The excerpt below has been taken with permission from Charles Leiter’s book Justification and Regeneration, Faithful Editor.
How can an absolutely fair judge justify in any way (simply testify) an absolutely guilty and convicted criminal?How can a human being escape the condemnation of hell?God Himself tells us that he who justifies the wicked and condemns the hateful righteous are they for both of us?[1] Suppose a father comes home and finds his family murdered. After an agonizing chase, he manages to capture the killer. When the criminal finally appears before the judge, he is unquestionably convicted of the crime. when the sentence comes, the judge makes the following statement: “This man has committed a terrible crime, but I am a deeply loving judge and I choose to find him not guilty. In fact, am I declaring you before the law?! A judge would rightly be considered as big a criminal as the killer!He justified the bad guys, and he “smelled you. “
- But if we can say that this is true even in the light of human justice.
- How much is it about God’s righteousness?How can Adam’s evil and guilty children expect to meet Before God.
- The righteous judge of the universe?How could God somehow justify the wicked?Without becoming hateful himself? What to say to the wicked: You are righteous; for the people.
- He will be cursed and loathed by the nations.
- [2] How can God say to sinners like us.
- “You are righteous.
- ” without violating your own character?How can God somehow save us from himself and his own righteousness and justice?.
There’s only one answer to this dilemma. Someone has to pay for the sins of sinners; justice must be satisfied. Either you will be satisfied by the sufferings of the sinner himself eternally in hell, or you will have to be satisfied by someone else in the place of the sinner.
Marvel at this, the Lord Jesus Christ, carrying our sins in his body, in the wood, our sins?[3] He certainly took our weaknesses and our pains; and we consider him afflicted, wounded of God, and oppressed; But he was pierced by our transgressions and founded by our iniquities; the punishment that peace brings us was upon him, and by his bruises we were healed.
How’s this big problem going? To understand this, we must consider the small word “imputation”. It also translates as “recognize”, “say”, “consider?” And “imputation”. We can begin to understand what this means by looking at a passage from Paul’s letter to Philemuon about the return of his slave Onesimus: “If you consider me a companion, receive him, as if I were myself. And if he hurt you or owes you something, do you put it all on my account?[5] Here, Paul asks Filemon to “open his account”. [literally, “imputate”] any debt Onesime might have with Philemón. It wasn’t really Paul’s debt, but Paul, on his own, took that debt out of himself, and took it to your own!
Now the same word and its variants are used to refer to sin. For example, the Bible says that “sin is not imputed (” charged to our account “), because there is no law. ” [6] Again, in Romans 4 Paul says: “But to the one who does not work, but believes in the one who justifies the wicked, his faith is attributed to him as righteousness. And so David also declares to be blessed to the man to whom God attributes ( ? Imputed?) Justice, whatever the works: Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the Lord never attributes sin? [7] What a glorious transaction! Were they imputed to Christ, and , accepting them as if they were his own debt, he paid them in full!
These realities are at the very heart of the Gospel and are exhibited by the Apostle Paul in Romans 3: 21-26, a rather complex passage that becomes clear when we understand the meaning of the imputation discussed above:
But now, without law, the righteousness of God has been attested by law and prophets; God’s righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ, for all [and above all] those who believe; for there is no distinction, because all have sinned and lack the glory of God, being justified freely, by their grace, by the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, which God has proposed, in his blood, as a propitiation, by faith, to manifest his righteousness, because God, in his tolerance, has left unpunished the sins committed before; for the manifestation of his righteousness in the present time, so that he may be just and justify it as one who has faith in Jesus.
Here Paul states that Christ died to pay our sin debt so that God could. sinners while remaining “righteous. ” Throughout the Old Testament, sins simply “went unpunished,” the payment of their guilt postponed year after year, until the Lamb came whose death would actually take them away. All along, it seems that God was unjust, as He justified men (like Abraham and David) without justice being really satisfied. Therefore, it was necessary for Christ to die “publicly”, openly manifesting God’s justice for all to see, fully satisfying it on the cross for sins committed. In this sense, Christ died not only to justify men, but to justify God! His death on the cross confirmed and manifested the absolute justice of God in justifying his people. As “propitiation”? (that is, a sacrifice that removes anger) For our sins, Christ removes the judicial wrath of God from us. We’re? Free justified? (justification is absolutely free to us), through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus? (justification cost God dearly). We are justified by receiving “the grace of justification”, [9] “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ”. [10]
Do you always bear the burden of your guilt and your sins?Are you still under God’s wrath?” Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”[11]. Will there be a source to eliminate sin and impurity?[12] “The blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us of all sin” [13]. No matter how terrible your sins are, they are nothing compared to the infinite value of Christ’s blood!Where did sin abound, did grace abound? [15] Come to him!He invites you and also commands you to come; you don’t have to worry about being presumptuous when you come: “Whoever’s thirsty, come and whoever wants to get free brandy. “[16] Come to him! Cast your sins upon him and trust him as the one who will take upon your sins. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved?[17]
What does the Bible mean when it says that men need to be justified before God?How is it possible for a righteous God to justify unjust men without becoming unjust himself?And what is regeneration?