Romans chapter 8 and verse 28. 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. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 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? Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Perhaps you are of the opinion,
as many seem to be, that there is no God, that there's no afterlife,
and when you die, it's nothing, just annihilation, just the end. Perhaps you assume this life
is all there is, nothing lies beyond the grave, so that all
you've ever done or said or thought is ultimately pointless and meaningless. If that is what you believe,
then you'll have little interest in the subject that we are going
to speak about today. But before you go, let me ask
you, this opinion of yours, this conviction that you have, are
you sufficiently sure about it as to wager your soul on it? Are you so confident that you're
right that you won't even consider that the price of being wrong
is eternal punishment and separation from God in hell? Is it just possible that it might
be worth hearing me out today? One of the earliest questions
ever recorded in scripture was a philosophical inquiry concerning
man's relationship with God. It was made by Job, a wise, prosperous
man who lived to see all that he'd built, all that he'd worked
for and gained of this world's goods taken from him. even down to his wife and his
family and his health. As he reflected on the bitterness
of his state and the meaning of life, Job asked the question,
how should man be just with God? How can man be right with God? How can God and man have an equitable relationship? His question assumes three things. First, that there is a God to
whom we are answerable. Second, that God requires holiness
of life, which we don't have. And thirdly, it's worth inquiring
if there is a way to peace with God. It's worth inquiring if
there's a way to peace with God. Now, it's not my intention to,
as it were, address these questions today and try and give you an
answer. I'm not going to try to prove
to you today that there is a God. Personally, I believe everything
in the world around us and all we know about our own heart and
nature cries out that there is a God. a God who gives sense
and meaning to this life and who demands accountability from
us. Nor am I going to try to prove
the holiness of this God and the righteousness of this God,
the rightness of everything that he does. The book of Leviticus in the
Old Testament, one of the books of Moses, tells us, I, the Lord
your God, am holy. Sanctify yourselves, therefore,
and be ye holy, for I am the Lord your God. I the Lord your
God am holy. Sanctify yourselves therefore
and be ye holy for I am the Lord your God. And with that we return to Job's
question. How should a man be just with
God? How can we be right with God? How can we be righteous before
God? How can we find peace with him?
How can we have a relationship with him that was lost in the
Garden of Eden when man sinned and fell? What we shall consider today
is that Job's God has supplied the answer to his servant's question. God answered the question that
Job posed himself. that God has revealed the means
by which men and women, boys and girls, those sinners, can
and will be made just with God. And this word justification,
well, the clue is in the word. It is God justifying. It is God making men and women
just, righteous, and holy with a righteousness and a holiness
that is acceptable to him. This work of justification is
a work so great, so grand, so glorious, it could
have been conceived only by God and performed only by God. It is a work of mercy where God
makes his people righteous by taking their sin and laying it,
their sin, on a substitute and giving them a divine righteousness
in the place of their sinfulness. God declaring them holy and acceptable
in his sight This is the gospel of free grace. and it is this
divine justification that we are going to speak about today. The Apostle Paul, in setting
forth this list of the great works of the sovereign God for
the salvation of his people, the great means by which all
things work together for good to those who love God, how even
the very God himself in his triune persons are working together
for the good of the people that God loves, has as a stage and
step in that process, the making righteous and the justifying
of those who were fallen and sinful. So our thoughts today
relate to being justified by God. And we're going to think
about the nature of our justification by grace. We're going to think
about the righteous standing given to all who are joined to
Christ in the covenant of grace, because that's what we're talking
about. And we're going to think about that liberty and the comfort
and the joy that this gospel brings to men and women who look
away from themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ for all their righteousness
and acceptance with God. So the first of these thoughts
then is to do with the nature of our justification by grace. What is it? What is this talking
about? Well, as we've mentioned, justification
is God making and declaring his people to be righteous in his
sight. It's a part, it's a key stage
in the salvation of those sinners that God loved before time, that
he chose to salvation in eternal election, and that he predestinated
to be conformed to the image of his son. This is the step
by step, the stages that we have been reading over the past few
weeks in these verses in Romans chapter 8. that God foreknew
a people, that God called that people, that he set them apart
and sanctified them in the Lord Jesus Christ under the terms
of the covenant of grace, that he elected and chose that people,
predestinating them to be holy and righteous, to be conformed
to the image of Christ, that Christ might be the firstborn
amongst many brethren. And this great work required
that God should make his people acceptable to him, fit for his
presence, right with God, justified. And this is what Paul is teaching
us today. God had a people that he chose
in eternity and it should not come as a surprise that having
prepared that people, having chosen, having love chosen, set
them apart, predestinated them to be conformed, that God must
also execute and secure the very thing that he has purposed and
promised. And this, we're told, he did
before time began. The eternal Lord God formed this
covenant of grace and peace. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit in council together, agreeing upon the terms
of the work of salvation, committing into the hands and responsibility
of each certain responsibilities and duties to be conducted and
carried out. The Lord Jesus Christ was set
up as the minister of that covenant and committed into his care were
all those whom God the Father had chosen in love and Christ
was given the responsibility of preserving, protecting and
redeeming and delivering and saving by the shedding of his
own blood those that had been committed into his hands. were
called, they were set apart from the rest of humanity and they
were united to Christ within this covenant purpose. Christ
was set up in eternity as their surety, as their substitute from
the creation of the world. He was as the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. In God's covenant, he laid all
the sins of all the elect to the account of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. And simultaneously, he set his
own righteousness to the account of his chosen people. God purposed
his Son to be sin for us. He predestinated that this would
be the means by which his people would be conformed to the image
of Christ. He would have us made righteous,
be given the righteousness of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible calls that imputation. The word put in the middle of
imputation or impute shows us that it was God setting the sins
of his people to the account of Christ and the righteousness
of Christ to the account of his people. And Paul tells us in
these verses that this is the act of sovereign grace and mercy
before time began. Before even men and women existed
or the world was formed, God imputed the elect's sin to Christ
and the covenant of grace, making him responsible for their sin
and imputed Christ's righteousness to his people, thereby viewing
them in Christ as holy and unblameable before him in love. And Paul tells us here, it is
God who justifies sinners. We do not justify ourselves. Those people who say that God
looked forward into time to see who would believe in him and
who would not, who would be obedient to the call and who would not,
who would serve him properly and who would not, and therefore
he justified them on that basis, would have to contend with this
verse before us. Whom he called, them he also
justified. Paul's language is clear. Justification
is the work of God, not the work of man. It is a decree of God. It is a binding and alterable
purpose on the part of God to act and to accomplish his will
of making the people he loved holy in Jesus Christ. So that this design, this purpose,
this plan of salvation does not depend upon the contribution
of the sinner. It does not depend on God and
man working together to achieve the desired end. It doesn't depend
on the works or the worthiness or even the faith of the sinner. It is the work of Christ that
brings righteousness to bear upon the people of God's choice. The justified are given the free
gift of grace. Paul says we are justified freely. That is, we are justified unconditionally
by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now, I mentioned in yesterday's
little introduction that justification is sometimes distinguished as
active justification and passive justification. These are artificial
constructions, but they have the usefulness in that they help
us to understand how justification works. So that active justification
and passive justification, these terms can help to explain the
distinction between the part of justification that was effected
by God in eternity within the covenant of grace and the part
that is applied by God in time to his people. Active justification is used
to mean God's will in himself declaring his people righteous
upon the merits of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, their surety
and their substitute. It is an act of God. Sometimes
people used to say that that was an imminent act. It was an
act that God himself did, an imminent act. A divine act of
God, if you like. an act which renders his people
holy in his sight. So that if God says, I consider
you holy, I regard you as holy, no one can say that's wrong because
God has declared it to be so. And God, in the covenant of grace,
set his mercy upon the people that he loved, and he called
them righteous and holy in Christ. Passive justification, then,
is also a work of grace. In it, God applies the benefits
of what was established in eternity, the active justification, he
applies the benefits of active justification in time to the
experience of the believer through faith. When you heard the gospel
and believed, when sinners come under the sound of the gospel,
when God the Holy Spirit quickens our souls and we are converted,
under the preached Word of the Gospel, they receive a knowledge
of sins forgiven. They enjoy peace with God. They understand something of
the significance of reconciliation. That's the good news of the gospel,
that there is a way of escape, that there is a way in which
to answer Job's question, a man and a woman and a boy and a girl
can be just with God, righteous with God. We learn what that
way is. We learn that Jesus Christ is
the way. That he has opened up the door. He is the door. And he brings
us into eternal life with God the Father. He reconciles. He atones. He makes us at one
with God because of his death. And that knowledge. It doesn't
actually do anything as far as the process of justification
is concerned, but it is as the taking of the scales from off
our eyes, so that once we were blind, but now we can see that
we are cleansed by the blood of Christ, that we are justified
by the righteousness of Christ, and that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the source of all our blessedness. And it is that knowledge, the
receipt of that knowledge, which is called passive justification. Learning that our sins are forgiven
and learning to enjoy peace with God. So that this distinction
between active and passive justification helps us to realise that we have
no active contribution in this. and to make us realise that even
our faith, which apprehends and receives and understands, is
a gift, not the cause of justification, but the gift by which our justification
is apprehended. Our faith is the vehicle, the
channel, by which we experience the effects and benefits of God's
justifying work. So that is my first point. That is the nature of our justification
by grace. Let me think with you also about
this condition, this holy state, this righteous standing into
which we have been brought who are joined to Christ in the covenant
of grace. The covenant of grace is called
the everlasting covenant in scripture as well. It's a phrase that's
used repeatedly in scriptures. Isaiah, Jeremiah use it often. It's everlasting because it assures
all the promises of God and it secures all the grace and mercy now, for the church, in time,
and all the glory and happiness that will be our portion hereafter
in eternity. And it is by the person and work
and bloodshedding of the Saviour Jesus Christ. It is Christ who
is active in the accomplishing of the conditions of the covenant
of peace. And it is on this account that
God's people are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
world and it is from all the gifts of grace that God gives
that we receive the benefits. God's elect are made alive by
regeneration. We are quickened by God the Holy
Spirit. We are made willing under the
preaching of the Gospel. We are converted. We are taught
about our peace, our pardon, our acceptance, our atonement,
the holiness that we have in Jesus Christ. And so, in time,
we apprehend all that God has done for us in eternity. and in time we understand that
all God's blessings and all God's goodness will ultimately be fulfilled
in our glory. To the praise of his grace who
hath made us accepted in the beloved. And Paul tells Titus
a young preacher that he taught, he tutored, he groomed, as it
were, for the ministry of the gospel. Paul tells Titus that
the church of Jesus Christ lives in hope of eternal life. Today,
you and I live in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot
lie, promised before the world began. Titus chapter 1 verse
2. That we live today in hope of
eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world
began. He tells Timothy, another young
preacher, of the eternal purpose of God. saying, quote, who had
saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to
our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. It was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. 2 Timothy 1
verse 9. He tells the church at Ephesus,
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love. Now the scriptures are clear
upon this matter. This isn't a matter of philosophical
speculation. This isn't a matter of interpretation.
This isn't up to everyone to make sense of this according
to their own insights and understanding. Scripture is clear. These matters
are uncontestable. God set his people in Christ
before the world began and views us as holy in him. These young preachers, Titus
and Timothy, these young believers in the church at Ephesus, they
were being primed by the old apostle, they were being equipped
under his direction and the power of the Holy Spirit, of course,
to go forth confidently preaching the gospel of a completed salvation. Completed according to the eternal
purpose of God by Christ in time on the cross by which all the
promises of God and the purposes of God came to fulfilment and
fruition. And this truth, this gospel,
it both saves and keeps and comforts because it declares not what
man must do to be saved, but what God has done to save his
people from their sins. And it tells us how blessed and
secure our salvation is. in Christ and in the covenant
of peace. It's not our faith nor our obedience
that makes us righteous before God. It's not our faith nor our
obedience that keeps us. Rather, our faith discovers the
gift of righteousness that comes freely from God. David understood
this. David knew the blessedness of
the man, the happiness of the man, the good state and position
of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.
And the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. This is our state, this is our
condition. God has imputed righteousness
to us irrespective of our works. and God will not impute sin to
us despite our works. This is the great accomplishment
of Christ's substitutionary atonement. In the eternal purpose of the
eternal God, in his eternal covenant of peace towards his church,
our sin was imputed to Christ and Christ's righteousness was
imputed to us. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
time, came in the incarnation, went to the cross willingly,
voluntarily, and gave his life and shed his blood to fulfil
every condition in that covenant of peace and uphold and bring
to pass that which God had purposed and promised. Here's the third thing that I
want to leave with you today. There is liberty, there is comfort,
there is joy in such truths. To bring men and women of faith
who look to Christ, who look to the Lord Jesus Christ for
all their righteousness and all their peace. There is comfort,
joy and liberty in such a look of faith. I want to end on a
practical and a positive note because these gospel truths,
these gospel truths that we are reading about in general here
in this little study or in Romans 8, And in particular here today,
this gospel truth of our justification, this gospel truth of the fact
that we are made right with God, they have real life, everyday
implications for believers like you and me. Yesterday in our
little note, I mentioned how in Luke's gospel, Zacharias understood
and rejoiced in the spiritual and practical consequences for
believers who know all their sins are pardoned and all their
holiness and perfect righteousness is in Christ. Now I trust that
we all know that we are not sinless in this flesh. I hope no one
is confused on this matter. We are not sinless and this is
the body of sin. This fleshy body will never be
anything other than a mass of sin and corruption. No matter what we might do to
it cosmetically and hygienically, it's going in one direction because
it must go the way of all flesh. That is to corruption. I trust
we all know that we are not sinless in this flesh. But I trust that
we equally know that all our sins are pardoned, all our sins
are cleansed, all our sins are removed from our account of guilt
and cancelled and forgiven and forgotten in Christ. That's what the imputation of
our sin to Christ and his death on the cross accomplished. Zacharias,
anticipating the coming of the Messiah at the time of the birth
of the Lord Jesus Christ, he prays that God, listen, that
God would grant unto us that being delivered out of the hand
of our enemies, that is, out of the hand of the devil, out
of the hand of sin, out of the hand of temptation and our own
lusts, that being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, we
might serve him without fear. in holiness and righteousness
before him all the days of our life. That we might take the
eternal accomplishments of God in that active justification
and apply them in the way that we live without fear in holiness
before him all the days of our life. Brothers and sisters, we are
not to live in fear of Satan. We are not to live in fear of
sin or of falling from grace. Our justification is eternally
secure. And having been revealed to us
in the Gospel, it is to be savoured, it is to be enjoyed, it is to
be appreciated. Faith trusts in Christ's accomplishments
and it leads a believer to rest in the Lord Jesus for all our
righteousness and holiness. You cannot become any more holy
or any more righteous by what you do in this body of flesh. You cannot become any less holy
or any less righteous by what you do in this body of flesh. Your holiness, your righteousness
is perfect holiness and perfect righteousness, the perfect righteousness
of God in Christ. And do not think for a moment
that you can improve on that. There are churches who impose
rules and regulations and lifestyles and codes of conduct and behaviour
on their followers in the name of sanctification and holy living. Beware of those who would thus
bring you who are free into bondage and steal your liberty. There
are preachers who admonish you to look inside yourself and examine
your motives and rake through your sins and resolve to improve
and do better. Beware of those who rob believers
of the joy of the Lord in knowing that their sins are cast into
the sea of God's forgetfulness, never to be remembered against
us again. If God isn't going to remember
your sins, then why should you rake through the ashes of them?
There are plenty of accusers who will lay much to the charge
of God's elect, but it is God who has justified his people,
laid our sins on Jesus, and adorned us with perfect righteousness
in him. Here's my final thought. David
says in Psalm 29 verse 2, Give unto the Lord the glory due unto
his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Let us not go around with our
heads down, weighed under a big burden of guilt. when the Lord
has taken that guilt and taken that sin and nailed it to the
tree in the person of Christ and given us the beauty of holiness. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. We do not give the Lord the glory
due to his name if we go around full of fear and full of regrets. We glory in the Lord when we
enjoy the liberty he has won for us. We worship him in the
beauty of holiness when we thank him for the beautiful holiness
that he has gifted to us in Christ. And we rejoice in our justification. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.