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For we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from the works of the law. Amen. You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, the doctrine of justification is the doctrine upon which the Church stands or falls. The doctrine of justification is at the center of what the Lord Jesus Christ does to deliver to us the righteousness and the perfection of God and to save us and to set us free. The doctrine of justification then is the key to every fight in the church as it was the key fight and argument in the Reformation because the doctrine of justification is the key fight that each one of us has in our own hearts and minds.
To be justified is to be declared righteous or declared holy. It’s a forensic term. That means it’s a term that has to do with the court of law. In fact, it has to do with the verdict that’s delivered after a court case by the judge or by the jury or by whoever it is who has the authority to deliver the verdict.
And we find ourselves then in this life, we find ourselves constantly working and arguing the case for our own righteousness. This is essentially the problem that we sinners face. We enter into the courtroom of the conscience, and as St. Paul says in Romans chapter 2, we find there two distinct actions, either accusation or excuse. In other words, we are constantly trying to build a case against others and for ourselves.
And the case that we make, especially for ourselves, that’s what we want to consider this morning. The case that we make for ourselves is like this: we see all of the things that we do wrong, we see all of our sins, we see all of our mistakes, we know what we do, and we minimize those and we make excuses for them.
I did that because I was tired, or I didn’t do that because they didn’t deserve it, or whatever, nobody got hurt, it wasn’t that bad; surely God doesn’t mean that we should take His law that seriously. We have excuses; we’re like machines for excuses for our sin.
And then, even more dangerously, while we’re busy excusing the things that we’ve done wrong and excusing the things that we’ve failed to do right, we find ourselves amplifying and building up all of the things that we think we’ve done well, padding our resume, presenting evidence for our own goodness and our own righteousness and our own holiness so that we can stand before God—this is what we imagine—we can stand before God or stand before our neighbor or stand before whoever we want to stand before and present a case for ourselves, for our salvation, for our own righteousness.
We are self-justifiers. It’s the nature, it’s the theological nature of our own sinful flesh. And it doesn’t matter if we grew up in church or apart from church; all of us are by nature doing this. Measuring ourselves, comparing ourselves to others, trying to change the standard by which we are judged so that we can stand and be righteous.
We know this because, you know, there are always these surveys that happen. I’m always amazed by the surveys that happen to people after church, and I get reports of them as pastors, that people think that they’re going to go to heaven; even Christians think that they’re going to go to heaven. Why? Because of their own good works, because they’re pretty good people.
If someone is waiting for you after church to take a survey, and they ask you if you’re going to go to heaven, don’t tell them it’s because you’re a good person. We’re natively, instinctively believers in our goodness, and it becomes more dangerous when that false doctrine and that false teaching is supported by the church.
When the church comes along and says, “Yeah, you know what, you need to be saved. You need to mix your faith with love. You need to mix God’s grace with your own efforts. You need to contribute something to your own salvation, whatever it is, at the beginning, at the middle, at the end. You have to make a decision, you have to say this many prayers, you have to do this or that,” and our flesh just loves it.
Can you imagine that you’re standing in a courtroom and you are on trial, and the business that you’re about is presenting evidence for your own righteousness? You go out and you find something: here’s a good work that I did, or here’s a nice thing that I said. Here’s something that I wanted to do at least, and we’re constantly presenting that evidence and making that argument.
And then the church comes along and says, “We’ll help you. We’ll give you so many pilgrimages and so many Hail Marys and so many whatevers and this and that, and now you can also present all your religious works and your religious efforts in your own attempt to justify yourself before God and the world.”
So, the Scripture, God’s Spirit through the Scripture has to step in and stop this nonsense. You naturally, I naturally, on my own will always be making this argument for my own righteousness, and so the Holy Spirit has to come in and convict the world of sin, convict you of sin. He has to put us in our proper place.
He has to stop the mouth of self-justification. He has to end the argument of our own righteousness. And that’s precisely what St. Paul is doing in the Epistle lesson. In fact, the Epistle lesson begins with verse 19. He says that these things are done so that every mouth would be stopped.
But I want to show you what Paul does before that, starting back in verse 9. Now you’ve got to imagine that you’re there trying to make the case and you say, “Well, now, I’m righteous, aren’t I?” And Paul responds, Romans 3:10, “No, none is righteous. No, not one.”
“Well, I understand a little bit about God, don’t I?” Verse 11, “No one understands.” “Well, I’m seeking after God. At least I’m that. I’m a seeker for God.” Verse 11 again, “No one seeks for God.”
“Well, am I headed in the right direction? I think I’m headed in the right direction,” we’re making our argument, trying to settle into our own righteousness. “I think I’m going the right direction, aren’t I?” Paul says, verse 12, “All have turned aside.”
“Maybe I have some sort of worth; I’m worth something, aren’t I?” “No,” Paul says, “together they have become worthless.” “Don’t I do good?” “No one does good.” “Not even one person?” “Not even one.”
“But don’t I say nice things?” “Your throat is an open grave.” “Don’t I speak in kindness?” “Their tongues deceive.” “Don’t I use my lips to bless people?” “The venom of snakes is under their lips.” “Don’t I speak some truth with my mouth?” “Your mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
This is what St. Paul says. “Well, don’t I go to do good things? Don’t I go to serve people?” “Their feet are swift to shed blood. Their paths are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known. God, verse 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes.”
So that Paul catches us in the act of trying to make a case for our own righteousness, and he just stands there and objects to it and shuts it off, one after another after another. One thing I can say about myself, one thing I can say to defend myself, one thing I can say to assert my own righteousness, one thing I can say to present my own goodness before God, and every time Paul is shutting us down, every time Moses is shutting us down, every time the law is shutting us down and showing us who we really are, what we really are – sinners who have deserved God’s wrath.
We cannot assert or defend or argue our own righteousness. There is nothing that we can present to make the case of our own holiness. You and I are sinners, desperately wicked. We were born sinners, and we’ve been making it worse ever since, so that there is no excuse. There is no defense. There is no case for us to make of our own worth, of our own value, of our own righteousness.
Verse 19 in Romans 3: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the entire world held accountable to God. For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in God’s sight. But through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”
There is for you and me in the courtroom of divine justice, there is nothing to say, nothing to do, no evidence to present, nothing that we can add. And we are brought by God’s law to the end of ourselves, and we look, we hang with desperation, we cling like with a – I mean, our fingernails are going to peel off because we cling to this delusion of our own righteousness so tightly, but the law says, “No, none is righteous, not even one.”
Do not trust in your own works. Do not present your own efforts. Do not offer up to God the evidence of your own merit. This is what the church needed to hear in the Reformation, but no matter, it’s what we need to hear now, each one of us.
This preaching of the law against our pride that clings to our own efforts and our own goodness and our own works, we need to hear that we cannot save ourselves, that we are not able to justify ourselves, that we cannot be righteous on our own, that we enter into the courtroom of God’s divine justice and we do not plead innocent, but rather we stand there pleading guilty with no evidence, with nothing to give, guilty as charged, guilty before God and the world as sinners who have failed to love God, who have failed to trust God, who have failed to fear God, who have failed to love our neighbor, who have failed to do all the things required of us.
We stand before God as guilty and deserving His condemnation, and then for you another one comes into the court. Another one comes to argue your case. Another one comes with evidence, not of your own goodness and works, but the evidence of His blood and His righteousness.
Here’s how St. Paul says it: “But now the righteousness of God has been manifest apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified,” that means declared righteous and holy and innocent, “are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith, to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine patience He passed over former sins. It shows His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ.”
So there’s nothing that you can present, nothing that you can give, nothing that you can do, but Jesus steps into the court of divine justice and He says, “Here is the evidence; here is the evidence for your righteousness; here is the evidence for your acquittal,” and He presents His cross, His death, His suffering, His resurrection, and God receives it and you are forgiven.
You are declared to be righteous and holy and innocent, with an innocence not of Adam and Eve in the garden, but with the innocence of God Himself. Well, you are declared to have the righteousness of Christ because your sins are forgiven, because Jesus is your Redeemer.
All of us, all of us deserve God’s wrath and anger, but Jesus suffered it already so that He can give to you by grace alone, through faith alone what you could never earn or deserve: future, life eternal, and the promise of the resurrection.
So you, dear saints, listen: you are justified. That means that when it’s time for you to stand before God on the judgment day, He will declare you innocent, holy, acquitted of all sins, perfect and righteous, and He will welcome you to the resurrection where the righteous live. That’s what you have, not by your works, but by Christ alone, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Please stand. God is just and He is the justifier of all who have faith in Him. May the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.