ARTICLE 5 We believe that justification, regeneration, and the new birth are wrought by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.
The consummation of the act of repentance is when the sinner acknowledges his sin and asks forgiveness and God gives him a free pardon and restores them to a relationship with Himself. This is justification in the believer’s life. The believer is acquitted of his sinful acts and nature. Many individuals say that justification means just as if you had never sinned; your record has been wiped clean by Christ redemptive work on Calvary. Romans 3:24 “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” “The biblical term to justify (diakaioo) means God acquits and accepts the sinner who trusts in Jesus.” Justification is not the forgiveness of a man without righteousness, but a declaration that his righteousness is imputed unto him by Christ.(2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 4:6-8) As we get started, I want to read to you four verses from Paul’s letter to the Romans.
First we’ll read Romans 3:24, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 4:5 says, “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Last of all Romans 8:30 says,
“Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
I want to speak to you tonight on this subject of justification. What is it? Why is it important and what does it mean to us? Perhaps of all the great doctrines of our faith, what the Bible teaches about justification must be among the most important. In fact, it has been said that “a right understanding of justification is absolutely crucial to the whole Christian faith…If we are to safeguard the truth of the gospel for future generations, we must understand the truth of justification. Even today, a true view of justification is the dividing line between the biblical gospel of salvation by faith alone and all false gospels of salvation based on good works.”
There are four facts about justification I want to remind you of tonight.
1. Justification Is A Legal Declaration By God
What exactly does it mean to be justified? I think in some ways we have so dumbed down the Bible and biblical terminology that we are frightened by words like this one. Webster’s Dictionary defines justification as being pronounced free from blame or guilt. Vine’s Expository Dictionary says that being justified is the legal and formal acquittal from guilt by God as Judge. In his book Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem defines justification as an instantaneous legal act of God in which he thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us. In this legal act God declares us to be righteous in His sight. The justification Christ offers frees one from the penalty of sin, and will keep one free from that penalty. Someone once said that justification means, “Just as if I’d never sinned.”
You cannot understand justification apart from these facts about man’s sin and guilt before God. Because we are guilty sentence has been passed upon us. All of humanity stands condemned to die. The wages of sin is death. However, in justification God, who sits on the throne as Judge, legally declares that we are not guilty. In fact, He declares us to be righteous. But let us make a distinction here. In justification God does not make us good or righteous. Nor does He change what we are internally. To say that He justifies us is simply to say that He has declared us to be free from the penalty of our sin. God has simply issued a legal declaration about us.
A good example of this is found in Luke 7:29. Luke says that “all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.” You can see here that no one can make God righteous. They were simply declaring that God was righteous.
Now, if in justification God can legally declare us to be not guilty and also to be righteous, then two things take place in justification. The first thing is this: even though we have sinned terribly and stand before Him condemned, God declares that we are not guilty: that we have no penalty to pay for sin, including past, present and even future sins. That is why Paul could later say that there is “no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus.” Every sin you have ever committed or ever will commit has been fully forgiven.
That is one part of justification, but it is not enough, because now we stand before God forgiven, but somehow short of what we need. That is why we can say that not only have we been declared to be not guilty, but also to be righteous. You see, in the mind of God we are considered to be perfectly righteous before Him. In justification God sees me as having the merits of perfect righteousness. I am not just forgiven; I am actually righteous.
2. We Can Be Justified Because Of Christ’s Imputed Righteousness
Let’s read Romans 3:24-26….Now go to Romans 4:1-5, 8.
In Romans 4, the words “reckon,” “count,” and “impute” all come from the same Greek word. When we say that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us it means that God thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, or regards it as belonging to us. He “reckons” it to our account.
We have no righteousness of our own. Paul made that point in Romans 3:10. There is none righteous. Romans 4:5 says that I am ungodly. The only way God could look upon us as being righteous is by considering Christ’s righteousness as belonging to me: He justifies the ungodly by forgiving my sins and by declaring me to be righteousness.
If we reconsider our court trial, imagine that the charge has been laid against you. You are a sinner and deserve death. The various indictments are carefully laid out. You are given the opportunity to defend yourself, but there is nothing to say. You are guilty. Your adversary Satan grows excited knowing that you are guilty, but before the Judge passes sentence, an Advocate comes forward and tells the Judge that He has enough righteousness to take care of your crime. That is what Jesus has done for you.
Think about this: When Adam sinned, his guilt was imputed to us. In other words, God the Father viewed Adam’s sin as belonging to us. When Christ suffered and died for our sins, our sin was imputed to Christ; God thought of it as belonging to him. He paid the penalty for it. When He died on the cross He paid your sin debt. Now in the doctrine of justification we see Christ’s righteousness as being imputed to us, and therefore God thinks of it as belonging to us. It is not our own righteousness but Christ’s righteousness that is freely given to us.
3. Justification Comes Entirely By God’s Grace Through Faith In Christ
The question now comes up, “How do we receive Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness of sins?” Christ’s righteousness is not simply given to everyone, though it was offered for everyone. Romans 3:20 tells us that “no flesh can be justified by the deeds of the law.” In other words, we cannot be justified by any good doing or by our own efforts. We are absolutely corrupt. Verse 24 gives us the answer. How can we be justified? It is by His grace!
Ephesians 2:8-9. We are saved by God’s grace. God did not have any obligation to impute our sin to Christ or to impute Christ’s righteousness to us; it was only because of his unmerited favor that he did it. That is grace! But how does God determine who will receive this grace? Again, verse 26 gives us the answer: he is the “justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
Romans 5:1 says we are justified by faith, but you must understand that there is nothing inherently good about your faith as though your faith had merit with God. What we learn though is that in exercising faith in Christ we are essentially saying to God the Judge that we cannot do for ourselves what is necessary to escape the punishment that comes because of our sin. God demands payment. He demands satisfaction. Only the perfect sacrifice of His Son can satisfy. Only the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ can free a man from the guilt of sin, and the only way to receive that perfect, imputed righteousness is by believing.
4. Justification Results In Some Wonderful Blessings
Now, when God justifies a man, He says, “I pronounce you a righteous man. From now on I am going to treat you as though you had never sinned. All sin is passed and gone: wiped out. Your sin is not just forgiven, not just pardoned, but the slate has been cleared.
We have already read some of the blessings of being justified. Romans 5:1 says that we have peace with God. We are not at enmity with Him. I am no longer offensive to Him because He does not see my sin; He sees the perfect righteousness of Christ.
Titus 3:7. “That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” This is not a “hope so” salvation. Because many people think they must earn God’s favor for salvation, they “hope” they can go to heaven. But because my salvation is not dependent on me and I have bet all my salvation on the righteousness of Christ, I have genuine hope in God. As a result of God’s justification humankind even though they are ungodly can live in a new relationship through faith with God through Christ Jesus. Just as justification reestablishes the sinner in relationship with God;
II.Regeneration or the new birth changes the nature and disposition of the repentant sinner who now is a believer. Regeneration, or the new birth, or born again is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart and nature wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God. The same soul exists, but differently. The same will is there, but with a new, spiritual component. It is an altogether new taste for the loveliness of spiritual things, especially as they are taught in God’s Word and personified by God’s Son. Jesus in John 3:7 insisted “You must be born again.” “The term translated “again” in this passage means from above indicating that the new birth is a work of God.”
“The work of regeneration is described differently throughout the Bible. The Old Testament speaks of it as circumcising and softening hardened hearts (Deut. 30:6; Ezek. 36:26). It is portrayed as the act of God’s writing his law on the human heart (Jer. 31:33). In the New Testament, it is represented as becoming a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), being brought from death to life (Rom. 6:13), being called out of darkness into God’s wonderful light (1 Pet. 2:9), or being born again (John 3:3).”
Regeneration is necessary in order that man "become a Son" of the living God. Regeneration cannot be a work of man, for we do not adopt God; God adopts us. If there is no act of Regeneration in the sinner, that person is "condemned to hell" following physical death. No sinner shall be received into Heaven with open arms. 2 Peter 2:9 "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:” Those who have not received Regeneration by faith in Christ shall stand before the Great White Throne Judgment of God and be judged according to their own evil works. All of humankind are sinners in the sight of God unless the blood of Christ is applied. Those who have not accepted the finished work of the Cross shall go into eternity separated from God, in order that the justice of God may be satisfied. Revelation 21:27 "And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life." The character of Heaven "demands" that there be a work of Regeneration by God on those who would enter in.
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