Justification

We approach a subject which is relatively unfamiliar to many evangelical Christians and yet is quite crucial to the Christian gospel.  Luther said "It alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves and defends the church." After him, Calvin says it is "the main hinge on which religion turns." So this is a matter concerning which we need to be clear in our understanding.

We are effectively concerned with the question as to how we are to be right with God and saved eternally.  That surely is something that will matter to us.  Let us consider the subject of justification under three heads.

I WHAT IS REQUIRED of us by God.  God has a very high ideal for us.  He requires perfect holiness or righteousness.  He identifies the character of that holiness in Micah 6:8.  How desperately we have failed.  It is not just that we have occasionally lapsed into sin of some sort or another.  We have not done what is positively required.  We have not performed perfect holiness.  Too often the gospel is represented as merely a matter of forgiveness for our sins.  Well, it is a wonderful thing to be cleansed of the dirtiness of sin which many of us feel keenly.  But to be forgiven of the past still leaves us without what is positively required of us: holiness. 

II WHAT IS OFFERED to us in Christ.  We are offered precisely what imperfect people need: righteousness.  We were taught as children that to be justified by Christ means to be "just-as-if-I'd never sinned".  Actually, it means that and much more.  It is to be "just-as-if-I'd been perfectly holy." We are offered the holiness of Christ.  He lived a perfect life and that righteousness is imputed or accounted as mine.  Romans 5:19  There is what we might call a double imputation.  My sin is laid on Him (accounted as His) and it weighed Him down to hell on the cross.  His righteousness is laid on me (accounted as mine) and lifts me up to glory.  2 Corinthians 5:21

The Bible uses a delightful illustration of clothing.  In Christ, my rags are exchanged for a robe of righteousness.  In Zechariah 3:1-5 we see Joshua the priest, appearing before the heavenly court with Satan to accuse, "See how filthy are the garments he wears!".  The Lord commands that the rags be taken from him and he is clothed with rich robes.  See also Isaiah 64:6   Even our very best attempts to be Christian and to be holy are polluted and spoiled.  But Isaiah says, I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10 - NKJV).  In the words of the hymn writer:

Jesus, Thy robe of righteousness
my beauty are, my glorious dress;
midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head.

III WHAT WILL SECURE it for us.  Simply, faith.  See this asserted in Romans 3:22, 26, 28.  Faith simply accepts truth.  It received what Christ has done for us.  We have to be careful not to make faith itself a work.  As soon as we examine faith and ask if it is strong enough to make any difference, we look to faith to achieve something when the gospel says that it is Christ who has done something.  The very nature of faith is expressed by Augustus Toplady in these beautiful words:

Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to Thy cross I cling;
naked come to Thee for dress:
helpless look to Thee for grace.

Faith looks not at itself, but to Christ who has done everything that is necessary.  He has borne away my sin.  He has performed the righteousness that is required of me, for me.  There is nothing left for me to do to procure salvation, but simply to believe.