JUST AS IF I HAD NEVER SINNED
Rom 3:9-31
INTRODUCTION
Q. What direction does a Polar Bear, in its natural habitat, look when it looks back? Looks to the right? Looks to the left? And when it looks straight ahead?
A. In each case it was looking South. It’s on the North Pole!
Q. What does a Christian see if he/she looks back? Looks ahead? Looks around?
A. Salvation – Look back: you have been saved.
Look around: you are being saved.
Look ahead: you will be saved.
Our past, present & future are all transformed because of Him! Because of Jesus.
Since God is without sin – we must be free from sin, also, if we are to spend now and eternity with Him. If we are to experience the Salvation that He has to offer, we must be holy as He is holy. We need to be justified. "Just as if I had never sinned" is what justified basically means – and that is the title I have given to this sermon.
Please read with me Romans chapter 3 and verses 9 to 31.
READ
Firstly, lets consider some ways in which we may try to be justified in God’s sight. I want to look at 4 common ways – starting with:-
1. JUSTIFICATION THROUGH GOOD WORKS
Many people know about God & believe Him to be a good Being who requires people to be good. So they make all sorts of efforts to be good. These are the people who work tirelessly for the community – they are involved in helping people, no end.
They believe they are justified, because they are nice, righteous, helpful people. They will go to heaven, because after all, that is what they deserve! And how dare you be so narrow & judgemental as to suggest otherwise! Their God is a loving God!
Sure, these people may recognise they have some shortcomings, but their goodness far outweighs those – And God is not so petty as to hold those little things against them. After all, they are just like God – as they understand Him to be.
Well, if you are in this camp, the news is all bad, bad, bad!
Isaiah 64:6 tells us that as far as God is concerned, " all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment". And Paul, here in Rom 3:10, says "there is none righteous, not even one". And verse 12 says, "there is none who does good".
Your deeds may be of value to fellow man, but they are of no value in bringing about justification before a Holy & Righteous God.
Another way we may try to bring about justification is, through religion:-
2. JUSTIFICATION THROUGH RELIGION
There are some branches of the so called "Christian" Church, that proclaim special rites & rituals in order to obtain, or secure salvation.
Some other Churches say – "We are the true people of God – we alone, offer the means of obtaining salvation – of being justified. If you leave us, you are leaving the only true people of God – stay with us and you are justified in God’s sight". I was told this by one of the churches I was attending, in response to informing them that I was going to study at the Bible College of Victoria!
The Pharisees prided themselves in their "godliness", and yet Jesus said to them in Lk 16:15,"You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God".
And Rom 3:11 says, "There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God". Paul says here, that your religion in effect is a pretence for your own pride!
In addressing the Jews, who prided themselves, in being God’s chosen people & keeping His Holy law, Paul says in Rom 2:24, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you", and he goes on to say in verse 29 that, " he is a Jew (that is chosen of God) who is one inwardly; and circumcision (representing the Law) is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God".
We need to be careful that we don’t get caught up in religion – and become just like those Jews, or Pharisees, "those who justify themselves in the sight of men". We know God’s Word – but we haven’t become a Jew inwardly!
Paul spent much of his life as a Pharisee, trying to justifying himself & he now considers all that as rubbish.
Attempting to justify yourself through religion is detestable to God.
It has the head knowledge of God, but denies His power. It in effect denies Almighty God Himself! We know about God but we can manage His affairs just fine by ourselves. We don’t need Him to interfere in our religion.
A third way we may try to justify ourselves is through experience:-
3. JUSTIFICATION THROUGH EXPERIENCE
With these people, it is - "I am right with God because I have had a great experience of Him".
You seem to come across these people all the time. I could give up to date testimonies of meetings with such people, but I will give you an extreme, but clear example of one such meeting that took place in Melbourne many years ago.
Andrew (my friend) & I were walking toward a large gathering of young people, outside a particular Christian centre – as we headed toward the group we decided that, if these people were to witness to us, we would just ask questions about Christianity. They began to witness to us – All their witnessing was focused on the power of the Holy Spirit, and we were given testimony after testimony on remarkable experiences that proved their standing with God.
I enquired as to what Jesus had to do with all this, and was told that He came to show that God loved us and had not forgotten about us – He came to help us & be our example, before the Holy Spirit was sent.
I was then told to listen to – lets call him Frank’s testimony – who didn’t even believe in God, but was somehow persuaded to put God to the test & be baptised, & as he came up out of the water, the Spirit fell upon him & he couldn’t help but speak uncontrollably & continually in tongues.
I asked what Jesus’ death had to do with all this - & no one could give me an answer. The best answer I got was, "that’s just the way God chose to work".
Out of the whole group of 20+ people, we never heard anything about sin, judgement, Jesus’ death or resurrection, repentance, forgiveness, grace, faith or even re-birth! All we heard about was the power of the Holy Spirit, & that is all we need to be saved.
These people were justified by their experiences!!! And we too can be justified by having similar experiences.
Others say that we need more than the cross to be justified, eg. claiming the victory, or possessing extraordinary spiritual gifts etc, are needed to ensure that you really are justified – God’s Word is no longer the final say – experience & feelings are!
It seems that in some Christian circles, the really spiritual Christians are those who exert the least mental effort! Here I am Lord, fill me with emotions, feelings & experiences – I don’t want to see you in the mundane, I need the extraordinary.
After all, Christ did say in Mk 12:30 that, "We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our heart, and all our heart, and all our heart".
Actually, I think He might have said mind in there too!
The fact is we are not justified by our feeling or experiences.
The 4th way we may try to justify ourselves is through self atonement:-
4. JUSTIFICATION THROUGH SELF ATONEMENT
Punishing ourselves for our own sin.
You sin and feel unworthy of God’s forgiveness & you feel that you must make it up to Him, in some way. You need to justify yourself before coming to Him. We can punish ourselves in a multitude of ways in an attempt to make ourselves right before a Just God.
But, do you know that Scripture says, with regard to God’s Righteousness, "In Your court, O God, who can stand up and justify himself". And the answer, of course, is nobody!
It has been rightly said, "Nothing will satisfy the conscience of man that does not first satisfy the conscience of God".
Our attempts at punishing ourselves will never appease God, or us, for that matter, we simply compound our sinfulness by rejecting God, yet again. And we reject the Grace He has offered.
We just do not see the horror of sin. We don’t understand just how much it grieves our Loving Father. We often think of sin as a particular wrongdoing, over which we constantly struggle – but if that is the extent of our understanding of sin, we are gravely uninformed. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?"
How then, can we be justified?:-
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT DECLARES A SINNER TO BE RIGHTEOUS
There is a righteousness that reveals the character of God – And that comes through the Law. The Law is the out-shinning of God Himself. But the Law brings God’s judgement with it. It convicts of sin.
Under the Law there is no justification.
In fact, we are told by Paul in Rom 3:20 that, "through the Law comes (even) the (very) knowledge of sin". We know about sin because God has told us about it in His Law. There we are faced with His very character, & we see that there is a huge gulf between our character & His character. By looking into the Law, we see, looking back at us the most vile, hideous creatures, who have no hope of satisfying God’s demands.
You know, Paul would never go against God’s unchangeable Law. It is eternal! But, he does speak of a righteousness of God that declares a sinner to be righteous.
We say God can do anything! And yet there are some things which God cannot do, & one of them is to let sin go unpunished. God is incapable of not judging everyone who commits sin.
Lets read Rom 3:21 - 24, where Paul tells of God’s righteousness apart from the Law – a righteousness that seems to contradict the righteousness of the Law.
"But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus"
Paul says, by the Law came the knowledge of sin & the decree that it must be punished. On the cross, Christ became us, & took upon Himself our punishment! O the wonder of it! God became man, for the sole purpose of delivering us from the penalty of sin. He took upon Himself the sins of the world!!!! He loves us that much.
Rom 8:32 tells us that God abandoned Christ, delivered Him up. It says that, "He (who) did not spare His own Son, but, delivered Him up for us all"
The Father abandoned Him to our sin, our death, our shame. He loved us that much!
Would you abandon your child?
Christ as man, when He became our sin, our shame, our impurity, our evil and our rebellion, on that cross, called out to His Father, "My God, My God why have you forsaken Me!". Jesus in effect was saying, I am every man that has, is or will live, and I am bearing the punishment for all their past, present and future sins – God, don’t abandon Me to this darkness!
God didn’t permanently abandon Him, for on the 3rd day He raised Him from the dead. That He might be just in justifying the one who has faith in Jesus.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. Each one of us can be justified in the eyes of God, through faith in His Son, Jesus.
Rom 3:27 "Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith." We can’t boast that through our own efforts we have been justified, for it has all been of God – we are justified through Christ’s redemptive work.
If you have not placed your trust in Him, I urge you to do so today – for today is the day of salvation!
COMMUNION
Lets ponder anew what Christ’s death has accomplished for us, as we come to the Lord’s table once again. These emblems are for those of us who have placed our trust in the risen Lord. Those of us who are justified, because of what this feast represents. For at this time we proclaim the Lord’s death until He come again. The bread symbolising His body broken for us and the cup symbolising His blood shed for us – the blood by which we are washed clean. God tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.
