JUSTIFIED BY WHAT?

In “Words We Live By” Brian Burrell tells of an armed robber named Dennis Lee Curtis who was arrested in 1992 in Rapid City, South Dakota. Curtis apparently had scruples about his thievery. In his wallet the police found a sheet of paper on which was written the following code:

“I will not kill anyone unless I have to. I will take cash and food stamps-- no checks. I will rob only at night. I will not wear a mask. I will not rob mini-marts or 7-Eleven stores. If I get chased by cops on foot, I will get away. If chased by vehicle, I will not put the lives of innocent civilians on the line. I will rob only seven months out of the year. I will enjoy robbing from the rich to give to the poor.”

This thief had a sense of morality, but it was flawed. When he stood before the court, he was not judged by the standards he had set for himself but by the higher law of the state.

Likewise, when we stand before God, we will not be judged by the code of morality we have written for ourselves, nor even by what the culture justifies, but by God's perfect law. 

Paul writes, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins.” (Romans 3:23-24 NLT)

Justification is what happens when Christians abandon all those vain attempts to justify themselves before God -- to be seen as "just" in God's eyes through religious and moral practices. It's a time when God's "justifying grace" is experienced and accepted, a time of pardon and forgiveness, of new peace and joy and love. Indeed, we're justified by God's grace through faith. 

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™, compiled from a variety of sources

#6287

PEACE WITH GOD

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”  (Romans 5:1-2a NIV)

Most Christians are familiar with Philippians 4:6-7 which tells us about the peace of God. Those two verses envision upsetting situations that come into our lives (like loss of job, illness, death of family member). But this is not the peace that Romans 5:1 is talking about. Romans 5 is not referring to the “peace of God,” but to “peace with God.” The idea here is not that we are upset and therefore need to become trusting and more tranquil, but rather that we have been at war with God and He with us, because of our sin, and that peace has nevertheless been provided for us by God -- if we have been justified through faith in Jesus Christ. 

-- Pastor Dave Peters, The Seed Christian Fellowship

#6006

JUSTIFIED BY WHAT?

“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by His blood, effective through faith.”  (Romans 3:23-26 NRSV)

We all automatically gravitate toward the assumption that we are justified by our level of sanctification, and when this posture is adopted it inevitably focuses our attention not on Christ but on the adequacy of our own obedience. We start each day with our personal security resting not on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements in the Christian life. Since these arguments will not quiet the human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace. 

-- Richard Lovelace in “Dynamics of Spiritual Life”

#5724

PUT RIGHT WITH GOD

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.”  (Romans 5:1-2 NIV)

“Justify” or “put right” alludes to a courtroom where a person is acquitted, pronounced free to go, no charges. It suggests alignment, being in right relationship. That is, the relation to God is made right. Justification is rectification. God in Christ gives us access to undeserved favor and therefore to peace with God. Christ’s work, through faith, moves us from wrath to peace and to our hope of one day sharing the glory of God (Romans 5:2).

What Paul is saying is astounding. Christ’s death is literally God’s love. Not God loving us because of who we are; rather, God loving us in spite of who we are -- sinners, powerless to do what is right, enemies of God. Nothing about us merits God’s love. Yet, “God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Now we can boast. We can boast of Jesus (Romans 5:11). 

-- Richard and Julia Wilke in “DISCIPLE: Remember Who You Are”

#5318

JUSTIFIED BY GRACE

“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”  (Romans 3:22-24 NIV)

The Church is the only fellowship in the world where the one requirement for membership is the unworthiness of the candidate. 

-- Robert B. Munger, quoted in “Growing Strong in God’s Family”

#5140

A FACTORY RESET

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”  (2 Corinthians 5:17 NRSV)

When my iPhone started misbehaving a while back,… we did a hard reset. It’s also known as a factory reset because the iPhone is restored to the original manufacturer’s setting it had when it left the factory floor… All the settings, applications, and data are wiped clean. It’s a fresh start. It’s a new phone.

You are a new creation [in Christ]… New as in factory reset. It doesn’t mean like new. It means brand new! It’s new in time, new in nature…

When you put your faith in Christ, it’s a hard reset. It doesn’t just clear the cache. It completely clears your history, as if it never happened. That’s what the word justified means -- just as if I’d never sinned.

That’s more than a mnemonic device. It’s more than a paradigm shift. It’s a factory reset.

At the cross, Jesus turns if only regrets into what if possibilities. He sets us free from sin and the shameful feelings that go with it. The prison doors of past guilt and future fear fly wide open… They cannot coexist with God’s perfect love. His love reboots our heart, our soul, and our mind so that we can be fully alive, fully present… Amazing, isn’t it? 

-- Mark Batterson in “If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God’s What If Possibilities”

#5085

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  (Ephesians 2:8-10)

The Christian life begins as our hearts are drawn to God through God’s prevenient grace. It progresses as we hear the good news and choose to trust in Jesus Christ and receive His justifying grace and a new birth. However, this birth is not the end of our faith; it is when the real journey begins. As we experience the means of grace, we’re restored by the Spirit to become what God has made us to be: created in God’s image, loving God with all that is within us, and blessing our neighbor with a love not merely of words or affection but also of deeds expressing compassion, mercy, and justice. 

-- Adam Hamilton in “Revival: Faith as Wesley Lived It”


#4464

GRACE THAT IS GREATER

"Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin." (Julia Harriette Johnston)

King David gives us an excellent insight into this grace that is greater…  You remember that terrible episode in his life when one thing led to another in a downward spiral of sinfulness.  Sloth turned to lust, which it so often does.  Lust became adultery.  Adultery led to deceit, which it always does.  And, in David’s case, deceit culminated in murder.  David had grown cold and hard and distant from God, until the prophet Nathan came to David with a message that pierced his hardened heart and convicted his dulled conscience.  David repented of his sins, and we have a copy of the prayer of confession that he prayed.  It is Psalm 51, and it begins like this:  “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy steadfast love; according to Thy abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.” 

“According to THY steadfast love… According to THY abundant mercy…”

Do you see what David is saying here?  David is recognizing that his forgiveness is not ultimately about him: it’s about God.

Now this cuts across the grain of our natural inclination -- as well as so much of our experience in human relationships -- but it must be how you and I deal with God.

David does not claim his own merit, and he does not ask according to his great need.  Instead, the rationale behind David’s prayer for forgiveness is nothing about David, but rather is entirely about God and what God has to offer.

-- Rev. David Kalas, from his sermon "Amazing Grace: The Grace That Is Greater"


#3007

NO CHEAP GRACE

"For by grace you have been saved by faith…" (Ephesians 2:8)

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace... Cheap grace means a grace of doctrine, a principle, a system... Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner... Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship


#3002

WHAT GOD HAS DONE

"But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:4-7 NRSV)

Grace does not depend on what we have done for God but rather what God has done for us.

-- Philip Yancey in What's So Amazing About Grace?


#2335