Preached · October 2, 2011
Text · Genesis 15; Exodus 6; Luke 18; Romans 3
Introduction
If you are visiting for the first time, this is abnormal. Don't expect that the guy who leads the singing is also the guy who teaches you all the time. This is not the Anthony show. It's just that schedules happen to align this way. So have no fear about that.
We are in a series called Growing a Healthy Church, going through the book of 1 Timothy, and we've done the first two chapters. And now we're screeching to a halt, we're stopping, we're changing topics for a moment, and then we'll get back to 1 Timothy next week.
The reason we're changing topics is that a few months ago we asked our leadership team, some people in the congregation, our elders, our deacons: what are some topics that you feel the church needs to hit on? What needs to be taught? What are some gaps that might be missing in what's being taught here? And one of the ones that came up was justification by faith.
Big word, justification by faith. We find this phrase in the New Testament, and the question that was asked is, what does it mean? What is this all about?
And so our goal — we're going to get to Romans chapter 3, but don't turn there yet. We need to travel to get there. So we're going to start in Genesis chapter 15. If you have your Bibles, your PDAs, your iPads, your phones, go ahead and turn to the book of Genesis chapter 15.
Genesis 15
We have been introduced to the character of Abram, who's eventually called Abraham. The story of Abram and his family is basically this: they lived in this land, and God out of nowhere seemingly says, get up, move from the land that you're in, and go to the land that I'm promising your ancestors. And so Abram, at this point, gets up and goes. He follows, he obeys.
And so three chapters later, there's this conversation going on between God and Abraham. And basically Abraham has this issue. He's saying, look, God, you have promised me descendants that are supposed to be more numerous than the stars in the sky. And I don't have any kids. There's a step that's missing.
And God replies to him in verse 7:
I am the Lord who brought you from Ur ... to give you this land to possess.
In verse 8, Abraham says:
O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?
And God replied in verse 9:
Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat, a turtledove, a young pigeon.
And there's this sacrifice that they do. And so we skip down to verse 13. The Lord says to Abraham:
Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs. They shall be slaves there. They will be oppressed for four hundred years.
And so we're getting this picture about what we're about to look at, which is Exodus.
I want you to back up, though, to verse 4. Abraham's question: where's my heir? Where are my children? The Lord came to Abraham and said, this man shall not be your heir, this servant of yours; no one but your own child shall be your heir. And God took Abraham outside. He said:
Look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them ... So shall your descendants be.
And verse 6 is kind of where our journey starts:
And Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Defining Terms: Justification and Righteousness
Now, we need to define a couple of terms. We're talking about justification by faith, and this inherently involves righteousness.
Justification — the definition we have in mind is "to be made righteous." That's wrong. We have in our minds that justification is this process, or maybe this event, that makes you righteous. No. What justification is, is an event that declares you righteous. It's a legal term. If you were to go in front of a judge and the judge was supposed to make a decision about you, he could make a claim of guilty or justified. And if the judge says you are justified, he has declared you righteous. And this hasn't changed anything about your own character. This is the judge's decision. You are declared righteous, and so you can go about on your way. You're in good standing with the judge.
Now, to be justified is to be declared righteous. So we have to ask the question: what is righteousness?
A couple of years ago — going on five years ago, I guess — I did an internship in Hawaii working at a church, because people in Hawaii need Jesus too. It wasn't all paradise. It's pretty nice, though. One of the projects that we did was we made this man-on-the-street video. You know what I'm talking about — Letterman, Jay Leno, they do this. They go out on the street and they ask people questions. And we made a man-on-the-street video for our church that I would have played for you, except the sound quality is terrible, and I'm embarrassed to show it. But basically what happened was that we asked people, "What do you think of when you hear the word righteousness?" And three things happened. People either had no idea what we meant when we said the word righteousness. Or — we were in Hawaii, and so people were like, "Yeah, righteous!" You know, they thought it was that kind of thing. Or, people got the idea of self-righteousness, pompousness, in their mind.
Well, righteousness is a biblical term that's really connected with the word justice. And maybe we can connect with the word justice a little bit better. Justice: things are right in the world. Things are right with you and the person next to you. Things are right with you and your sons or daughters, or you and your mom and dad. Things are right systematically. Taxes are low. Incomes are high. This is justice.
And so when you are justified, you have been declared just. You have been declared to be in line with God's justice. And God's justice, of course, is perfect. And so to be justified, to be declared righteous, is to be in line with perfection.
So when we get to Genesis chapter 15, verse 6: Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him — some versions say credited it — credited it to him as righteousness.
Exodus 5–6
Go ahead and move ahead in your Bibles to Exodus chapters 5 and 6.
Now in this case, we are in the middle of a story again. We've skipped ahead four or five hundred years, and these descendants of Abraham have come to pass, and now there are hundreds of thousands of them living in Egypt, and they're slaves. They are enslaved to the Egyptians, their overlords. And God, a couple of chapters before, has called Moses and said, "Moses, I want you to set my people free." Moses, of course, is scared about all this, but he tries. He and his brother have been called to gather his people and get them out of Egypt. And so they go to Pharaoh, the king of the Egyptians, and they say, "Let God's people go." But Pharaoh not only refused, but he made their workload even heavier.
So Moses in despair says in chapter 5, verse 22:
Why, Lord, have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.
Moses is basically saying, this is the opposite of what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to get them out, and Pharaoh just made their job harder. This is wrong.
So God responds:
I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant with them. Therefore say to the Israelites, "I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God."
Before the Law
Now, in both of these events, there are a couple of things that we need to understand. This all happens before what we connect with Charlton Heston and the Ten Commandments — before Mount Sinai, before the giving of the law, before Leviticus, before Deuteronomy, before all those books that we refuse to read in the Scripture. Before all that, we have these two events: Abraham being credited righteousness, and the Israelites being taken, redeemed, rescued out of Egypt.
Why is this important? Well, we're going to get to this in a few minutes, but in Romans chapter 3 Paul's trying to answer a question: is the God of the Old Testament, the God of our fathers, different than the God of Jesus, different than the God of the New Testament? And in some of our minds, we think he is. God of the Old Testament, it's all about law. It's all about doing the right thing, and this is how the Israelites were rescued and saved. And in the New Testament, it's all about grace, and hey, everything's fine.
But what I'm trying to show you is that God has always been about grace. In Genesis chapter 15, Abraham believed, and it was credited, reckoned to him as righteousness. And in Exodus, the Israelites are taken out of Egypt. They're rescued, they're redeemed, before there ever was law, before there ever was Torah, before there ever was the Mount Sinai event. God redeemed them before they even knew what law was. God saved them, rescued them, took them out of their oppression before they even knew all the different things of right and wrong.
Luke 18
Skip ahead. Go to the New Testament — Luke chapter 18.
Jesus is in a series of parables — small, pithy teachings that have one point each. And he's got a different audience for each of these parables in Luke 18. And in Luke 18, verse 9, we come across a very interesting one that should shock us, but probably doesn't anymore: the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
Now the Pharisee — in our minds, for those of us who have been in church for years, when we think of Pharisee, we immediately get this negative picture: these nasty, evil guys who were just out to get Jesus. And admittedly, the Pharisees were one of the driving forces behind Jesus's death. But you have to understand that to a first-century Jew, a Pharisee was a pretty good guy. Pharisees arose a couple of centuries before, when the Jews were kind of going back and forth between nations and who was going to own them, who was going to be their rulers. And during the Greek period of the Jews being ruled, the Pharisees rose up as a grassroots party. They were the tea party of their day, because they said, we're sick of the establishment, we're sick of all the things that are happening in our government, and we're going to start our own thing. "Pharisee" probably comes from a word that means separatist.
So the Pharisees were loved by a lot of Jewish people. They were considered the righteous ones because of what they did. Tax collectors, however, were also Jews, and they were reviled, hated, despised. They were considered traitors, because a tax collector was a Jew who worked for the Romans and collected your taxes. You don't like these people — especially because the Romans were always mean to the Jews in a lot of ways. And tax collectors actually didn't make a whole lot of money, and so they would tax you and they would also say, "and give me more money so I can pay my own bills." They were despised. They were hated.
So this is like the story of Mother Teresa, the Sunday school teacher, deacon, elder, pastor, versus — I don't know, whoever you hate the most. The person who collects your taxes. Accountants, bookkeepers — we love you, we really do.
Luke 18, verse 9:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'"
You get this picture of "just like this tax collector" — just sick, just grossed out. "I thank you I'm not like that."
Verse 13:
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven.
Jesus wraps up by saying this — verse 14:
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Romans 3
So, this is all a prelude to where I'm going: Romans chapter 3. If you have your Bibles, this is our landing spot. Romans chapter 3.
I prepared this sermon kind of in fear and trembling. I've got a lot of different ideas, a lot of different concepts. But I'm just going to tell you, I've got no fancy illustrations, I've got no cute stories. All I've got is the Word of God right now, and it's going to have to do for this moment. So dive in with me. Romans chapter 3, verse 21.
Paul has been writing to a church in Rome, and what this letter ends up being is actually a fundraising letter — a really long one. Because at the end of this book, Paul says, "This is my mission. I'm going to go to Spain, or possibly some other places. Rome, church of Rome, could you fund me?" But in order to get to even this fundraising point, he has to prove himself to this church — what are his thoughts about Jews and Greeks and Gentiles, what are his thoughts about what Jesus did, and why does he even want to go on this missionary journey. And so we spend the first couple of chapters, Romans chapters 1 and 2, talking about the wrath of God, and how none are righteous, and how everyone is under the judgment of God.
And it's in Romans chapter 3 that the narrative takes this turn. The big "but." Verse 21 is "but now." This is the turning point of the entire book.
Verse 21:
But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed and is attested by the law and the prophets.
So he's saying: apart from rules, laws, regulation, the righteousness of God has been disclosed and is shown in the law and the prophets. "Law and prophets" was basically a way of saying, in the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament.
Verse 22:
The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed. It was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.
Paul, in this little passage, is trying to answer four questions at once. Number one: is the God revealed in Jesus, in the New Testament, different than the God revealed in the law, in the Old Testament? Number two: how is one justified — what are the grounds? Number three: how is one justified — what are the means? Number four: how can God do this and still be a just God?
Question one: Is the God of Jesus different than the God of the law?
Is the God revealed in Jesus different than the God revealed in the law, or the Old Testament? This is one that we struggle with. A lot of us, when we read the Old Testament, we struggle — this is bizarre stuff. But what Paul is trying to show us is that no, this is the same God. God has always been trying to save by grace and faith, not by laws and rules and regulations. It's never been about what you've done. It's always been about what God is doing, what God is up to.
This is why I showed you Genesis 15 and Exodus 5 and 6. Later on, in Romans chapters 3 and 4, Paul is talking about Abraham. He says, okay, I'm going to mention a word that makes every man cringe: circumcision. Circumcision was what was called an icon — this thing that showed people, not literally, that they were part of a covenant community. You would usually wear something or have something distinct about you that says, I'm part of this people group. You know, we have donkeys and elephants — Republicans and Democrats. We have icons, we have symbols. Circumcision was a symbol that said we are part of the faith community, the people group of the Israelites. And it was a sign, a symbol, that God was in covenant with them. Covenants always had some sort of symbol or sign that went along with them. And for the Israelites, for the Jews, it was circumcision.
Paul makes the point that here's Abram — he's not even called Abraham yet, he's Abram. And in Genesis chapter 15, God makes this covenant with him and he calls him righteous because he believed God. He believed that God was going to make him a great nation with many descendants. He had faith in what God was going to do. This was before circumcision. This was before the covenant. This was before Mount Sinai. Abraham didn't have to follow all those rules to get in relationship with God. The rules didn't even exist yet. For the Israelites, same story. The rules didn't even exist yet. And yet God redeemed them, saved them, got them out of Egypt.
And so when we get to the New Testament, and Jesus says there was a Pharisee and a tax collector, and they went to the temple, and the Pharisee said, "Oh God, I'm so thankful I'm not like this tax collector," but the tax collector was by himself, and he wouldn't even look toward heaven, and he beat his chest as the sign of repentance and said, "have mercy on me, a sinner" — Jesus says the tax collector went home justified. And so we're beginning to understand: it's not about what we do.
Question two: How is one justified — what are the grounds?
How is one justified? How is one declared righteous? By this we're asking the question, what are the grounds? How does God justify? We find this in verses 22 and 23:
The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe ... since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Redemption is a social term. Justification is a legal term. Redemption is a social term, and it meant to buy someone out of slavery, or to trade something so you can redeem it. Who goes to the arcade anymore? But this is the example in my mind — you play the game, you get some tickets, you redeem your tickets, and you get a slinky or a bouncy ball or whatever. Redemption — that's what we're talking about.
Verse 25:
... Jesus Christ, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood.
So we've used legal language: God has declared you righteous. We've used social language: God has redeemed you, he's brought you out of this situation that you're in. Now we're using religious language, the language of the temple, which says he put Jesus forth as a sacrifice, a sacrifice for atonement by his blood.
And so we've got these three different images going on. The sacrifice: maybe you're the one who is supposed to die because you have the sin. Well, it's okay, God took care of it — Jesus died in your place. Here we are, we're humans, and we're lost, and we're stuck, and we're enslaved by pain, and by hatred, and by people throwing things at us, or making fun of us, or we're enslaved by disease, or we're enslaved by social stigma. No, it's okay — Jesus has redeemed you. Oh, we are guilty; we feel the shame all the time; we feel like we've always done something bad. No, it's all right. God has justified you. He's declared you righteous.
And so we have these three pictures that Paul is giving us as the answer. What are the grounds for redemption? Jesus is the grounds for redemption. Jesus took care of it. Jesus, he who knew no sin, became sin so that you can become the righteousness of God. He took the shame, and the guilt, and the sin, and he took care of it. Jesus, who was Lord of heaven and earth, came down to earth, and he knows what it's like to be enslaved. He knows what it's like to be part of systems that enslave us, and he gave us redemption. Jesus knows what it is to die for sin. That's what the cross is all about. Jesus is the grounds for justification.
Question three: How is one justified — what are the means?
How is one justified? What are the means? In other words, how do we enter into this relationship that justifies us, this relationship that redeems us, this relationship that atones for us? And that's where we find faith. Verse 22:
The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
Again, Genesis 15: Abram believed God, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. It wasn't ever, ever, ever about what you did or didn't do.
Faith is a word that assumes relationship. If I have faith in you, that means we're going to be doing things together. That means I'm going to be relying on you. This assumes relationship. And this isn't how we get justified in terms of the grounds — that's Jesus. This is how we get justified in terms of the means. How do we enter into this relationship? We believe. We believe in God.
Question four: How can God do this and still be just?
The fourth question that Paul is asking and answering is: how can God do this and still be considered just? Because the fact of the matter is, some of us are offended — not offended because he's willing to forgive you, but you may be offended that he's willing to forgive someone else. And Paul is asking this question: how can God do this and still be just? Because there are nasty, nasty things in the world.
And Paul answers this question: God does this and still is just because the punishment that was meant to be meted out for those people that we can't forgive was put on Jesus's shoulders. He who knew no sin, Jesus, became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. And so it's not that God didn't act out in his justice. God did. Jesus willingly took that punishment upon himself so that we might become the righteousness of God, so that we might be justified.
Application
So, what's the application?
Number one: if there's someone in your life that you are judging based off of their actions, or lack of action, or good or bad deeds — stop it. You're not reflecting the love of the Father.
There's this prayer that we pray called the Lord's Prayer, and it says:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread ... And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.
And the word that we really don't think about is that word "as." Forgive our debts as we've forgiven other people. We're asking God, "Forgive us; give us the same measurement of forgiveness that we've given to someone else." That's a dangerous prayer — dangerous prayer — because what if in your life you've got that grudge that you're just clinging on to? Is that the way you want God to forgive you? No. And so justification by faith is not only what happens to us; it's also an example that we are given. Father, forgive us our debts as we forgive others' debts against us.
Number two: if you are living in a cycle of constantly trying to impress God or people, of trying to do more and achieve more, of trying to prove yourself righteous; if you're living by a list of rules so long that you have no hope of ever getting through the day and keeping those rules; if you are caught up in guilt and shame about who you are and what you've done and what you're doing — I've got good news for you.
John 8:26:
If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.
Romans 8:1:
Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:38:
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If you are living in a cycle that says, "I've got to compete, I've got to achieve, I've got to impress" — you can stop now. If you are living in a cycle that says, "I've got to be doing the right thing all the time, or this person's going to look down on me" — first of all, person, stop looking down on them. Second of all, no, you don't. It's okay. There's no more condemnation. You're okay. You've been set free — and you've been set free before there even was law, before there even were rules to follow, that you wrote or anybody else. You've been set free. You're okay. You're all right. You've been justified by God's grace.
Now, there are some of you thinking, "But what about this? What about that thing?" Those are the exact things — those things that you wrestle with, that you have problems with, those temptations that attack you every moment of every day — those are the exact things that I'm talking about. You're free. You're free. You're free.
Common Questions
Now, a couple of common questions.
What about James 2:24?
What about James 2:24, which says, "You see that a person is justified by their works, and not by faith alone"? This verse is not about how one gets justified. The verb is "you see that." This is what James is talking about. James isn't even talking about the same thing Paul's talking about. Paul is talking about how you get justified — what are the grounds, what are the means, how do you get justified. James is talking about an entirely different topic: how do you see that a person is justified? He's talking about the proof in the pudding. So do not take this verse and make it say a person is justified by their works and not by faith. That's not what it says. It says, "You see that." Entirely different topic.
And it's not like James and Paul didn't talk to each other. They had conversations. They knew what they were talking about. And like we talked about last week, the Bible doesn't contradict itself. And it's not like Paul didn't say some things just like that. Ephesians 2:8–10 says:
For by grace you have been saved through faith — through relationship with God. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
And this takes us all the way back to Genesis 1, which says you were created in the image of God. You've got the divine fingerprint on you, and that fingerprint is somewhere inside. You know what's right and wrong. The Holy Spirit has come inside you; it's indwelling in you. And Paul in Ephesians 2 is saying you've been justified by faith, not by works. But why? For the good works that God created you for.
Does this mean I get to do whatever I want?
So question number two: does this mean I get to do whatever I want now? Yeah, it does. Paul says everything's permissible. Not everything's profitable, but it's all permissible. If you've been set free, you're free indeed. There's no trick. This isn't some switcheroo. You're justified, not based off of what you do, but instead by faith. It's no trick, I promise.
But I will tell you this: when you enter into relationship with God, you begin this process called sanctification. You become a temple, a house, a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit of God. And he will begin to return you to the way he originally intended you to be. Your desires will change. Your eyes will be opened to the hurt and pain and hunger in the world. And that same Spirit of God will empower you to change your destructive habits and addictions and personality quirks and those things that you just hate about yourself. He will change them and allow you to become an agent of change in this world.
Does that mean you just sit around waiting for sanctification to happen? By no means. The Apostle Paul says that he trains as if he's running a marathon. He pushes on toward the goal. Does he do it so he can be more saved or more justified than that guy over there? No. He's already justified, and that's why he does it — because he wants to become more like God and his Savior.
So does this mean that you can do whatever you want? Yes, you can. But I will warn you: what you want will change and will fall in line with the beauty of the kingdom of God. You men and women who are addicted to pornography — you'll begin to seek and create beauty in new and God-given ways. You who are addicted to gossip — you will find a desire birthed inside of you to tell a better news, a news about a God who wants to save the world. You who are hooked in unhealthy ways to entertainment and television and movies — you will discover that a narrative and a story larger than this universe can happen in your homes and your schools and your offices and your cities. You who are caught in the rat race of who's the better parent, who has the most successful, most involved child, of complaining about how busy you are and yet wearing busyness like a badge of pride — you will know that you are unconditionally loved and accepted and cherished by your heavenly Father, and will tirelessly work to let others know that they are loved too. You who are addicted to food or drink or drugs or sex — you will discover that Jesus is the bread of life. He is the living water. He is the lover of your soul, the bridegroom who is even now preparing a life for you so much better and so much longer lasting than that brief moment of sinful orgasm or irresponsible drunkenness or drug-induced high or gluttony that comforted you just yesterday.
But the good news, the gospel, the reason why we sing and preach and evangelize and do what we do each day, is so that you can spend your whole life disobeying and running away from God, and at the moment that you say, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner," you have been declared righteous. You have been justified. You are God's son, God's daughter, God's heir to his kingdom, and you need never live in fear or guilt or shame ever again.
Closing Prayer
Let's stand and pray together.
Lord and Savior, you give us a dangerous gospel — a gospel unlike any in the world, a gospel that dares to say, "My people, you're free." God, you've given us a gospel, good news, that says it's not about what you do or what you've done; it's about who you're in relationship with; it's about faith.
So God, right now I want to pray over those who sense that shame and that guilt that's always following them around. God, may it be released. May they let it go this morning. May they be able to walk outside of the sanctuary and know they are free indeed. There is no more condemnation. They don't need to have that voice in their head anymore that says, "You're so guilty, you're so guilty." No — may you tell them that they're not.
And for those who are holding on to grudges, who can't forgive — God, may you give them the grace to forgive, because God, you've forgiven us already. You've given us grace. So may we put our faith in you. May we know you more and more each day. And God, may you transform us into the kinds of people who want to obey you — but also know we don't need to.
Thank you for grace, God. Amen.
This is a transcript of the sermon as preached, lightly edited for readability.
