ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

Sunday April 2, 2017

“To be rightly related to Him in spite of our sin”

"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." - Romans 5:1-2

Justification

What is Justification?

The power of Justification

The practical importance of this cannot be exaggerated. The glory of the gospel is that God has declared Christians to be rightly related to him in spite of their sin. But our greatest temptation and mistake is to try to smuggle character into his work of grace. How easily we fall into the trap of assuming that we remain justified only so long as there are grounds in our character for that justification. But Paul’s teaching is that nothing we do ever contributes to our justification. So powerful was his emphasis on this that men accused him of teaching that it did not matter how they lived if God justified them. If God justifies us as we are, what is the point of holiness? There is still a sense in which there is a test of whether we offer the world the grace of God in the gospel. Does it make men say: “you are offering grace that is so free it doesn’t make any difference how we live”? This was precisely the objection the Pharisees had to Jesus’ teaching.

Justification is not subject to degrees. God’s work in us, is. We differed in the extent to which we allow his Spirit to make us like Christ, and it is possible therefore to be more or less Christ-like. But it is not possible to be more or less justified. Paul was not more justified than you are as a Christian. John Bunyan’s long experience of conviction and a spirit of bondage did not make him a more justified man than you. Furthermore, there is no second verdict still awaited after justification; for justification is the verdict of the last judgment of God brought forward into the present. The judgment we should receive then was brought forward to be borne by Christ on the cross.

The wonder of this is something we appreciate only when we recognize that justification is something contrary to nature. The ungodly are not naturally justified and acquitted. Yet it is unthinkable that justification should be contrary to God’s nature. The question which therefore haunts the student of biblical doctrine is this: how can God be just and the justifier of the ungodly?

Memory Verse:

"KO ia, tau tuku ke fakatonuhia‘i kitautolu ‘i he tui, ka tau ma‘u melino ai mo e ‘Otua ‘i hotau ‘Eiki ko Sīsū Kalaisi;" - Loma 5:1

"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" - Romans 5:1

Bible Reading Plan: (52 weeks; 5 days a week)

Week 14 – Joshua 14-17; Luke 17