Justification
An easy way to understand the justification the Bible speaks of is the phrase, “Just as if I’d never sinned.” In other words, God will look at Jesus’ perfect sacrifice of self, perfect surrender to His Father’s will, perfect happiness to spend and be spent for others, driven to give and give, even His own life. Then God looks at us whom Jesus cannot live without, and God says to His Son, “They are truly sorry because of My Spirit. For Your sake, I will accept them back again. I will see them as I see You, perfect in every respect. I will love them freely, perfectly.”
And the infinite One does nothing half-way. There is no middle ground for Him. In His sight, every creature is either all His or none of His. He demands either 100% loyalty or He judges it 100% disloyalty. Everything He does is with infinite intensity; His whispers come to us as peals of deafening thunders. He does not waffle; no hemming or hawing; no beating around the bush. When He sees us as perfect in every respect, that means perfect in every respect. The Infinite can operate in no other way. Thus it is, that He will see us with our attachment and dependence on His perfect Son, as if we had never sinned.
We are brilliant blue-white dwarf stars, burning with power and glory, just as His only Son, having been adopted into the beloved union of our Father and our Mediator.
I would like to be to others just the same way God is. To treat those who have offended me as if they never once had caused me pain. Full and free forgiveness. Isn’t that the best thing I could ever give them? Better than a $Million!
Really I owe it to them. Why? Because they smile at me, or they shake my hand, or show themselves to me in some loving way. And everyone has done me good, even those who ignore me. The least they did was to not shoot me on sight. So I owe it to everybody to love them perfectly, and I’m wrong if I don’t love them.
But no one has done for me what God does and has done in creating me, in sustaining me, and in redeeming me. I can offend no one like I can offend God, simply due to the far superior debt I owe Him for all that He does for me. Being my infinite Benefactor, how infinitely rapidly do I fall short of the service I owe to Him.
Therefore I am a sinner immediately and ever without His grace, His full forgiveness. It is infinite mutiny, infinite sedition, the grossest sin, that I must be forgiven of. I have robbed from Him what I can never repay Him. What I have done in the past and still do, make me despair of ever again having His full trust, and His love. After my long history of unceasing failures and sins, how can I hope for His acceptance?
This is why, if God will forgive me, He has chosen to forgive me completely. What other option does He have in forgiveness? There can be none. He forgives all my sin and treats me as if I was never once transgressed against His eternal government.
Will God really look at me as if I’d never rebelled? Is He really able? The better question is, Are we able? Are we able to believe that He can? Like Abraham, “being fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him [Abraham] for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:21,22).
God places the onus back on us. He knows He can forgive everyone completely. Can we accept it completely? Like Jesus staring down the man whose son was foaming and flopping on the ground in devil possession. The father said, “If Thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us.” (Mk. 9:22). And Christ, with great authority, threw all the responsibility back on the father, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
Jesus spoke with such authority because He needed to shake the man from his inborn superiority. He needed to know that it wasn’t right to play God to Jesus, nor was his morality better than Christ’s. The unbelief had to be shaken to shivers, it must go.
And Jesus wasn’t being overbearing. He was giving firepower to every repentant sinner ever afterward who is trembling under the delusions of Satan as to whether God can be compassionate and forgive.
Can God keep His promises? Does He bespeak Himself? Does He foreswear? Does He make promises that He can’t pay? Can God lie? David said, “My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear Him.” (Ps. 22:25). Is David more righteous than God? “Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?” (Job 4:17). Never, ever. God was David’s great example, not vice versa. God will always perform His vows, and always has. If He says He will forgive and cast our sins into the depths of the sea, He will do it. In His sight we will be as if we had never sinned.
And He will declare it with a voice of greatest authority, affirmation, joy, and accomplishment “as when a lion roareth.” (Rev. 10:3).
And the infinite One does nothing half-way. There is no middle ground for Him. In His sight, every creature is either all His or none of His. He demands either 100% loyalty or He judges it 100% disloyalty. Everything He does is with infinite intensity; His whispers come to us as peals of deafening thunders. He does not waffle; no hemming or hawing; no beating around the bush. When He sees us as perfect in every respect, that means perfect in every respect. The Infinite can operate in no other way. Thus it is, that He will see us with our attachment and dependence on His perfect Son, as if we had never sinned.
We are brilliant blue-white dwarf stars, burning with power and glory, just as His only Son, having been adopted into the beloved union of our Father and our Mediator.
I would like to be to others just the same way God is. To treat those who have offended me as if they never once had caused me pain. Full and free forgiveness. Isn’t that the best thing I could ever give them? Better than a $Million!
Really I owe it to them. Why? Because they smile at me, or they shake my hand, or show themselves to me in some loving way. And everyone has done me good, even those who ignore me. The least they did was to not shoot me on sight. So I owe it to everybody to love them perfectly, and I’m wrong if I don’t love them.
But no one has done for me what God does and has done in creating me, in sustaining me, and in redeeming me. I can offend no one like I can offend God, simply due to the far superior debt I owe Him for all that He does for me. Being my infinite Benefactor, how infinitely rapidly do I fall short of the service I owe to Him.
Therefore I am a sinner immediately and ever without His grace, His full forgiveness. It is infinite mutiny, infinite sedition, the grossest sin, that I must be forgiven of. I have robbed from Him what I can never repay Him. What I have done in the past and still do, make me despair of ever again having His full trust, and His love. After my long history of unceasing failures and sins, how can I hope for His acceptance?
This is why, if God will forgive me, He has chosen to forgive me completely. What other option does He have in forgiveness? There can be none. He forgives all my sin and treats me as if I was never once transgressed against His eternal government.
Will God really look at me as if I’d never rebelled? Is He really able? The better question is, Are we able? Are we able to believe that He can? Like Abraham, “being fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him [Abraham] for righteousness.” (Rom. 4:21,22).
God places the onus back on us. He knows He can forgive everyone completely. Can we accept it completely? Like Jesus staring down the man whose son was foaming and flopping on the ground in devil possession. The father said, “If Thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us.” (Mk. 9:22). And Christ, with great authority, threw all the responsibility back on the father, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
Jesus spoke with such authority because He needed to shake the man from his inborn superiority. He needed to know that it wasn’t right to play God to Jesus, nor was his morality better than Christ’s. The unbelief had to be shaken to shivers, it must go.
And Jesus wasn’t being overbearing. He was giving firepower to every repentant sinner ever afterward who is trembling under the delusions of Satan as to whether God can be compassionate and forgive.
Can God keep His promises? Does He bespeak Himself? Does He foreswear? Does He make promises that He can’t pay? Can God lie? David said, “My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear Him.” (Ps. 22:25). Is David more righteous than God? “Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?” (Job 4:17). Never, ever. God was David’s great example, not vice versa. God will always perform His vows, and always has. If He says He will forgive and cast our sins into the depths of the sea, He will do it. In His sight we will be as if we had never sinned.
And He will declare it with a voice of greatest authority, affirmation, joy, and accomplishment “as when a lion roareth.” (Rev. 10:3).
posted by David | 4:07 PM
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