Justification is by Faith

“but now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known…

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace

through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” Rom 3:21, 23-24

God the Father sits in His courtroom behind the bench.  The bench is so elevated you cannot even see Him.  His credentials hang on the bench in front of you.  Nervously you begin reading: Perfect in Holiness (Lev 11:44; Ps 145:17; Mt 5:48; Rev 4:8, 15:4; 1 Pet 1:15-16; Isa 6:3), Righteous Judge (2 Tim 4:8; Ps 11:7, Jn 17:25, Isa 45:21; Jer 23:6), Just Judge (Ge 18:25; Isa 30:8; Job 34:12; Ps 103:6; 146:7), the Truth (Ex 34:6; Nu 23:19,\; Rev 16:7), Omniscient (Ps 147:5, 139:1-4; Heb 4:13, 11:36; 1 Jn 3:20), Omnipotent (Ps 115:3; 135:6; Lk 1:37; Jer 32:17), Omnipresent (Ps 139:7-8; Heb 13:5; Mt 28:20; Deut 31:6), Good (1 Chr 16:34; Nah 1:7; Ps 25:7, 34:8, 100:5, 145:9), Impartial ( 2 Chr 19:7; Dt 10:17; Acts 10:34-35; Rom 2:6, 2:11)  and on and on it goes.  Your eyes begin to blur and you cannot even begin to take it all in.

It slowly begins to dawn on you that you are seated in the presence of ABOSOLUTE PERFECTION.  There is a distinct sinking feeling from deep inside you.  Your own soul which seemed almost white to you before now is fading to a deep gray and then to utter blackness as you realize the incredible holiness in front of you.  Suddenly you remember your utter wretchedness; the deeds of your childhood come flooding in on you and then your adult life as well—and these were deeds for which you “knew better.”  The certainty of your sentence begins to weigh on you.  There is no way—no hope—that you could even begin to compare to His holiness.  You are, without-a-doubt, a law-breaker.  And you are very aware that it is His law you have broken. 

The Attorney’s door opens and in walks Jesus, alone (Rom 8:33-34; Isa 50:8-9).  Wait a minute, this cannot be right…isn’t Satan supposed to be the prosecutor?  Jesus walks over to your table and sits with you.  You rise to your feet as the bailiff announces the case, your case, he utters your name and then chimes in, a little too happy for your liking, “ vs. the Law of Almighty God.  Most Highly Exalted Father God, Creator of all that is, Sovereign Ruler over all, Omnipotent Potentate¸ and Righteous Judge presiding.” As Father God enters, your heart sinks as does your posture, in fact, you feel very week in the knees.  As you collapse into your seat and the trial starts, Jesus looks at you with a smile and then approaches the bench.  “Father this one is written in the book of life for this one has believed in me.” (Ex 32:32; Dt 29:20, Da 12:1; Mal 3:16; Lk 10:20: Rev 3:5, 20:12, 15)  The book is opened and your name is found.  You’ll never forget the Father’s next words as He makes pronouncement on the case—you have been justified by belief in Jesus Christ who has given you His own righteousness…You have been pronounced Righteous.  Praise the Lord!

In order to understand justification, we must first understand what is meant by the word “righteousness.”  “The NT [New Testament] uses righteousness in the sense of conformity to the demands and obligations of the will of God, the so-called ‘righteousness of the law.’”¹  “Righteousness is conceived as judged by the standard of God’s holy law, which is derived from His holy character…”²  So righteousness is the absolute conformity to God’s law and character (His holiness); it is to be faultless or guiltless.³

Interestingly, the Greek root word “dik” conveys “the essential idea of righteousness, or rightness.”⁴  Several Greek words use this same root. The Greek word for “righteousness” is “dikaiosyne” which means “the quality of rightness or justice”⁵  The Greek verb “dikaioo” means “to justify.”⁶  The Greek noun “dikaiosis” means “the act of making right, or justification.”⁷ So we seek the ideas of justification and righteousness are tied closely together.  The verb “dikaioo” is commonly used when speaking of justifying and it means “to acquit,” “to vindicate” or “to pronounce righteous.”⁸  In Romans, Paul evokes a scene from a courtroom in which God sits as judge on the judgment seat of God and makes the case for justification by faith. 

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.  – Rom 3:21-26

The tenants of the case are as follows: (Please look up these Scriptures.)

1. God is just.  (He always does what is right.)  – Rom 3:26
2. The law makes us conscious of our sin.  – Rom 3:20
3. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (no one conforms absolutely to God’s law and character—no one is faultless or guiltless).  – Rom 3:23
4. No one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.  – Rom 3:20
5. God is righteous.  – Rom 3:21
6. Man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.  – Rom 3:28
7. God is the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.  – Rom 3:26
8. God gives His righteousness to those who through faith in Jesus Christ trust in His atoning sacrifice as payment for their sins.  – Rom 3:22; 4:5; Phil 3:9

So justification is the process by which—through God’s redemption, freely by His grace—righteousness is imputed (or credited) to those who believe in Jesus Christ as a sacrifice of atonement for their sins.  – Rom 3:22,24-25; 4:21-25; 2 Cor 5:21

“Justification is the judicial aspect of the conversion experience in which the believer is viewed from God’s perspective.  God the Father, because of the atonement of Jesus Christ, imputes, or credits the righteousness of Christ to the believer. Paul says this “credited righteousness” is not really our own, but is Christ’s (Php 3:9).  God the Father sees believers wrapped in the perfect righteousness of Christ.  This is what allows God to accept mortals in his heaven—since no one can ever be good enough to merit heaven.  The term justification is best understood in the analogy of a courtroom.  Jesus Christ is our advocate, or attorney, who is able to present us before the Father as being credited with his righteousness.”⁹

Footnotes

¹ Milne, B. A. "Rigtheousness." The New Bible Dictionary. Second ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962. 1031. Print.

² Buswell, JR., James Oliver. "Rigtheousness." The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1967. 723. Print.

³ Leitch, A. H. "Righteousness." The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Vol. 5. Grand Rapids: Regency Reference Library, 1976. 104. Print.

⁴ Buswell, 723.

⁵ Buswell, 723.

⁶ Ryken, Leland, Jim Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, Colin Duriez, Douglas Penney, and Daniel G. Reid. "Romans, Letter to the." Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998. 735. Print.

⁷ Buswell, 723.

⁸ Richards, Larry. "Justify/Justification." Expository Dictionary of Bible Words. Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1985. 373. Print.

⁹ Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. "Biblical Words for Salvation." Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. 1733. Print.

References

All Scriptures not otherwise specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.

God is Omnipresent

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make by bed in the depths, you are there.”

Ps139:7, 8

“God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works…The Universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life.”

A W Tozer – The Pursuit of God

The omnipresence of God is the momentous truth that God is everywhere present and nowhere absent.  He fills all time and space equally.  He is nowhere closer or farther away than anywhere else.  This seems hard to grasp, yet mere reason concerning the things we know to be true of God demands that this must be true as well.  How can God be infinite and not be everywhere?  (See Ps 139:7,8 above.)  How can God sustain everything if He is not everywhere?  Colossians 1:17 states “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”  How can He be sovereign without ruling over everything? (See Isa 66:1,2.)

I think the distinction must be made as it has been by John Bevere, Bill Johnson, and A. W. Tozer that although God is present everywhere, that are times when we feel His presence more than other times.  We call this the manifest presence of God.  This difference is not one on God’s side of the equation, but one on our side of it.  God is equally presence everywhere.  It is our awareness that changes.  I think too many Christians feel His Presence is only for special occasions and places like church and worship time.   We lose sight of the fact that God’s presence is always here.  Can God really make Himself less or more potent than He already is?  I think not.  He says “I am that I am” and He says “For I am the LORD, I change not.”  It is our understanding that needs to change.  It is our experience that needs to be different.  It is a matter of our faith and our desire for Him that must change.  “Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently search for him.” 

Yet we don’t feel His Presence all the time, so many times we must confess as Jacob did in Gen 28:16, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.”  We must get away from the idea that we must pray for God to come close as if He were somewhere (heaven) far away and needed to travel to us in order to be next to us.  We must get away from the idea that the Holy Spirit must be invited to come into our meetings.  He is already there. We must ask Him to make us aware that He is there.  We must get away from the idea that God is somehow more present in church than He is in our living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens.  We must get away from thinking of God in spatial terms.  God fills all time and space but He transcends time and space.  Think of a glass representing all time and space there is, ever has been, and ever will be.  Now picture God as the ocean.  Drop the glass in the ocean and you have a picture of how God fills all time and space yet He is bigger (much bigger) than just that. 

We need to understand that it is our openness to Him which makes Him feel closer.  It is our response to His eternal, equilateral presence that determines how close to Him we feel.  It is the Christian disciplines which prepare us to feel more of Him or experience more of Him.  We need to acknowledge with David in Ps139:7, 8 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make by bed in the depths, you are there.”  And we need to understand with Jeremiah in Jer 23:23, 24 “‘Am I only a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away?  Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord.  ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord.”  Doctor Luke shows us clearly in Acts 17:27 “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”  Indeed God is always not far from each one of us.  If you have asked Jesus to be your Savior, then the Holy Spirit lives IN YOU.  So our experiencing the manifest Presence of God is not so much a matter of God traveling from somewhere to be with us as it is Him quickening our Spirit-Man or Inner-Man to understand better the truth that He is here and to allow our physical senses to ‘feel’ His Presence with us.  Now surely God can, in His Sovereignty, impress His Spirit upon us so heavily that we have no choice but to feel it.  But this is not the norm, hence our experience of not feeling His Presence more often. 

If, however, this is our desire, to feel His Presence more often, there are things we can do to make ourselves more receptive to experiencing His Presence.  “Draw close to God and He will draw near to you.” James tells us.  Again here are the Christian disciplines leading the way.  Reading the Bible inspires our faith (Rom 10:17), and faith allows us to believe God is and is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him (Heb 11:1,6).  Here we see that there is a principle of the Kingdom of God which tells us not to trust in our experience until that experience lines up with the Word of God.  Indeed, we have in these two verses a mandate to have faith in what we do not see (experience) and hope for what the Word of God tells us is true.  This is how the Kingdom works.  Faith, prayer, praying in tongues, standing on the Word, fasting, memorizing the Word, proclaiming the Word over and over until our minds are renewed and the spiritual things become more real to us than the things we experience with our senses – these are some of the things the Scriptures tells us will activate our faith.  Then suddenly in a moment or several moments we become aware and being to experience what was there all along – His Presence.  Then we can with our senses experience the supernatural, the Presence of God.

Oh God, give us the passion for your Presence again.  May You become more important than anything else.  Take Your place of prominence and preeminence which you so rightly deserve.  Let us not by the senses you gave us, fall into the trap of thinking you are far off.  Help us to draw near to You and experience You drawing near to us.  Help us to live in the continual awareness of Your Presence.   Help us be disciplined and earnestly seek You.  For you declare, “‘Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord…” Jeremiah 29:12-14.  God help us to seek for you with all our hearts and let us be found byYou.

Resources:

Bevere, John. Drawing near. Walton-on-Thames: Thomas Nelson, 2006.

Johnson, Bill. Strengthen Yourself in the Lord. Shippensburg: Destiny Image Publishers, 2007. The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible New International Version The Old Testament and The New Testament Thompson's original and complete system of Bible study A complete numerical system of chain references, analyses of books, outline studies of characters and unique charts, with pictorial maps and archaeological discoveries. Ed. Frank Charles Thompson, et al. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1983. Print.

Tozer, A. W. The Knowledge of the Holy: the Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. 103-107. Print.

Tozer, A. W.  The Pursuit of God.