TEXT: Romans 5:9

SUBJECT: Passion of Jesus Christ #11: Basis for Justification

Several months ago John Piper published a small book called The Passion of Jesus Christ. Its aim is to partly explain why God willed the death of His Son. I say, ‘partly explain’ it because the book only scratches the surface. If it were ten times longer and a hundred times more learned it would still be on the surface because God’s will in the death of Christ is a mystery no one can reach the bottom of.

If the Bible does not explain the mystery, it tells us all we need to know about it. Why did Christ die? He died to save us. But what does that mean—‘to save us’? A great many things, one of which we’ll look at tonight. John Piper says,

THE MEANING OF JUSTIFICATION

Piper spends most of the chapter defining the word, ‘justification’. While I’m not for splitting hairs in theology, this is a word worth spending some time on and getting as right as we can get it.

The word, ‘just’ means ‘righteous’. To ‘justify’, therefore, is to declare someone righteous. If you think of a courtroom, a man is accused of murdering his wife. The prosecutor says he did it, the defense attorney says he didn’t. After hearing both sides, the judge comes back with a verdict: not guilty. On this point, at least, the accused man is righteous; the judge has said he didn’t do it. His record is clean and he’s free to go.

The judge dioes not forgive him or suspend his sentence or rehabilitate him. He doesn’t need to--because the man is innocent.

When I was a boy, the thing I most wanted to be was…seven feet tall! What do you most want to be? Young? Popular? Smart? Good looking? Powerful? Rich? Healthy? Thin? I’d like to be all of these things, of course, but what I’d most like to be is…innocent.

What if you had nothing to regret or apologize for or hope no one found out about? You’d be drunk with happiness!

Because you’re not guilty. People can say what they want, but you know better. Your conscience is clear. And so is your record. God Himself has looked things over and said, ‘Innocent’.

This is what ‘justification’ means. It means, negatively, ‘you didn’t do it’; and positively, you did everything God told you to do. It means you’re not guilty—not because the judge is corrupt, lenient, or a fool, but because you are not guilty!

THE ORDINARY WAY OF JUSTIFICATION—AND WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT

After telling us what ‘justification’ means, Piper goes on to explain how to be justified in the ordinary way—and what’s wrong with it!

What’s the best way to stay out of jail? Don’t commit a crime. Criminal courts are not perfect, but—most of the time—if you obey the law, the cops won’t be after you. That’s one way to be justified, and, before human judges, we can be justified in that way.

We’ve done plenty of bad things, but you didn’t steal the car last night and I didn’t rob the bank this afternoon. If brought to trial on these charges, we would be justified; the judge would say, ‘not guilty’—and rightly so because we’re innocent of them.

Our problem, however, is not breaking the laws of men and standing before human judges. Piper says,

God is an honest, wise, and almighty Judge. He cannot be bribed or threatened or fooled into condemning the innocent or justifying the guilty. These qualities make the angels rejoice! But they make us nervous. Because, unlike the angels, we’re guilty. Other people know some of our guilt, we know more of it, and the Lord knows it all.

This means we’re stuck. What good is promising to never do it again if we’ve already done it? The problem seems unfixable. One of three things has to happen: We have to undo what we’ve done, the Law has to be changed, or the Judge has to become incompetent or unjust.

The first is impossible. What’s done is done. The ugly words spoken in anger have been spoken. I may be crying my eyes out over saying them, but I said them. And God heard me.

The second is worse than impossible. Would you want the Lord to change His law? Would you want Him to say— ‘Lying is okay, there’s nothing wrong with envy, and from now on, I approve of taking My Name in vain?’

The third is unthinkable. What if God didn’t see my sins or remember them? Or, what if He did both, and pretended not to? Do we want a Lord with amnesia, a blind God, a crooked Almighty?

The ordinary way of justification is not doable! You can stay out of prison by not committing a crime, but you cannot stay out of hell by not committing a sin. Because you already have—a billion times over!

If we cannot justify ourselves by keeping the Law, God has to do it in some other way, in a way that does not contradict His justice or encourage our sin. Oh man, that’s a hard one!

If he who justifies the wicked is an abomination to Lord, then it seems either: God will not justify the wicked, or He will and become an abomination to Himself. So which is it?

Neither. Romans 3:26 says He is both

The Lord has found a way to justify the wicked without compromising His holiness. And not only has He found the way, He has taken it! The way to do both is Christ. Piper says,

It is right for God to declare the believer ‘not guilty’ because his Savior took his guilt with Him to the cross. He suffered the punishment for our sins. The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all, Isaiah says.

But what about the other side? Surely there’s more to being just than ‘not breaking the law’. We’ve all known people who thought otherwise. They were very strict about ‘not doing wrong’. They paid their bills, for example, and didn’t bother their neighbors. But there’s something wrong with their ‘righteousness’. While not cheating their creditors, they also never gave to the poor. While not bothering their neighbors, they also never helped them.

They didn’t do bad, but they also didn’t do good. The Law of God, however, not only forbids doing bad things, but it also commands doing good things.

Here, too, we have failed. We have left much good undone; good we might have done—often easily—we let slip by. Not out of malice, perhaps, but out of laziness, indifference, or self-centeredness. We were simply too busy minding our own business to notice others.

This too has to be dealt with if God is to justly justify us. And it too has been done by Christ. Who not only died in our place, but also lived in our place. When we believe, God puts our Lord’s life (with all its merit) on our records. As though what He did we did.

David Walters is an average student who, for some reason, thinks he can get into Harvard. He applies, but his grades are so low the secretary laughs and files them in the trash can. That’s what would have happened. But, lucky for David Walters, the secretary had three martinis at lunch and came back to work a bit tipsy. Reaching for his application, she picks up David Wong’s instead. And this David, unlike the other one, is a super brain. She hands in the mistaken file and, that day, David Walters is admitted to Harvard and given a full scholarship. All because the admissions board were looking at somebody else’s record.

We’re David Walters. Our obedience is not good enough to justify us. But we are justified because God looks on Somebody Else’s record. He looks at all believers as though they were as obedient as His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is what it means to be justified. It means my sins are forgiven and the perfect obedience of Christ is taken for my own.

This is why Jesus Christ suffered and died. To be my justification. And yours too. When you believe in Him.