Bible Study Romans Part 64-Justification

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The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture.

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It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word.

We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death.

In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death.

Never treat what God has said lightly.

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Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

We're actually in the third chapter.

We'll go ahead and talk about verse 20.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Let me remind you that we start each lesson in a progressive way.

So we've covered the previous verses in this chapter and the two previous chapters already in this study.

If you want to stay up with us as far as our progress through the letter, make sure that you go back and listen to our YouTube videos or even our podcast.

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You can listen to these lessons and still get something out of it if you don't really even know where we are in the in our progression.

But please do yourself a favor and listen to all of this so that you can keep up.

The purpose of this is to give you a complete knowledge of what God is trying to say to us.

So let's let's do Romans 3.20 again.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Paul is declaring that simply setting out to follow a set of rules will not get you saved.

That was as much of a shocker in Paul's day as it is in our own.

Most of us think, most human beings think that our entrance to salvation, our entrance to heaven is based on performing more good deeds than bad.

They thought that then, we think that now.

But Paul says, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh, shall no one be justified.

You will not be saved by doing this and not doing that.

Because, first of all, there's more to it than that.

And secondly, there's no set of rules, earthly or divine, that any human can follow completely.

And God's rule is you must follow it all.

If you fail in one part, you fail the whole thing.

That is God's rule.

No flesh is justified by the deeds of the law.

That's true partly because no one can do all the deeds of any law.

Now, we'll be saying that about a thousand more times before we're done with Paul.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Now, today I want to focus on this concept of justification as it relates to our Christian beliefs.

Now, for those of you who have been raised in what I call the Reformed tradition, or at least are familiar with it, or have been around the reformed tradition for some time, this is going to seem pretty basic.

Most evangelical Protestants know the nuts and bolts of this, or at least they've been exposed to it in their religious education.

Well, I can say in the church of my youth, the denomination of my youth, we never discussed this and it was never taught to us, which I now feel as a Bible-aware Christian is absolutely absurd, since justification is a core document, a core doctrine, I should say, of the New Testament.

In fact, the only reason Jesus was born, lived a perfect life, and died on that cross as a criminal was because of this concept of justification.

I'm going to have to take some weeks to explain that to you, but make sure you keep that in the back of your mind.

It's that important.

And I know there are lots of people who were raised in churches very similar to mine that are in the dark about as much as I was on this.

And I want to help fix that.

So some of you are going to be bored, but I suggest you pay attention anyhow because this is one of those things that it never hurts to hear again and again.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in this in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Now, this is an incredibly important statement.

And it's actually a message that God has been communicating since the very beginning.

But before we can fully analyze it, we must be sure of a pivotal concept.

Paul is here talking about being justified.

Now, what does he mean by that?

Therefore, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

So, right here we can see from this statement that sin and justification are linked.

They appear together, but as a spectrum, if you will.

On one end is sin, and on the other is justification.

Now, we shouldn't pretend that this is all that complicated.

Most of us know at least a little bit about the meaning of justification, about being justified.

Even those who were raised Catholic as I was understand the connection between justification and sin.

We called it something else, but we know that there's a connection between what we do, our sin, and our entrance to heaven.

So even we Catholics, we raised Catholics, kind of get it.

But let me state that unfortunately, the Catholic view of sin and heaven and our standing before God is quite a bit different than the Protestant view.

We have a good mix of Catholics and Protestants in our audience.

And although in this ministry our doctrine is reformed and evangelical and therefore Protestant, we often take the time to frame our lessons to match the dynamic of those who participate with us.

Now, to be honest, most of the church world is split up in the same way.

There's the Catholic view and the Protestant view.

Now, I'm going to be blunt.

The Catholic view is wrong.

It's unscriptural.

It's works-oriented and man-centric.

And I'm hoping that I can show that to you through Scripture.

I don't want to be unkind.

I'm not going to be unkind.

But I want to show you through God's word what the truth is really about, what God is really looking for us when it comes to our justification before Him.

Now, before going on, I do want to point out that over the past 100 years or so, many of the major Protestant denominations have actually been migrating back toward the Catholic way of thinking.

People are becoming more and more focused on what we do and how that helps us in our relationship with God.

And that's completely unscriptural.

But none of that is important to this discussion.

And I'm only bringing it up because there are some who find this so basic to the Christian faith that they may wonder why we're spending time on it at all.

For many of you, this is deeply embedded in your Christian DNA.

And one of the reasons why I keep bringing that up is because those of you who don't understand that, those who don't live their lives by the idea that we're not justified by the law, I want you to see how out in the minority you actually are, because the Bible teaches us something differently.

For those that feel that way, those that feel like the Christian way of faith is the way you're right.

This is as foundational to Christianity as anything could be.

But there are many who are not well instructed on it.

As I said, this was not something I heard of growing up.

And there are many who have similar religious backgrounds to my own.

And then, of course, there are many new Christians who check in with us from time to time who will also benefit from a detailed discussion on the subject of justification.

Plus, listen, it never hurts to be reminded of the basics, even if you think you know them intimately.

You know, as I was preparing my lessons for this section of Paul's letter, I kind of got stuck.

It took me a while to get unstuck.

In fact, I'm not sure, I'm not sure I ever did.

It's not that this material is difficult to understand, but what kept going through my mind is what if I leave something out?

And what if whatever I leave out leads people to misunderstand God?

After all, like I've been saying, this is basic.

This is basic theology, so basic, in fact, that it's tempting to think I can skip over things that I assume people already know.

This is too important to mess up.

So it took me a couple of days to get in a groove.

One of the things that I'm leery of is making things too comprehensive, giving too much detail.

I'm always trying to shy away from that sort of thing.

Now, I know I can see some of you out there chuckling to yourself in disbelief because going into detail is sort of my thing.

That's why it's taken us more than a year to get through the first two and a little bit of the third chapter of this book of the Bible.

I'm just saying it could have been a lot worse.

Listen, I don't want to waste your time, but I do want you to get to know these things because they are sacred and literally the source of life.

Anyhow, despite wanting to keep the information to a minimum, I know that with this topic, the topic of justification, I have to go all the way back to the beginning.

You see, listen to me, it's for this that the Bible was written.

I always tell you to avoid trying to use scripture to answer all the pressing questions of life and science and society as a whole, because the Bible isn't meant for any of that.

The Bible has a very specific purpose, and giving you the origin and makeup and history of everything is not it.

That's why there are no dinosaur discussions, there's no explanation as to how the continents were formed, none of that.

There are thousands of questions the Bible doesn't answer, and the reason it doesn't answer them is because that's not its purpose.

This book was written to tell us, listen to me, this book was written only to tell us that we're in trouble and how we can get out of that trouble.

The Bible's only theme is redemption, why we need it and how it works.

And all other sub all other themes are sub-themes to that one.

And let me give you a bit of a foreshadow.

Justification is the engine that makes redemption work.

The reason the Bible starts out explaining a few things to us about the creation is not to give us a science lesson.

It's to give us the impression that there was at one time an intended direction for all things God called into existence.

And I think, listen to me, I honestly think we would have never had a need for that information if it weren't for the fact that that intended direction got temporarily interrupted.

Now, this may sound like a bold assertion, but let me say, if sin had not entered into our lives, I don't think we would have ever read about the creation anywhere.

I mean, why would we?

If mankind had not disobeyed, then God's initial plan would have continued unabated.

And therefore, telling us why we were created would have been unnecessary.

We would have just kept on moving ahead toward the goal God had for us from the beginning.

If things were running smoothly, there would have been no reason to give us the creation narrative.

And frankly, it wouldn't have been very exciting to us.

But things went off the rails, and it became necessary to fill us in on a few, just a few particulars, to get us to realize that things are not as they were meant to be.

And really, that's all we needed to know.

That was the intention of telling us about creation.

We didn't need to know how God created the heavens or how he created the oceans or how he created the earth and us and all the animals.

The how wasn't important.

All we needed to know was that it was created by God for a purpose, and that's all we get.

We don't like that, do we?

We know God created all those things, and we know God created all those things so that those things could support his purpose of us being fruitful and multiplying his image throughout creation.

And yeah, that's not enough for us, is it?

We think we should be let in on more, but God doesn't.

So that's why there's almost nothing about the how of created things.

Stop debating people about creation and how the world was created trying to use the Bible.

Tell them God created and leave it at that.

We don't know how he did it.

We don't need to know how he did it.

We know that he created things, but not how he created things.

The act of creation wasn't the reason God told us about creation.

He wanted us to know that he created us and that he created us so that we could glorify him.

And the reason we're told those things, the reason the creation is in the Bible as it is, is to highlight that we aren't doing those things he created us to do.

He's telling us why redemption is important by telling us the creation story.

Redemption is important so we can get back to that created ideal.

He tells us what's holding us back.

We're not glorifying God because we are now all under sin.

Being under sin gravely hinders, actually, completely hinders our created purpose.

We cannot fulfill our purpose.

We cannot glorify God while we are under sin's authority.

Remember, I said we're going back to the basics.

This is the basics.

We are under sin's authority, thanks to Adam and Eve, and for God, that will not do.

We must be returned to our purpose.

But that's not possible while we're under sin.

When Adam sinned, he was exiled from God's presence.

You cannot work for someone you've been exiled from.

As sinners, we cannot be where God is.

So we must be banished.

But that was never meant to be permanent.

You see, as I always tell you, God and sin do not mix.

And God sent mankind away, as it were, while he worked on the sin problem.

And the only solution to the sin problem is to remove it.

Sin can't be bargained with, it can't be appeased, the effects of sin cannot be minimized.

Sin must be eliminated.

Sin is unrighteousness, and unrighteousness in any form, in any quantity, cannot represent a righteous God.

In our current state, even if we're only a little bit sinful, we cannot spread the glory of God throughout creation.

God's image is righteousness.

Righteousness and unrighteousness do not exist together, just like light and dark cannot exist at the same time in the same place.

Mankind became unrighteous when he fell under sin, and that had to be solved.

Now, the mistake that the church before the Reformation made and unfortunately continues to make is teaching that man can unrighteousness himself by acting righteous.

Well, the Bible makes that clear, and our human experience makes clear that can't be true.

Now listen to me carefully.

We are all born unrighteous.

That's what happened to all of Adam's descendants.

We have all inherited, if you will, the stain his poor choosing created.

Say you grew up a gamer, and from an early age, all you wanted to be was a game designer.

You eventually go to school to learn the craft, you graduate, you start looking for work, you get hired on at a place in New York, you quickly become one of their most valuable programmers, employee of the year, youngest section manager in company history.

And then one day you're sort of putzing around on LinkedIn and you notice that Nintendo is looking for someone.

It's a dream job for you.

But in the fine print, you notice that since the position is funded by the Japanese government, you must be Japanese to qualify.

Well, that's not good for you because you were born in America to American parents.

But you nonetheless consider yourself perfect for the job.

As it turns out, your minor in college was Japanese and you speak it like a native.

You've always revered the Japanese culture, so you studied it intently all your life.

Your Japanese friends tell you that you know more about being Japanese than they do.

You've even mastered Chanoyu, the tea ritual that is so quintessentially Japanese.

You call over to Nintendo and you tell them, hey, I'm perfect for this job.

You explain your situation to them in perfect Japanese.

Your accent sounds so authentic that more than once you had to explain that you're an American.

You tell them that you were the head of your class at university.

You share that you've been coding since you were 10.

You even figured out how to reverse engineer every Nintendo game made since the 1970s.

You share your impressive and extensive work experience.

And then you confidently and boldly ask, when do I start?

Well, they say politely, of course, you don't.

I don't, why not?

The way I see it, I can do the job better than anyone.

And then they tell you that your performance is not the issue, it's your nature.

You are by nature disqualified, and there's nothing you can do to change that.

There was nothing in your past that you could do to change it, and there's nothing in your future to change it.

What's your point, John?

You can no more change yourself into a Japanese game designer than a righteous saint of God.

But here's where we leave that illustration behind.

Although there's no hope to get that Nintendo job, your unrighteousness is not hopeless.

Yes, it's also in your nature, but God has a solution.

Oh, then tell me what is God's solution and I'll do it.

No, you misunderstood me.

The fact that this is God's solution doesn't just mean that God came up with it.

It is God's solution because only God can do it.

Only God has the nature that can change your nature.

And that is the word justif, that is where the word justification comes in.

To fully understand this word and especially its use in scripture, one must realize listen to me, justification is something that happens to you.

It has to be.

Justification in the biblical sense must come from the outside.

Now, one of the best ways to view this is to see that justification is a judicial term.

Now, I don't mean that it's used in the law clerks, law courts.

I mean the nature of justification is judgment, it's judicial.

When something is justified, it's judged to be so.

And judgment is always external.

Perhaps the best way to see this is if we look at the word that's considered the opposite of justification.

The antonym of the word justification is condemnation.

Well, you can't condemn yourself.

You can confess, you can admit, you can feel remorse for something, but you cannot be the agent of your own condemnation.

Condemnation, although the opposite of our word justification, has one thing in common with it.

Condemnation also comes from the outside.

Friends, your salvation is out of your control, which when you think about it makes sense, since your being under sin is out of your control.

This, by the way, is why the religion of my youth didn't like this word justification.

They disagreed with it.

I'm not sure what their answer to Romans 3.20 would be, but they said our justification was our responsibility, that we had to justify ourselves, that we were the agent that brought justification upon us.

Well, I love the following quote from the Cyclopedia of Biblical, theological and ecclesiastical literature.

In its definition of this word justification, it says, quote, justification is an act of God, not in or upon man, but for him and in his favor, an act which, abstractly considered, respects man only as its object and translates him into another relative state.

Okay, fine.

You and I may be tempted to think if justification is an act of God, if he wants us to be justified, why doesn't he just do that?

Why doesn't he just justify us?

What's the big deal?

After all, he's the Almighty.

All he needs to do is wave his royal scepter and declare us justified.

Why doesn't he just do that?

Well, because if he did do things that way, he would implicate himself.

You see, that method of making us just would make him unjust.

If he simply decided to change sinners into not sinners without compensation, he makes himself a liar.

He makes himself a sinner.

You see, in his word, throughout his word, he treats sin as a debt.

Now, you do know there's really no such thing as forgiving debt.

A few years ago, the then president of the United States said he was going to develop a plan to forgive the student loans of more than 5 million people.

Now, to many, that was really good news.

And not just the borrowers, but those who felt that students carrying large amounts of debt was somehow bad for our country.

So the president told us that$188 billion of student debt would be wiped out.

Well, you don't have to be an accountant to realize that's just not possible.

Someone has to be responsible for that money.

Someone must always pay the debt that's owed.

Now, this isn't a political statement, it's a factual statement.

Debts must be paid.

Well, sin is a debt.

The Bible makes that clear.

God has said the wages of sin is death.

Your sin acquires for you a debt of death.

That is God's word, and he cannot and he will not go back on what he said.

Our sins won't be made to simply disappear.

But God also makes clear that he wants us to be with him.

He wants us working with him to glorify his name.

Otherwise, he would have jettisoned us long ago.

Well, sin makes it impossible for us to work with him.

But it's more than just our personal sin.

It's more than the failures we've done.

It's going to take more than just forgiving our personal sin.

We are not only sinners, but listen to me, we're under sin.

It controls us.

And forgiveness is limited in that way.

We not only need to be freed from the effects of sin, but we also need to be delivered from the power of sin.

We need to be made righteous.

We need to be justified.

And this is where Jesus and his perfect life come in.

Listen to me.

His sinless life was no accident.

Living a sin-free life wasn't just an unplanned outcome of the Son of Man or the Son of God becoming a man.

The Son of God became a man so that he could live a perfect life.

The perfect life was a part of the plan, an essential part.

And by the way, that fact alone should tell you that God cannot just make us justified by some automatic decree.

If he could have justified us in any way other than sending his son to die on a cross, he would have done that.

Everything about the life and death of Jesus speaks of an action which had no alternative.

There was too much suffering, too much separation, too much risk for it to be anything other than our only hope.

We need a perfect sacrifice.

We need someone to pay a debt we couldn't pay.

We need a substitute.

Listen to me closely.

We need someone with the price to pay what we owe.

We need someone to pay a debt he did not owe.

This debt, the debt of sin, cannot go unredeemed.

The sin debt has to be paid.

And praise his name, Jesus paid it.

That's scripture.

His precious, perfect, sin-free life was offered as an atonement for our corrupt, unworthy, sin-filled lives.

And that act, listen to me, gave God the leverage he needed to be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

That's a verse we're coming to, but this seemed like the perfect place to quote it.

The just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

God maintained his own justice and at the same time was able to justify us because we believe that Jesus paid our debt.

And there's the last piece of this plan: him that believes.

This perfect sacrifice, I'm sorry to say, I'm not sorry to say this.

The perfect sacrifice will not apply to everyone.

He died for everyone, but his death won't be applied to everyone.

Only those who believe in Jesus will be justified.

This too goes all the way through the Bible.

And no reason to give any other example except the following, Genesis 15, 6.

And Abram believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness.

By believing in God's promises, we are judged righteous.

And it's righteous people that are justified.

And by the way, I didn't say we become righteous in the strictest sense, but we're judged righteous.

And that is justification and why we need it.

Now I'm not sure how effective I was in teaching that topic, but we're going to have to move on much more on this next time.

See you then.

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