter what your past.
It doesn't matter where you've come from. All that matters is
faith in Jesus Christ. And then he follows that up in
verse 23. Notice verse 23 begins with the
word for, which introduces an explanation. An explanation of
what? An explanation of what he just
said. So, for there is no distinction He now clarifies with this explanation,
this is what I mean. And in verse 23, for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is not a
human being on planet earth who does not need this righteousness
and it may only be received by faith in Christ alone. When he
says, for all, that means every person of every race and every
place. Have sinned. It's a verb tense,
it's an aorist tense, translated as a past tense, meaning that
your entire past, you've blown it! Your whole life! I mean, you came out of your
mother's womb speaking lies! And then he shifts the verb tense
and says, and fall short, that's in the present tense. And so
what he is saying is, every person on planet earth, you have sinned
your entire life up to this point, and you now continue to sin every
moment of every day, or certainly every day, you fall short of
the glory of God. That's what's put on this side
of the scales. the glory of God. You and I have been measured
by the glory of God. We're not measured by or against
the average morality of the American citizen. We're not measured by
our self-estimation. We're not measured by what our
mother thought of us. What's on this side of the scales
is the glory of God. The intrinsic glory of God is
the sum and the substance of all of the holiness of God, and
all of the perfect being of God, and all of the essence of God. We're measured against God. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 48,
you shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. That's
the standard. Moses wrote in Leviticus 11,
44 and 45, you shall be holy as your heavenly Father, or as
God is holy. And Peter quotes that in 1 Peter
1, verse 15, just to remind us that wasn't just Old Testament
truth. That same standard remains on
the scales. We are measured against the glory
of God. And we have all sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God. But if we will by faith look
away from ourselves and look to Christ, and by faith embrace
Christ and trust Christ with a living faith, then God will
transfer the righteousness that Jesus Christ secured to us. That will be put on this side
of the scales, and the scales will be perfectly righteous,
though we have never lived perfect one moment of our entire life. Though we be sinful, God now
sees us as perfectly just, or perfectly holy and righteous
before Him. Now Paul continues to build this
out. And we come now to verse 24. And what I want you to see
is that this righteousness that is acquired by faith, In verse
24, I want you to see that it is appropriated by grace. It
is appropriated by grace. And he begins verse 24 with these
two words, being justified. The first time in the book of
Romans that the word justified is used in a positive way, concerning
our salvation. It was used earlier of God Himself,
whose words are justified. And it is used of those who try
to be self-righteous and justify themselves. But this is the first
time that justified is used in the book of Romans in a salvific
way, in a positive way. And what I want you to know about
this word is, you know, we could parse this, present tense, passive
voice, it's a participle, nominative case. All we need to know at
this point, it's in the passive voice. We don't justify ourselves. We can't pull ourselves up by
our own bootstraps to heaven. That someone else must act upon
us. Someone else must bring the gavel
down. Someone else must justify us. And of course we know who that
one is. It is God the Father. And He says, being justified
as a gift by His grace. As a gift means it's not earned
as wages. It's not merited like a salary. But it is freely bestowed as
a gift to those who do nothing to earn it, who do nothing to
merit it, who have done nothing to deserve it, God simply chooses
to bestow it on all those who lay hold of Christ by faith. And then to doubly underscore
this, He adds, by His grace. Which is almost redundant. Meaning,
as a gift, the word gift here means grace. And then by His
grace, just to pile up the idea of grace upon grace. Justification
is entirely an act. of God's grace. It is God and
God alone who justifies. It is 100% God. It is 0% man. God is the judge, and He alone
has the gavel, and He alone can bring it down and declare one
to be righteous. The Bible uses three different
metaphors to communicate this divine act. In justification,
there is what we call the double exchange. All of my sins laid
upon Christ at the cross. All of His righteousness laid
upon me. The great transfer. The worst
about me, given to Christ. The best about Christ, given
to me. And you, when we believe in His
Son, Jesus Christ. It's the great exchange. Now,
there's three different metaphors the Bible uses. One is legal,
one is financial, and one is clothing. With the legal, Imagery. We stand in the courtroom of
heaven, the supreme court of heaven and earth. We stand before
the judgment bar. God is behind the judgment bar. The books are opened. And every
sin that you and I have ever committed in the history of our
life, past, present, future, is all recorded in this book.
God has been keeping impeccable records. Sins of omission, sins
of commission, sins of doing what we should not have done,
sins of failing to do what we should have done, sins of mind,
sins of heart, sins of mouth, sins of hands, sins of every
part of our body. It's all in the books. and the charge is brought against
us. We stand condemned. And the curse of the law is death,
eternal death, the second death. And standing next to us is our
Advocate, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of
my faith in Jesus Christ, God the Father takes His righteousness
and declares it to be mine. Though I have never lived one
moment perfectly righteous, nevertheless, I am forensically, legally declared
in the court of heaven that there is now therefore no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. And you and I have mountains
and mountains and mountains of sin. The books of life would
be multiple volume for each and every one of us. And God declares
us to be as righteous as though we have never committed one of
those sins. That's the legal metaphor. Then
there is the financial metaphor or the banking metaphor that
is used in chapter 4 with David. We stand before God who opens the books and He sees
that we have all sinned and that the wages of sin is death. He
sees into our account that we have no spiritual capital whatsoever. That we are spiritually bankrupt.
We have nothing to pay off our debt to God. And we are spiraling
down further and further and further into debt every moment
of every day with an insurmountable obligation and debt to God under
the law that we could never pay off in a thousand, million, trillion
eternities. And standing next to us is the
Lord Jesus Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of righteousness. And we believe in Jesus Christ. And in a moment, God transfers
all of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. He transfers
it to our account. It's like His riches and our
deposits live. And it's just all deposited into
our account. And in a moment, we go from rags
to riches. And we now have the riches of
His righteousness deposited in our account. It hasn't just brought
us back up to zero. That's all forgiveness of sin. This goes way beyond forgiveness
of sin. This goes way beyond just wiping
out the debt. This now adds the treasures of
heaven to our account. And we now are accepted before
God. We were spiritual paupers. We
had nothing to offer God. We had no way to pay off the
debt. And yet Christ stepped in and with His righteousness
has made us now joint heirs with Him. Then there's the third metaphor
that the Bible uses for justification. It is the metaphor of clothing.
Of the merchant who sells clothing. And again, we stand before God. And we are clothed with the rags
of our own self-righteousness. They're filthy. They are loathsome. They are foul. They reek to the
heights of heaven. They are spiritual lepers. And we stand before God in all
of our filth and depravity. And standing next to us is the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we put our faith and our
trust in Christ And Christ takes His perfect righteousness and
He clothes us from the top of our head to the bottom of our
feet, every inch and every ounce of us, loathsome on the inside,
clothed on the outside. And as God looks upon us, not
only does He wash away all of our sin and our spiritual leprosy,
Come, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they be
red like crimson, they shall be white as wool. Not only does
He wipe it all away and wash it all away, if we confess our
sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But that still leaves us naked.
All that does is remove the filthy rags. All that does is just wash
us clean. But this just brings us back
to point zero. And zeros don't go to heaven. God takes the clothing, the royal
garments of the righteousness of Christ, and He clothes us. from the top of our head to the
bottom of our feet. And as we are now presented before
God, all He can see is the perfect righteousness of Christ. Our sins have been removed from
us as far as the East is from the West. You can measure the
North Pole from the South Pole. You can't measure the East from
the West. It's immeasurable. He has taken all of our sins
and placed them behind His back. He remembers them no more. He
has taken all of our sins and buried them in the sea of His
forgetfulness, never to be seen again in the depths of the sea. And He has clothed us with the
perfect righteousness of Christ so that now when God looks upon
us, He sees the righteousness of Christ and we are received
and we are welcomed. And we are accepted in His sight, legal, financial, clothing. All three of those communicate
the same truth, but from a different angle. Now, what about this act
of justification by God? I want to give you some words
here. This is like a footnote, but it's very important. I want
to give you ten words to help us understand this righteousness
of God that has been declared now to be our possession. Number one, it's divine. It's
a divine declaration. God and God alone can declare
the sinner to be righteous. In Romans 8 and verse 33, who
will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns?
It doesn't matter what anyone else says. It doesn't matter
what the devil says. It doesn't matter what you may
say about yourself. You're not the judge. It's not
your courtroom. There's only one Supreme Court
of heaven and earth. And there's only one behind that
judgment bar. And it is God. And His gavel
has come down. And that's all that matters.
God is the one who is justified. Second, the word forensic. Imputing of the righteousness
of God is a legal declaration in the courtroom of heaven. And
that is exactly what that verse that I just read tells us. Who
will bring a charge against God's elect? The courtroom scene. God
is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns?
Third, the word immediate. This takes place in a moment.
In the twinkling of an eye. This takes place instantly. This
takes place immediately. You can come to church condemned,
sit in a pew, hear the gospel, believe in Jesus Christ, and
be instantly, immediately justified before the service is even over.
Fourth is the word complete. It is a full, complete, Justification. Everyone is fully justified under
the law of God. No one here today is more justified
than anyone else. We're all at different places
in sanctification, and some are more practically, progressively
sanctified than others here today. But for justification, we all,
the ground at the foot of the cross is level. We all stand
equally justified before God. There is now therefore no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. Number five is the word present,
meaning it happens presently in this lifetime. There's some
bad teaching out there that says on the last day, After God examines
the books, there will be a determination to see if you're justified or
not. That is heretical. The moment
you believe in Jesus Christ, that split second, it is as if
there is a lightning bolt out of heaven that comes striking
down, and you are instantly, suddenly, in the twinkling of
an eye, you are immediately justified. You're not waiting to be justified
on the last day. If you're not justified now,
you'll never be justified on the last day. It's now or never. That's why he says in Romans
8 verse 1, Therefore now, being justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Or Romans 5 verse 1.
Number six, the word reversal. Justification is a total reversal
of your status and your standing before God. Before justification,
you were condemned. The rope was around your neck.
The sentence had already been issued. You were in a death march
to your grave. You were under the curse of the
law. You were under the wrath of God.
You were an enemy of God. You were alienated from God. And the moment you believed,
it was a total reversal of your standing and your status before
God. And you went from being condemned
to no condemnation. It's extraordinary. Seventh undeserved. It is all by grace. None of us
deserve to be justified. We're all lawbreakers. We have
all shattered the law of God. We have all been weighed in the
balances. But God gives justification. He declares justification to
those who are the least deserving. Even Paul. who was the chief
of sinners. It magnifies the grace and the
glory and the greatness of God to reach to the bottom of the
barrel and to declare righteous those who are the furthest away
from Him. Eighth, the word free. It's all
apart from works. We've already discussed this.
There's nothing you can do except believe upon His Son, Jesus Christ. Ninth, it's vicarious. It is based upon the righteousness
of another. Oh, you are saved by works, just
not your works. By the works of another. who
lived in your place, who died in your place, who lived a sinless
and perfect life, who died a sin-bearing, wrath-absorbing, substitutionary
death upon the cross. His finished works are what is
given to you. And then tenth is the word, and
I love this word, irrevocable. Irrevocable. Never to be reversed. Never to be rescinded. Never
to be taken off the books and put back into our former status. Once justified, always justified. There will never be a reversal
of justification by faith. And so, Paul He chooses to build
His case for the one true saving gospel of Jesus Christ on the
anchor point, on the linchpin of justification by faith. I believe in all of these other
doctrines. I'm an eight-point Calvinist,
okay? I mean, five are not enough for me, okay? I'm all in. I'm all in. But there are Calvinists
in hell. And there are Arminians in heaven. But there's no one in heaven
who's not been justified by faith. And everyone in hell is there
because of condemnation and wrath that has justly fallen upon them. Well, the last thing I want you
to see, and I need to wrap this up, is in the middle of verse 24,
and I just need to cover this very quickly. Number five, this
righteousness that is given to us. Number five, it is achieved
by Christ. It is achieved by Christ. This
righteousness that is imputed to you. This righteousness that
is deposited into your account, this righteousness with which
God clothes you, is not an abstract righteousness. It is a righteousness that was
actually achieved and accomplished and secured in real time in real
redemptive history, when Jesus Christ humbled Himself and came
into this world and lived among us a sinless and perfect life. Galatians 4 verse 4 says that
He was born of a woman under the law, under the demands of
the very law He Himself issued. And by living under the law,
He kept the law perfectly at every point, the law that you
have broken, I have broken, times so many we couldn't even begin
to count how many times we have broken the law of God, and only
just one sin would condemn us to hell forever. Just one sin. Adam's sin, just one time, and
the whole human race was condemned. That's how holy God is and that's
how much He loves sin and cannot coexist with sin. Habakkuk 1
verse 13, Your eyes are too pure than to behold iniquity. So where
did this righteousness come from? It is the righteousness that
Jesus Christ achieved on our behalf. in His sinless life and
His substitutionary death upon the cross. And that is what Paul
will spell out. And I have just time to read
this and make a few passing comments. But in the middle of verse 24, through the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus, Let me pick it up. Yeah, through
the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Understand this. It's
all in Christ Jesus. There's not a drop of righteousness
outside of Christ for you to have. There's not a drop of redemption
for you to have outside of Christ. It's all in Christ. And if you have Christ by faith,
you have His righteousness and you have the redemption that
He accomplished on the cross to pay the price for the penalty
of your sin and to secure your release from the slave market
of sin and Satan. But it's all in Christ Jesus. Every other religion in the world
has no righteousness from God. Every cult has no righteousness
from God in Christ. Every false gospel has no righteousness
whatsoever to give to the sinner. There is only one mediator between
God at the judgment bar and the sinner in his guilt and sin,
and that one mediator is Jesus Christ. He is the only one who
can act on our behalf and represent us before God and have the charges
reversed on our behalf. So he says, the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly It was a spectacle
before the whole world. Thousands and thousands were
pouring into Jerusalem. And He was crucified on Calvary,
right there next to the main artery going into town, before
the thousands who were coming for the religious holiday. God
put His Son on that cross. and displayed Him publicly as
a propitiation in His blood through faith. Propitiation means that
God, the wrath and the anger and the fury and the vengeance
of God towards sinners, has been fully satisfied in the substitutionary
death of Jesus Christ. that when Christ died upon the
cross, He placated the wrath of God. There is now therefore
no wrath of God to fall upon you. Christ took it all to Himself. The physical death that Christ
died was nothing compared to the torment of His soul upon
the cross as He bore our sins and came under the heavy hand
of the crushing judgment of God upon His own Son. Christ suffered
in our place. This was to demonstrate His righteousness. It was a public presentation
of the righteousness that was being secured and accomplished
for us. And it's recorded not just in
Matthew, but in Mark, and in Luke, and in John. You can't
miss it. It's the golden thread, the red
thread of redemption that runs all through the entire Bible.
Because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins
previously committed. What that means is those who
looked ahead to the coming of Christ in the Old Testament,
when they put their faith in Christ, remember Abraham, Jesus
said, looked forward to his day and was glad when he saw it.
That God passed over their sins in the Old Testament based upon
their faith in the coming Messiah. The suffering servant of Jehovah.
for the demonstration, verse 26, I say, of His righteousness
at the present time so that He would be just and a justifier
of the one who has faith in Christ. To be just means that God punishes
sin. Now just listen to this. in the history of the world will
be punished in full. Not one half of one sin will
go unpunished by holy God because He is just. Every sin will be
punished either in hell in tormented, damned sinners or it will be punished in Christ
upon the cross. But no sin will be swept under
the carpet. God will not look the other way
because of any sin. Either punished in hell or punished
in Christ. But every sin will be punished.
God is just. the justifier. And there is the
good news of the gospel. Not only does God punish sin,
but God also pardons sin. And those who put their faith
and their trust in Jesus Christ alone have their sins forgiven in full,
pardoned in full, our certificate of debt, which listed every crime
of cosmic treason that we have ever committed against God, has
been nailed to the cross, and the just punishment for every
one of those sins, Hebrews 2.2 says, every sin shall receive
a just punishment, was nailed to the cross. And when Jesus died, He canceled
out your certificate of debt. Just tore it up. And there are
no more charges ever, ever, to be brought against you or me
who have believed in Jesus Christ. This is the mystery of the ages.
how God could be both just and punish every sin and be the justifier. And it is found in the gospel
and it is found in the doctrine of justification by faith alone,
sola fide. So have you ever seen yourself
standing before the judgment bar of God? Can you imagine what
it would be like to have the books opened? your childhood,
your teenage years, your college years, your single years, your
married life, the whole account, your business life, and there
is the record. And there it stands. You have no hope in yourself. to escape the judgment, except
God has sent His Son into this world, born of a woman under
the law, went to the cross, lifted up to die in the place of sinners,
bore our sins in His body upon the tree. 1 Peter 2 verse 24. And there He secured the righteousness
that you have to have. And in that last day of judgment,
the scales will be brought out and the holiness of God, the
glory of God will be put on one side. And if it's only your life
on the other side, depart from Me, you who work iniquity. I
never knew you. But if you have believed in Christ,
His righteousness is placed on that scale, and it's in perfect
conformity to the holiness of God. And the smile of God will
be upon you, and you will be admitted into His presence forever
and ever and ever. This is the doctrine of justification
by faith alone. Let us pray. Father in heaven, eye has not seen or ear heard, never
has it entered into the heart of man, the profundity and the
simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the height, the depth,
the breadth, the of this saving message and its power to save
and its power to justify. Lord, we need the righteousness
that only You can give. And Lord, I pray that everyone
here today has put their faith in Christ and have received this
righteousness. And for any who have yet not
come to Christ, May they flee to Christ this very moment before
it is too late. Open their eyes that they may
see the beauty of Christ and His gift of righteousness. In
Jesus' name, amen.