I
have wondered how we might use this word, “justification”, in a normal
sentence. I use it as a teacher, because I ask my students to write their
essays using left justification only, with a ragged right margin. Some of you
aren’t sure what I just said, because that’s still a fairly technical use of
the word, even if it’s not a churchy word. [To illustrate: I typed this sermon “left-justified”.]
I
gather (thanks to the resource of Wikipedia) that “Justified” was also a TV
show that aired on American TV from 2010 to 2015, based in contemporary
Lexington, Kentucky. Its basic idea was to dramatize the exploits of a US
Marshall, Raymond Givens, who made his name through shooting a mob hit man in a
“controversial but justified quick-draw” contest. From the story arc, we can
guess that the show wrestles with the idea that bad and violent actions are
sometimes justified by the good results they bring.
This
show introduces us to several basic ideas in the word “justification”.
- Justification assumes the rule of law, in which people are either just – righteous (or good) people, or unjust – bad people.
- Justified is a legal term, indicating that someone has been found to be in compliance with the law.
- Behind the rule of law lies a further idea – that we should want to be just or righteous people, i.e., people whose lives fit with the good.
When
we start to speak theologically, we go deeper and further. Consider the passages
we read from Genesis and Romans.
Genesis 15
Abram’s
encounter with God is one of a sequence of encounters in which God promises that
Abraham and Sarah will have many descendants – God said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So
shall your offspring be.” The point of the passage for our purposes
comes in the final verse: “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”
I chose this passage because Paul uses this verse in several places to
invite people to trust God. Romans 4 and 5 use this verse to help us understand
what the church means when we talk about justification. (See Romans 4: 3 and
22.)
Romans 5
- Verses 1 to 5: Paul notes that we are
“justified by faith.” On another day, we could explore the way that God’s
people experience trouble in this life. “Suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance character, and character hope.” That is to say, the troubles of
our lives lead to God’s glory revealed in us as God’s Spirit cares for us.
Today, we note simply that “justification”, whatever it is, comes through
faith.
- Verses 6 to 8: We were powerless and
“ungodly”, but Christ died for us. This “for us” assumes a substitution in
which we face death, but Jesus dies in our place. What exactly that “for us”
means is part of what Lee explored two weeks ago as he preached on atonement.
Whatever else it means, Jesus’ death demonstrates God’s love for us. Our care
group was studying a book some time ago in which we read about two American
soldiers in Iraq. They were close friends throughout the war there, until one
day when a grenade was thrown into the place they were sitting. The one closest
to the grenade looked at his friend and smiled, then threw himself on the
grenade. He was killed instantly, but his friend lived. The author used that
sacrifice to remind us that God loves us so much that he “threw himself on the grenade
that would have killed us”. How that exchange works belongs in further
conversations about “atonement”. For us this morning, it is enough to say that
God loves us and that we live because God loves us.
- Verses 9 to 11: Sin has made us
“enemies of God”, and we can expect God to destroy God’s enemies. In that
dangerous situation, God saves us through Jesus and makes us God’s friends –
“reconciled with God”. Next week, Lee will take us into the waters of
reconciliation, so I say no more here about that. Only this: That, being
“reconciled with God” and therefore God’s friends, we have real life!
- Verses 18 to 21: At the end of the
chapter, Paul locates our enmity with God in the way that we share in Adam’s
sin, and he locates the saving action of God in the work of Jesus. All of which
we receive by faith, like Abraham – trusting God to make us what God wants us
to be.
Justification, then, is the story of God making us right when we went
wrong. God justifies us through the work of Christ. This we call “God’s grace”.
We receive this grace by faith. Faith is our response to God’s grace at work in
our lives. And Paul promises that “where sin increases” – that is, wherever
human rebellion makes life destructive and horrible – “God’s grace increases
even more.” [Notice that this story is the opposite of our world’s story, in
which we have to “justify ourselves”. We cannot make ourselves “right with the
good”, “consistent with the reality of God’s creation.]
Do We Get It?
There’s a problem here. As I look around the congregation this morning,
I see people who are for the most part good people. We have been tried in the
fire, and God has reshaped our lives. Can Paul’s description apply to us? Do we
feel as though we live “where sin increases”? God’s grace has increased in our
lives, and we thank God for dealing kindly with us. Do we even need
“justification”?
Go back to the TV series, “Justified”. The US Marshall at the centre of
the series appears to be a generally good man, truly desiring justice – “law
and order”. He does some things that are questionable on the way to stopping
the bad actors from doing bad things. His actions are justified by their
results, but he remains a person of questionable character. In North America,
we worship power and success, so we are often willing to justify bad actions by
their (apparently) good results.
That kind of thinking is wrong. The whole of Paul’s argument leading up
to this chapter has been to show that all of us – Jews and Gentiles, men and
women, religious and irreligious – all of us “fall short of God’s glory”. We
fall short of what God wants us to be. Which brings me back to my comment a
moment ago, wondering if we really think we are that bad, wondering if we
believe that we fall short of what God wants us to be.
A Brief Example
Some time ago I was at supper with some friends, and one of them was
describing a recent event in his life and then burst out, “I was surprised at
how I reacted! I didn’t know I was so vindictive!” I would not describe my
friend as vindictive. He works hard to show care to other people, but in the
case he was describing, something in his character surfaced. I admire his
willingness to name it.
The truth is that such feelings lurk beneath the surface for most of us.
(I would say: “all”, but I am not the judge of all people.) This week as I was
cleaning out the coffee maker, the lid slammed down and cut my hand. I was
alone at home, and the shouting that followed reminded me that an uncomfortable
level of anger lurks beneath the surface within me. The part that scares me is
how easy it is for me to fail to see what lies in my subconscious. [This kind
of thing happens often enough to let me know there really is a problem. I say
no more here: My job is to work that out elsewhere.]
Have you experienced depression or despair? Depression can be anger
turned inwards against one’s own innermost being. Do you find yourself wishing
that God would remove someone from the face of the earth? Hatred of others can
grow out of hatred of evil. I don’t want to preach about politics, so I will
say no more, except to say that only by God’s grace is sin removed from our
lives.
God loves us, and so Jesus died for us. His self-sacrifice “justifies”
us – something we could never do for ourselves. Marshall Givens in the TV show
is not truly “justified”. He remains a man who has killed other people. He
remains someone who is separated from God by his own choices to act violently.
Only God can justify him. And God will do so, if – like Abraham – he believes
God and receives God’s grace, making him righteous, making him the person God
wants him to be.
Without God’s grace, every one of us is separated from God and deserve
death. Through God’s grace, we are reconciled with God and receive life. God
makes us right. That’s justification!
What Do We Do? The role of
sanctification
From this description, justification is all God’s work. God makes us the
way that God wants us to be. The Bible uses many images to describe this new
way – “new birth” or regeneration is one of the most common. The point is
expressed in 2 Corinthians 5: “If anyone is in Christ, he/she is a new
creation.” We become new people when God makes us new. Obvious, when you put it
that way! Just as we become new people when we are born again.
Making us new is God’s work, but we have a part to play – the part of
response. “Abraham believed God, and God ‘justified him.” We believe God. We
live into the new person God has made us. We open ourselves to the fullness of
God’s Spirit at work in us. This is what we call “sanctification” – being made
holy, filled with God’s Spirit.
In Romans 6 and 7, Paul explores the way that our tendencies to sin that
lurk beneath the surface struggle with the new person God has made us. He
finishes his description thus, “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ!” Then come his stirring words: “Therefore, there
is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through
Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law
of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened
by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to
be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the
righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live
according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
For this morning, we note just this much from Romans 8: God “justifies”
us – makes us righteous – so we live that way through the presence and power of
God’s Spirit within us. This “sanctification”, then, is our response to God’s
work in us. We embrace God’s Spirit and open every door of our life to God.
I have heard described this way. Your life and mine is like a house.
When we choose to follow Christ, he saves us and we give him the key to the
front door and the title to the house. That’s justification. But this house has
many rooms, and there are doors down dark corridors that we have never
explored. Whenever we find another one of this unexplored rooms, we fish out
the key and open it and give it to God’s Spirit to clean up and live in.
Conclusion
Big words: justification and sanctification. A simple core at their
centre: God loves us and we grow in God’s love. Paul understood this. He ends
the long section (chapters 1 to 8) in which we find our passage this morning
with a soaring description of God’s love: “What can separate us from the love
of God? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! (Romans 8: 31 to 39) No matter what happens
to you in this life, God has your back. We give ourselves to God completely,
and in return God gives us life to the full.
Steinbach Mennonite Church
2 February 2020
Genesis 15: 1 to 6
Romans 5: 1 to 11, 18 to 20
Genesis 15: 1 to 6
The Lord’s Covenant with Abram
15 After this, the word
of the Lord came to
Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your
very great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what
can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit
my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And
Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my
household will be my heir.”
4 Then the word of the Lord came
to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and
blood will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and
said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.”
Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the Lord,
and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Romans 5: 1 to 11, 18 to 20
Peace and Hope
5 Therefore, since we have
been justified through faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 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. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our
sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character,
hope. 5 And hope does
not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
6 You see, at just the
right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous
person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since we have now been
justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s
wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s
enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how
much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received
reconciliation.
…
18 Consequently, just as one
trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous
act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For
just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made
sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will
be made righteous. 20 The law was brought in so that the
trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the
more, 21 so that, just as
sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness
to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Questions:
·
What does
justification mean?
·
Why do we need to be
“justified”?
·
How does justification
happen?
·
What does
justification lead to?
·
What does it look like
every day?
Bonus Questions:
·
Can you think of hymns
that help us sing about “justification”?
·
How does
sanctification fit into the picture?
· I said that “God has your back” when bad things happen. How do we experience God’s love when life falls apart?
