What is it and How Does it Apply to Me? Part 1
(A Short Series by Pastor Patrick over Justification and Sanctification)
Part #1 – Being Justified
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” - Romans 3:23-24.
Timothy Olyphant is an actor who has played in several movie and television shows. Personally, I loved that he was part of an ensemble for a Stephen King adaptation of a book called Dreamcatcher, along with several other great actors. But Olyphant was mostly known as the lead in a series called “Justified”. In that series, he played the part of a tough deputy U.S. Marshal enforcing his own brand of justice.
The term “justified” has such a different meaning in the world. If you enact revenge against someone or you do something that gives you a sense of relief or peace - even if it involves criminality – then the term is slung around as if it gives credence to what one has done; as in the actions were… justified.
But from a biblical worldview, the word means more than that. In fact, from the view of the bible – it has more significance and lends itself to a true quenching of an otherwise empty meaning to the word. In Theology, Justification means: “the action of declaring or making righteous in the sight of God.” So, how do we “make” or “declare” ourselves righteous before God? Do I have to do certain things in order to achieve such an esteemed level of righteousness? The answer in short, is no. Please read on and allow me to explain.
We have to go to the Scripture to first learn what justification truly means and how it is explained. Let’s see what Paul says about it.
In Romans 4, Paul uses the example of Abraham, the earthly father of the religion known as Judeo-Christianity. Judeo, because it was God’s covenant with Israel, through Abraham, and Christian – because we believe that Judaism is the foundation to get to Christ, whom all of the Old Testament was pointing towards.
Paul begins Romans chapter 4 by explaining how exactly Abraham came to be the “father” of the faith. In short, he was selected by God. Let’s read…
Romans 4:1-3 - “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
Abraham trusted God. It was not by his own doing that God chose him, otherwise he’d boast about it. More simply put, he’d probably have a big head and ego and think that he was responsible for God choosing him. But the truth was, Abraham was set apart by God, to believe in Him and trust in Him. Therefore, his faith walk grew. We learn in the Word that faith is not of our own, but given to us by the Father. See here in Ephesians 2:8 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…”
If we use the law of inertia, then it is by His movement to get us to believe in Him; just like what happened to Abraham. When we hear the gospel message of salvation through Christ, that we are to repent of our sins and believe in God - then it is God who uses the hearing and understanding of this concept in order to open our eyes to Jesus Christ.
“So, faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”- Romans 10:17
This shows that we must hear the gospel message plainly first…
“No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me, draws Him.” - John 6:44
Then, we understand it is by God’s sovereign appointment that by His grace we who are called are saved. We must hear the good news of salvation in order to repent and believe.
Once this occurs, then we understand it is a commitment to Jesus Christ that we serve Him in an unwavering faith walk. This, is in stark contrast to believing that by some level of our own doing, we are somehow responsible for just how much we do in order to appease God and earn a spot in heaven. This is counter to what the gospel actually says. And this, my friends, was at the heart and root of why the Reformation took place. Martin Luther, among many others, realized that by our own efforts we could not attain salvation. It was given by God, not earned by our efforts. We are justified by God because of our faithful repentant faith in Him.
So, then, where do “works” come into play? That’s a great question. And we will ask brother James about this…
James 2:14, 17 “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” ... “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Our justification before God is apart from any good works we have done. This is because any good works done without faith are not good at all in God’s sight. Good works come naturally to any follower of Christ as their spiritual growth in their transformation will create a burning desire to perform good works - as a result of their faith. Outwardly good works that are done in an attempt to “impress” God and others in society around us, are really assertions of our own self-righteousness. For us to be justified, Jesus had to pay the penalty for our sins, and we must receive that payment by faith in His completed work of His birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and promised return.
In true justification, we are declared “just” in God’s courtroom because Jesus lived an obedient life and paid the penalty for our sins. We receive this justification by faith alone, because there are no good deeds that we can do to earn it. Because justification is wholly by faith, apart from any good works of ours, we are simultaneously just and yet sinners. Sinfulness still resides in us, yet we are cleared in God’s courtroom.
This is why it is imperative that we are following the foundational pillars of our faith walk – Study of the Word, enriched prayer life, communion with Christ, fellowship with other believers – in order to stay entrenched in our faith. This symbolic “pick up your cross daily and follow me” instruction of Jesus is the benchmark to follow these foundational pillars. When we commit to this, it changes our hearts deepest desires and compels us to want to do good works.
This is a true lesson of intentionality.
This from Ligonier Ministries… “Justification is also synthetic and not analytical. What does this technical language mean? Synthetic means that two things are added together to form a synthesis. Synthetic justification means that we are justified only because of the work of Jesus Christ added to us. If we stand alone before God, without this synthesis, we can only be condemned. For instance, the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification is analytic. It says that we must cooperate with the grace of Christ and do good work to be saved. The finished work of Jesus Christ enables us to become better people, and God declares us saved based on the fact that we have become better. When we stand before God, God does not judge us based on what Christ did for us, but based on whether we became personally good by appropriating the grace of Christ. If we are not good enough, we may have to spend time in purgatory getting better before we can be admitted to heaven.
The Protestant synthetic doctrine says that we are saved for heaven apart from any good works and change of character. We are saved for heaven exclusively based on the work of Christ added to us. Now, anyone who is truly saved will do good works, and the degree of his heavenly reward will be related to his life of obedience. But his salvation is based solely and completely on Christ’s work done outside of him, but given to him synthetically.”
This gives us a great understanding in technical terms. But at the root of it is this… if you want to truly be inspired to set yourself apart from the world and serve Jesus Christ, then you must commit yourself to Him. If you haven’t felt this yet, then you need to pray about it. You need to make sure that you are attending a doctrinally sound, bible-believing church that teaches the fullness of God’s counsel; the entire Word of God. You must hear the teaching of sound bible teachers to better understand just how this all applies to you. If you are not sure how or need direction, feel free to email the church’s email address and we can help advise you in this area.
Now, with regard to Olyphant and the show Justified… a television series couldn’t possibly understand the true meaning of this just within its title. Nor can a world understand it from their secular worldview. True justification from a biblical worldview is quite different. No matter how long you’ve been a Christian, you must pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus. Justification is a beautiful doctrine of understanding what the gospel says throughout in its thematic overview. You’ve been justified by Christ through God’s Sovereign Grace. Now the expectation is to get involved and help Christ’s church (His body of believers), get busy and accomplish what needs to be done!
Lord bless you for reading this and I hope you have a better understanding.
Read Romans 3, 4 and 5; James 2. Full chapters.
