Justification2

Miles McKee Ministries

PO Box 541, Kingston Springs, TN 37082

Justification Part 2 (Miles McKee)

THE GENIUS OF JUSTIFICATION

This is where justification comes in. But before we get to that it is important that we get our definition right. Justification means to pronounce or declare righteous. It does not mean to make righteous - nor does it mean to infuse righteousness into us. We’ll look at that in more detail later. First, let us attempt to see more clearly how God unfolds this drama of Justification.

THE COURTROOM

When we use the word justification it conjures up a picture of a courtroom. Gen. 18:25 tells us that God is the “Judge of the whole Earth”. Now where does a judge do his business? Need we say it--- --in a courtroom! See the reality! Here we have a Judge who is totally Holy. There is no darkness whatsoever in Him so He can’t be bribed. He is all powerful so He can’t be threatened. He is all knowing so He can’t be taken in by a sob story. He is everywhere present so He knows just how, why, when and where everything happened. So here God the Judge sits and into His courtroom comes one of His creatures who is guilty of breaking His law.

In the ancient days of Israel, God instructed the Judges how they should run a court. He told them in Deuteronomy 25:1,

“If there be a controversy between men and they come into judgment and the judge may judge them then they, shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked”.

In other words God the Supreme Judge of all the Earth says to the judges of Israel, “When you come into your courtroom this is what you do. You justify the righteous and you condemn the wicked. You don’t deviate from that. If the accused is innocent, declare him to be so, in other words justify him. If he is guilty, condemn him”.

A REBEL SON OF A REBEL FATHER

Do you see the problem here? Into God’s courtroom comes a lawbreaker. He has broken the Ten Commandments. He has broken the New Testament commandments. He has loved himself but not God. He is a lawbreaker by nature. He has missed the mark - he has fallen short of the glory of God ---he is a sinner and by God’s standard he should be condemned. Who says so? God says so and since God is God, He gets to make the rules! So here stands a man whose inclination is always towards sin. He has continually striven to be independent from his creator. Furthermore, since he was a child he has found rebellion against any and all authority easier than submission. Even in his religious moods he has not wanted or sought for the authority of God’s Word. For how indeed could he? He is a rebel by birth and a lawbreaker by nature. He is the rebel son of a rebel father.

This man in court is like each one of us. Let’s face it, we are all rebel sons of rebel Fathers. We have all gone astray from the start. Have you ever told a lie? Just one little lie? You have? Yes and so have I. But that one little lie shows us to be liars. And do you know what? Just one act of theft, no matter how small, even if it was only stealing a paper clip, qualifies us as thieves. And just one look with lust in our heart at someone else proclaims us as adulterers. And just one flame of unsanctioned anger reveals us to be murderers. It’s not a pretty picture is it? But it’s the picture the Holy God sees. How is God going to acquit thieving lying adulterous murderers? It can’t be done...or can it?

BLIND MEN AND GALLOPING HORSES?

There should be no problem getting a guilty verdict here. God, after all, has a standard - Himself. Just so that there would be no confusion about it God demonstrated to us how a pure and perfect life should be lived by sending his own Son the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, the Father showed us, in human terms, what it was to live a life of holiness and perfection. Christ is the glory and standard of the Father and a blind man on a galloping horse would realize all of us have fallen short of that. Think of it, when is the last time you met anyone who was as perfect as Jesus? He was after all, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26). None of us come close to that standard.

NEEDED........SOMETHING RADICAL!

So this should be a no contest. The man in God’s courtroom is obviously guilty, and God, being a just God, has no option but to condemn him. As I said there should be no problem about this. But there is a problem and the problem is this - God wants to get him off! God wants to acquit him!

But how can He? The man is wicked. God can not just excuse him. He can not give one standard to the judges of Israel and then operate by another one Himself. He must, as He instructed, justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. So something radical has to be done for the man if the man is to be saved from the death penalty. Something extraordinary and permanent must be done on the man’s behalf if ever he is to be set free.

MAN’S CHARACTER AND CONDUCT

Let’s further establish man’s need for a major rescue effort. When we are trying to estimate just how good and holy we are it’s not a wise thing to measure ourselves against our neighbor. No, rather, we should measure ourselves against God. It is only here that we find our true standing in holiness. Now in case any of us think our righteousness is too hard to estimate or to measure, God has very kindly given us His own measurement of us. It is found, amongst other places, in Romans 3:10 and following verses. Verse 10 is shocking - listen to it,

“There is none righteous - no not one”

Verse 12 is even worse,

“They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good no not one.”

To summarize, verse 10 says that man is unrighteous in his character while verse 12 says man is unrighteous in his conduct. One follows logically after the other for it stands to reason that if our character, in comparison to God’s, is rotten, our conduct, when compared to Gods, will also stink.

NONE!

These verses are very bad verses for self-righteous people as they say there are NONE righteous and NONE that doeth good. NONE! What a sweeping word! That includes you and it includes me. That means we are part of the problem. That means you are the person standing accused in the courtroom and I am the person right there beside you.

ALL GUILTY!

Not only are all unrighteous in their character and conduct, in Rom 3:19 matters get worse for it says,

“Now we know that what things soever the law saith it saith.....that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.”

That means that right now if we were summoned to God’s courtroom none of us would have anything to say which would stand as a legitimate defense. We couldn’t even open our mouths in our own defense. Our mouth would be stopped for we are all guilty.

ALL CONDEMNED!

Just when we thought there was light at the end of the tunnel it turned out to be a train coming for we read in ROM 5:18,

“by the offense of one man (Adam) judgment came upon all men unto condemnation.”

That means old father Adam put us in the soup and no amount of swimming can get us out. We were sunk before we even started to sin in our own right. We were all condemned by something which took place outside of and apart from us. We are all under the death sentence of a Holy and Righteous Judge. We are all condemned.

Do you see our dilemma? Do you see the hopelessness of our situation? Here we are in the courtroom and the all Holy Judge, the Judge who sees all, the Judge from whom nothing is hidden says,

“I look around and see all of you and I don’t see a single one of you who is righteous in his character or his conduct. You are all guilty. You were born guilty and all of you have proven that you are just as disobedient as your father Adam. You should therefore all be condemned.”

This is only right. What else can God do? He can’t surely deny His own rule of justice. He can’t contradict His own law. He can’t say one thing to the judges of Israel and then do another Himself. So here we have the Supreme Judge of all the earth in His courtroom with man the rebel standing in front of Him. As He looks over the vast sea of fallen humanity He says, “Not one of you does good in My estimation. Your very attempts at good deeds are flawed. Your motives are all polluted. You are all guilty. You should all be condemned.”...... Who is going to challenge Him? Who is going to tell Him He is wrong? Not me, I agree with His verdict and besides that, I have more sense than to argue with omnipotence.

RIGHTEOUSNESS-------BUT HOW?

God is in the saving business, but how is He going to save sinners and stay true to His own law? As the Supreme Judge of the Universe He can not minimize, modify or set aside His law. He can not violate His own integrity.

The guilty party, on the other hand, needs somehow to find a righteousness that will clear him in the courtroom but he can’t find enough righteousness within himself to satisfy God‘s righteous demands. Just because he helped a few old ladies across the street isn’t going to offset his accumulated life of sin.

Well what about repentance? Surely if a man repents God will look at that repentance and see that the man has changed his mind about his sin and is sorry for it. Then God can forgive and everyone will be happy. No, a thousand times no!

To expect God to behave like that is the expect God to become unjust! Let’s bring this picture into the Supreme Court of the land. A man is charged with a terrible crime, He has murdered and raped. His guilt is beyond question and has been established. The Judge is about to sentence the prisoner and asks, “Do you have any thing to say before I pronounce judgment?” The prisoner looks up at the Judge with tear filled eyes and says, “ Yes your honor, I have had time to reflect upon my crimes and I see now I was very wrong in doing what I did. If I could just wind back the clock and could face that situation I would not offend like that again. Furthermore if in the future if I get out of here I will never do such a thing again. I am broken hearted about my actions and weep every night when I consider my heinous crimes.” The judge then looks at him and says, “Are you sure you are sorry about what you have done?”

“Yes, most assuredly so”

“And you have changed your mind about having criminal ways?”

“Yes your Honor, I totally repudiate a life of crime”

“Very well then, you are free, case dismissed!”

CASE DISMISSED! How is that possible? We all can see there’s something wrong with this. Where does Justice come in? We all know that if justice is to be upheld someone has to pay for the crime. It is not a matter of vengeance or revenge but somewhere deep within us we know that someone need to be punished.

Repentance alone can not set the prisoner free. So both God and the sinner, in a sense, have a dilemma.

As we stated earlier, to justify a man is to declare him not guilty and to pronounce him righteous. In a court of law the judge can only pronounce what the man is. If he is innocent he is declared to be so. The judge doesn’t and can’t make him innocent. The judge can only declare the findings of the court.

So what is God going to do? He has a courtroom full of guilty people. There’s no question as to their guilt so how on earth can He declare them to be not guilty? How can God possibly acquit them?

JUSTIFICATION:PART 3

JUSTIFICATION PART 1

John Philpot: Burnt at the stake for preaching this doctrine.

They offered to spare his life if he recanted his faith in Christ alone, faith alone, Scripture alone and Grace alone but he replied, "I can say that these twenty years I have been in the faith of the true church, but that is not your church, into which you would force me to come. Truly, I have many times sworn, both in the reign of king Henry VIII, and of Edward his son, to hold out against the usurped power of the pope of Rome, and this oath I think I am bound by God's word to come into your church, I will gladly yield unto you, otherwise not."

HOW IS IT THAT TODAY, THIS GREAT TRUTH OF JUSTIFICATION HAS BEEN NEGLECTED IN MANY OF OUR “BIBLE BELIEVING CHURCHES?

Ralph Jackson, Henry Adlington, Lyon Cawch, William Halliwell, George Sealers, John Routh, John Derifall, Henry Wye, Edmund Hurst, Laurence Parnam, Thomas Bower, Elizabeth Pepper, and Agnes George: Burnt at the stake for believing, holding to and propagating this doctrine.

On the morning of the 28th of June, 1556, the day of their execution, they were taken from Newgate to Stratford-le-Bow, the place where they were to die. There, the sheriff tried to win them over. By dividing them into two companies, and placing them in separate rooms. He then went to one of the companies, and told them the others had recanted, by which means their lives had been saved. He advised the others to follow their example, and not cast themselves away by continuing obstinate.
But his appeal had no effect on them, and when the sheriff saw this he made no further attempt to persuade them to change from the faith they loved. They were brought out and l led together to the place where the stakes had been set up.

The eleven men were tied to three stakes, but the two women were in the middle, not tied to any stake--being in the midst of the fagots. So they were all burned together in one fire; and it is told of them, that "such was their love to each other, and constancy in their Savior Christ, that it made all the lookers-on to marvel."

What would these men and women say if they came back today and saw churches built on subjective man centered preaching? What would they think of preachers who compromise the Gospel and deny the great truth of Justification by grace by faith by not grounding their churches in same?

Thomas Hawkes: Burnt at the stake for holding to this doctrine
Shortly before he was taken to the stake, Hawkes was asked by his friends to give them some kind of token to show if the flames were bearable. Hawkes promised, "by the help of God, to show them that the most terrible torments could be endured in the glorious cause of Christ and his gospel.” Accordingly, it was agreed between them, that if the pains of burning were bearable, the martyr should lift up his hands toward heaven, before he died, as a signal to his friends.

He was led to the stake and the fires were lit and soon blazed with such fierceness that his speech was taken away by their violence; his frame shrunk and the people thought him dead--when suddenly, the martyr, mindful of the promise he had made to his friends, held his hands high above his head, and, as if in an ecstasy of joy, clapped them together