We continue in thinking about justification. In previous weeks we have looked at how true justification and the true Gospel must be to the glory of God and destroy the pride of man. God saves sinners in such a way that it exalts His glory and shatters the pride of man. Last week we looked at the basic concept of the term “justification” and how justification is forensic in nature. Forensic justification is a justification that points to God’s declaration of justification and that it is also a legal declaration. We set out some verses from Romans chapter 3 (repeated below) and tried to demonstrate that justification is a legal declaration of God regarding sinners and not man’s efforts to keep the law in order to be declared just or God’s working in man what is needed in order for man to be declared just. Roman Catholicism has regarded this as legal fiction. So this week we want to look at one part of how God can be just and still declare sinners righteous when they are not righteous in and of themselves.”Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (v. 20).
“Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith…to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (24- 26).
“For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (v. 28).
One part that justification must deal with is how a sinful man can be legally declared just by a holy God. A person must have his sins (crimes against God and His law) punished in proportion to the crime in order for a good judge (In this case, Judge) to declare the person righteous. So how does God do this? From v. 20 we can see that it cannot be by keeping the Law. The Law was not given so that man could keep it in order to be saved. The Law was sent in order to show man his sin. So it should be crystal clear that keeping the Law does not justify a person because that is not the purpose of the Law. This would be true whether it was the efforts of man or God’s working in man to do it. No human apart from Christ can keep the Law and so the Law was not sent to justify. But even if man could keep the Law and justify himself, we can see again that this is not how God would obtain all the glory and it would not save man in a way that would allow for no boasting at all.
If being good and keeping the Law cannot justify man, then what other way is there? From v. 24 we see that there is a way of grace. Remember that if something is of grace it is all of grace and nothing but grace. One cannot mix merit or works for merit with grace in any degree. It is true that those who receive grace are moved to works, but this is quite different from asserting that the works themselves are meritorious. Justification is a gift by grace which is to say that it is totally uncaused by man. The only cause in justification is God through Christ. God is sovereign and His grace is sovereign. He has mercy on whom He will have mercy and He will be gracious to whom He will be gracious. It does not depend on the man who wills or runs. It is all of sheer and glorious grace.
This grace, however, is not apart from the work of Christ, but is all of the work of Christ. Christ (v. 25) was displayed by God as a propitiation, that is, the One who removes the wrath of God. It is the blood of Christ that removes the wrath of God. This is based on the Old Testament where the priest would offer the blood of the sacrificial animal by sprinkling it on the mercy seat in the Tabernacle or later in the Temple after it was built. The blood being sprinkled signified that the sacrifice was in place of the sinner or the nation and the wrath was removed from the people. That sacrifice and its sprinkled blood looked ahead to Christ who was the Lamb of God, that is, the One who would remove the guilt of sins from His people.
Now as we think through this a moment, we can see the picture of propitiation as being all of the plan and work of God. No person could ever come into the Holy of Holies except the high priest. It was the high priest who represented the people and it was him alone who could offer the blood of the sacrifice. No one could remove the wrath of God for himself or by any good deed he could do. The sacrifice and the offering of the blood was the only way for propitiation to be made. The sacrificial system should have taught the Israelites that salvation was all of grace. God gave them their animals and He sent the rain that caused the grass to grow so that they could even have sheep. This should have taught the people that the removal of God’s wrath was simply and only His mercy. The whole sacrificial system pointed to the people needing grace to be saved and that they were in fact helpless in terms of salvation in terms of working for it. But some did turn it into a system of works as they do today. But we should notice that the people always looked to a sacrifice and not to their own good works.
Today, in terms of justification, people continue to want to be saved by their own efforts or attempt to change the Gospel into a way to help them save themselves. Some say that God in His grace makes up what we cannot do, though they leave room for man to earn part of his salvation. But if we look at justification as including propitiation as a necessary part of it, it is clear that all the glory is God’s and man has nothing to boast about. Jesus Christ is the only One who has ever been able to propitiate God. Christ is the only One who could suffer the wrath of an infinite God in a finite period of time. No man has ever been able to make up for one sin on his own or even part of one sin on his own. God requires perfection from all men every moment. So man can never go back and make up for a past sin because perfection is required of him at all moments. So in the removal of the wrath of God, there is no way for man to contribute to his own salvation in any way because he cannot remove the wrath of God for one sin and man has more sin than he can imagine to answer to God for.
So when God declares the sinner just, He is just and justifier (Rom 3:26). He is perfectly just in declaring a sinner just in terms of sin (we will wait for the imputed righteousness aspect until later) because Christ has perfectly suffered and died in the place of the sinner. The sinner is united to Christ and is one with Him. All the sins of the sinner have been placed on Christ and all those sins have been punished in Christ so that God has been perfectly satisfied. So it is clear that God is the One who declares the sinner just and He is the One who actually does the justifying. He is also perfectly just in declaring sinners just in Christ because Christ was the perfect sacrifice and nothing was left to be done. What did Christ leave to do that man can finish in order to make up for even the least of his sins? I would think that thinking Roman Catholics would see the error of their way of justification at this point. There is no way a finite being could ever suffer enough to make atonement for even one sin. So any method of salvation or justification that depends on the person working for even part of his salvation would be to make God guilty of legal fiction. God cannot declare a person just unless that person is perfectly just. No sinful human being can ever attain that and so man needs a perfect Savior who will do it all and not just some.
In propitiation the glory of God shines. In the cross where we first saw the light we see the light because of the light of His glory. It is at the cross where the beauty and glory of God’s love shines in the face of Christ as Christ went to and endured the cross for the joy set before Him (Heb 12:2). It is the cross where the perfect glory of the wrath of God blazes forth. It is here where God did not withhold the knife from His own Son as He told Abraham to do in Genesis. It was here that God’s holiness is seen in the strength of His hatred for sin in that He poured out His wrath on His own beloved Son. At any point where man steps in and tries so suffer for his own sin, he is trying to steal the glory from God. What blasphemy it is for man to think that he can suffer for some of his own sin or try to work hard enough to make up for a sin. No, no, no, man must never try to share in the work of salvation since all the glory belongs to God.
Here we can also see that man should never have the smallest bit of pride in terms of saving himself. Man can do nothing to suffer for the least sin and he can do nothing to make up for the smallest amount of his least sin. The true Gospel is such that it leaves man with no room for pride. The sacrifice of Christ that removed the wrath of God was either perfect or it was not. In trying to make up for sin himself, man is casting aspersions on the work of Christ. How awful it is for man to think that he can make up for his sin when it took the very Son of God to do that work. Perhaps we can see ever so clearly how it is, then, that Paul was so astonished at the Galatians for falling from such a Gospel of grace. We can also see why Jesus said that a person must be humbled as a child before he could even enter the kingdom. Only the humble give up all hope of themselves and their works and trust in the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ alone. The Gospel is full of the glory of God and only the humble see it. Perhaps this is why so many want to share in the work of salvation. Filled with pride they only think it is up to them and so never see the glory of God and of His grace in the Gospel.
God Loves... Himself 
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