JUSTIFICATION (Part 1)
KEY VERSE – It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1) SECONDARY THEME VERSES: “A man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16); “If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Gal. 2:21).
THEME: Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone releases us from the yoke of the law, freeing us to live a life of love through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Legal (Imputed) Righteousness: We are justified by faith in Christ (Gal. 2:16). Imparted Righteousness: Immediate Moral Change at conversion (Gal. 6:15); Gradual Moral Change through the fruit-growing work of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) which requires our cooperation (Gal 5:16-17, 25, 6:8). We cooperate by using CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving. Foundational verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” (Heb. 10:14)
Good Teachers: (1) Constantly re-evaluate what they are doing; (2) Set large goals; (3) Ask – “Does everything I do contribute to learning?”; (4) Prepare well; (5) Check for understanding; (6) Like teaching; (7) Get results from their teaching; (8) Have perseverance. Don’t give up.
TEACHING GOAL: The show what justification means, why it is so essential as a foundational belief for Christians.
TEXT FOR THE DAY:
“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile Sinners’ know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
“But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners; doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! (Gal. 2:15-21)
JUSTIFICATION
1. Forgiveness and the Search for Righteousness
2. Salvation – Metaphors, Word Pictures
3. The Importance of the Doctrine of Justification
4. The Doctrine of Justification in Galatians
5. The Definition of Justification
6. Illustrations of Justification
7. Objections to / Questions to Answer about Justification
8. Biblical Source and Grounds of Justification
9. Instrument or Means of Justification
10. Relationship of Justification to Sanctification
JUSTIFICATION
PAUL’S THESIS: My apostleship, like the twelve, is by divine appointment; the Gospel I preach was received by divine revelation. (Galatians 1:11-12)
From 1:13-4:31 Paul defends his position as an apostle and the divine authenticity of the Gospel he preaches. Paul shows his independence from: (1) Human Teaching (1:13-17); (2) Judean churches (1:18-24); (3) Jerusalem “pillars” (2:1-10); (4) Apostle Peter (2:11-21).
In Gal. 2:15-21 Paul is saying that if Peter is correct in conceding that following Jewish ceremonial law is required for salvation, then Christ died for nothing. “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.” (Gal. 2:21)
I. FORGIVENESS & THE SEARCH FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
“Forgiveness to man is the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems.” (Carnegie Simpson as quoted in The Cross of Christ by John Stott, pg. 88)
God, the aggrieved, needs “satisfaction” for the injury due to His person because of our sins. This injury needs compensation. God cannot just wave off sin as if nothing happened. “. . . he cannot disown himself (act contrary to his very nature, act entirely unlike himself). (II Tim. 2:13) “The law which God must satisfy is the law of His own being.” (John Stott, The Cross of Christ, Pg. 124)
“There is something in God’s essential moral being which is ‘provoked’ by evil and which is ‘ignited’ by it, proceeding to ‘burn’ until the evil is consumed.” This is God’s natural reaction to sin. (John Stott, The Cross of Christ, pg. 126)
Humans throughout history and up to the present time have been
searching to attain a personal rightness that they know inherently is
needed to appease a holy God.
Humankind’s eternal search for personal righteousness and thus salvation has always been based on self-effort. Salvation is simply permitting God to cloth us with a righteousness He supplies.
II. SALVATION – METAPHORS AND WORD PICTURES
“Salvation from sin” is a very general, comprehensive term. We use the word “saved” but there are many ways to explain the experience of salvation.
QUESTION: What metaphors and word pictures are used in the Bible to describe salvation?
Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance.
Propitiation – A religious metaphor, the appeasing the wrath of God – love finding a way to appease His anger.
Redemption – A metaphor from the marketplace.
Reconciliation – A metaphor from the home.
Justification – A metaphor from the law courts.
Regeneration (new birth) – A metaphor from human reproduction
Re-Creation – A metaphor from nature
Deliverance, Rescue – A metaphor from warfare, bondage (Gal. 1:4)
Adoption – A metaphor from the home
Forgiveness – A picture from relationships
“Salvation is the comprehensive word, but it has many facets that are illustrated by different pictures.” . . . . “Regeneration is not an aspect of justification, but both are aspects of salvation, and neither can take place without the other.” (John Stott, Cross of Christ. Page 185-186)
So, when we are talking about ‘justification’ we are talking about one aspect of salvation.
III. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
“This is the truth of the Gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consisteth. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.” (Martin Luther)
“The principal article of all Christian doctrine, which maketh true Christians indeed.” (Martin Luther)
“Justification …. Advances the true glory of Christ and beats down the vain glory of man.” (Archbishop Cranmer)
“The Doctrine of Justification is the storm center of the reformation.” (J.I. Packer)
For the doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas. It bears a whole world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of God the Savior. (Sola Fide, The Reformed Doctrine of Justification, J.I. Packer)
“Justification by Faith appears to us, as it does to all evangelicals, to be the heart and hub, the paradigm and essence, or the whole economy of God’s saving grace. …. It bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of God’s love to Christ towards sinners.” (Statement by contemporary Anglican Evangelicals, Cross of Christ, J. Stott, 183)
“Nobody has understood Christianity who does not understand the word ‘justified.’ (Stott, 59)
So we will look at Justification, the heart of the Gospel, in Galatians. Martin Luther said that “People stare at the Gospel like a cow stares at a new gate.” May that not be so of us.
IV. THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION IN GALATIANS
“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile Sinners’ know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
We saw in our last study that justify and righteous are from the same root words:
Vs. 16: is justified = dikaioo; be justified = dikaioo; be justified = dikaioo; Vs. 17: to be justified = dikaioo; Vs. 21: righteousness = dikaiosyne. ’In the New Testament these and other forms of the same Greek term are variously translated by such English words as justify, justification, righteousness, just, righteous, and justified.” (MacArthur, 56)
In fact instead of saying ‘justify’ we could say ‘rightify’; instead of ‘justification’ ‘righteousification’, instead of ‘justified’ ‘rightified.’
Some commentators call Gal. 2:16 as “Paul’s doctrine of justification in a nutshell.” (Fung, 112)
It is almost impossible to say more strongly than is said in Galatians 2:16 that a person cannot be saved by law observance and must be saved by the justifying work of Christ.
A general statement – “not man is justified by observing the law.”
A personal statement – “We too have put our faith in Christ that we might be justified by faith in Christ.”
A universal statement – “by observing the law no one will be justified.”
Think of all the self-effort through all of history to become righteous by following a code of ethics, all nullified by the content of this verse.
Beyond Gal. 2:16 we read that “The just shall live by faith” in 3:11. In 3:8, “The Scripture forseeing that God would justify the heathen.” Then we also read: “Clearly no one is justified before God by the law” (3:11); “That we might be justified by faith” (3:24); “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ” (5:4)
Gal. 1:15-16 sets forth the Doctrine of Justification.
Gal. 1:17-21 defends the Doctrine of Justification.
V. THE DEFINITION OF JUSTIFICATION
QUESTION: What common ideas in defining justification to you find in these seven definitions? What definition does your table prefer? (Write the common ideas on the flip chart. Have a vote on which of the 7 definitions wins. Tell who is the author of each definition)
Miscellaneous Definitions:
1. “God’s act of declaring or making a sinner righteous before God.” (Wikipedia)
2. [Justification] . . . refers to God’s act of unmerited favor by which he puts the sinner right with Himself, not only pardoning or acquitting him, but accepting him and treating him as righteous.” (John Stott, 60)
3. “To be justified means to be declared righteous before God, that is to enjoy a status or standing of being in a righteous relationship with God, of being accepted by Him.” (Ronald Y.K. Fung, 113)
4. Justification is a judicial act of God pardoning and forgiving our sins, accepting us as righteous, and instating us as his sons. (J.I. Packer, ibid) [British-born Canadian Christian theologian in the low church Anglican and Reformed traditions. Presently Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, BC]
5. “A person is justified, when he is approved of God as free from the guilt of sin and its deserved punishment, and as having that righteousness belonging to him that entitles to the reward of life.” (Jonathan Edwards)
6. “ [Justification is]… acceptance, whereby God receives us into his favor and regards us as righteous; and we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.” (Calvin, as quoted by J.I. Packer, ibid)
7. The great Swiss Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Kung writes, “[Justification] …must be defined as declaring just by court order.”
Justification is a Legal Term
Justification is a “forensic,” “legal,” “courtroom” term. Thus we speak of justification in “legal” terms, demonstrating that God, as a judge, declares a sinner to be “righteous” when he is not yet objectively so.
“’Justification’ is a legal term, borrowed from the law courts. It is the exact opposite of ‘condemnation.’ ‘To condemn’ is to declare somebody guilty; ‘to justify’ is to declare him not guilty, innocent or righteous. (John Stott, 60)
Justification is the opposite of condemnation (e.g. Rom. 5:18; 8:34), and both are verdicts of a judge who pronounces the accused either guilty or not guilty. (Cross of Christ, pg. 182)
‘Justified’ means ‘declared’ not ‘made’ righteous.
SO WHAT????
1. God is righteous, aggrieved by man’s sin and demands satisfaction if we will have a relationship with Him.
2. Mankind realizes the absolute necessity of personal righteousness, had built religious systems to produce that righteousness and all have admitted absolute failure in producing the personal righteousness demanded by God.
3. The Bible, through multiple metaphors, gives a clear explanation of God’s plan to save mankind and provide them with the righteousness that will enable them to live in His presence.
4. Justification by faith is the Atlas of Christian doctrine, bearing the whole world of evangelical doctrine on its shoulders.
5. The Greek root word for both righteousness and justify is dikaioo. In one sense we could say either ‘justify’ or ‘rightify’.
6. Justification is God’s act of unmerited favor by which He declares the sinner pardon and acquitted and also accepts him as righteous.