My Name is Justified
Picture the scene: An accused criminal stands before an impartial judge to receive his
just sentence. The legal proceedings begin with a court official reciting the laws of the
kingdom. As he listens, the criminal starts to realize that he is doomed to be
condemned. You see it turns out that he has violated every single law in the book.
Whatever the charge, he is certain to be found guilty. When the judge finally turns to
the defendant and asks how he pleads, the man is speechless. He stands before the
judge in mute terror, unable to utter anything in his defense.
Ryken, P. G., Carson, D. A., & Keller, T. (2011). Justification. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.
This is the condition man finds himself in as Paul sees it in Romans 3:23 “for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.
No matter who it is, the religious and the unreligious, Jews and Gentiles, believers and
atheists—everyone must appear before God’s and give an account for their life.
Romans 3:19–20
“Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every
mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no
one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through
the law we become conscious of sin”.
When the law is read, every commandment feels like a stabbing accusation. There is
nothing we can say in our defense.
There are three things that will help us understand how important justification is for all
of us.
They are called the three Imputations.
To impute something to someone is the same as assigning or connecting someone to
something. Just as the story we opened with. The judge was imputing crimes to the man
accused.
1. The first thought concerning justification comes from…
Romans 5:12
“Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
a) For Adam’s sin, everyone from that day forward where made to carry sins
nature at birth.
b) So sin was assigned or accredited to all humanity. We were born into sin and
helpless to change our sentence.
c) The trial before all humanity is not the trial of the innocent until proven
guilty, but this is the trial of the guilty until proven innocent.
2. There is another imputation, however, that takes the story of humanity’s
desperate situation in a completely different direction.
Romans 8:3
“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”
a) Here is the second imputation. Just like all of Adam’s sins were associated to
you and me, all our sins were accredited to an innocent man named Jesus
on the cross.
b) Think about this: sin was accounted to us and we are not innocent, but all
sins of humanity were accredited to one man who had never sinned.
3. Then it gets better. We come to the third imputation. Christ’s death and
resurrection was not the end of the story.
2 Corinthians 5:20
“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through
us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him
who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God
in Him.”
Romans 5:18-19
“Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in
condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all
men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many
were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”
a) If we are to be justified, it is not enough for our sins to be imputed to Christ;
His righteousness must also be imputed to us.
b) Justification means ‘a permanent change in our judicial relation to God.’ We
are changed from the charge of guilt to innocent on the basis of the finished
work of Jesus Christ.
c) When we turn to Jesus and breathe all of our sins on Him in repentance, He
breathes the breath of eternal life back on us and we become a living Spirit
once again.
The first imputation is not hard at all to see. The evidence is all around us. The
second imputation becomes a bit harder to accept: why He would do this for me?
But we accept what He did by faith. The third imputation is the most difficult and
this is what God put on my heart this week to impress on you this morning: He
puts His innocence on me and on you.
2 Corinthians 3:12-18
“Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. 13 We are not like
Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it
while the radiance was fading away. 14 But their minds were made dull, for to this
day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been
removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 15 Even to this day when Moses
is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the
veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s
glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which
comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
a) Even today many believers are still living with a veil between them and God.
They haven’t come into the full understanding of Justification. Many still live
in fear of God’s judgment and wrath. They are not living in innocence that
Justification grants them.
b) Paul makes a bold claim here. He says that because of Jesus (“such a hope”)
we are bold enough to remove the veil and enter into a new kind of intimacy
with the Almighty.
c) While the glory of God reflected on the face of Moses faded away over time,
the glory of God on the face of Christians only increases in radiance as we
are transformed into His likeness!