Gooding, David: 3 - Justification

We may well take as our springboard a parable which our Lord Jesus himself told, and which is recorded in the Gospel by Luke and chapter uh eighteen. By your leave, I will read the whole parable. For you who care for the reference, it is Luke eighteen, verse nine. And he spake also this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at naught. Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed with himself thus: God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I say unto you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. There are three things I suggest to you that we ought to notice in that parable that our Lord spoke. The first is the fact that our Lord himself used this term justify. That is, I know, an elementary observation. He said the man went down to his house justified. Only it is exceedingly important. For justified, justification are legal terms. And it is important for us to notice that our Lord Jesus himself thus indicated that in our relations with God, we have to do with God as a judge, as a God of law, who will hold us morally responsible and judge us according to that law. There have been some students of the Bible that, in fact, have denied this. They have contrasted the teaching of our Lord with the teaching of the Apostle Paul. They have said, when we come to the Apostle Paul, we find him talking in legal terms, representing God as a judge with a law that is holy and unbending, and speaking of our relationship to God as our guilty prisoners before the bar, and God as our stern judge. And they say, you know, that was a pity that Paul took that view. Therein, they claim, he was vastly different from our Lord Jesus. They say, you know, the Lord Jesus had a far kindlier outlook. He pictured God not as a judge, but as a father, a very loving father, a father that would run to the returning prodigal and receive him forthwith and immediately, and without any fuss, without any legal battles and stern presentations of the law. They said, you know, it's a pity that Paul spoiled the simple and loving picture of God that Christ gave. When we would examine the matter more closely, this parable amongst others shows us clearly that our Lord himself too pictured God as a judge, and our relationship to God as those that must face the bar of God's judgment, to be judged by the standard of God's law. The second thing I would, that we noticed from this parable, is that our Lord said of a certain man, he went to his house justified. That is to say, he went to his house declared to be right with God. Now, I know you may tell me that it was only a parable, but then our Lord in his parables always used true things. He never imagined things that do not really exist. And it is exceedingly important, as it is exceedingly joyful and a happy thing to notice, that our Lord said of one man, he went home justified. He went home right with God, and presumably he knew it. I say it's a good thing to notice because if it has been true of one man, it is evidently possible for many men. It is possible for us to go home knowing we are right with God. Unless you think I build too much on a parable, let me observe that that is, of course, what the Bible everywhere preaches. It dares to tell us that Abraham was right with God, was justified before God, and Abraham knew it. This is the message that startled the Roman world in the days of the apostles. Paul, for instance, we read, came to Antioch in Pisidia. He ended a most forceful sermon on the gospel in these words: Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all who believe are justified from all things. That, I say, was a bombshell in that synagogue. Up till then, those people had imagined the situation was something like this. You did your best to keep God's law. When you failed, you came along and confessed it, and you were forgiven. When you failed again, you came again, and you were forgiven. You asked God's grace to do better next time, and you honestly sought to do ne- better next time. But the final result of all that procedure would not be published until the great judgment day. They had it in their minds that nobody could possibly be certain here and now that they were right with God. The final counting up of the sum and the publishing of the results would not be until the great judgment day. It was a bombshell to them to learn that it is possible here in this life, long before the judgment takes place, to know oneself right with God, and right with God, not only at the present moment, but right with God, so to remain permanently and forever. This certainly is a wonderful doctrine, if it be true. And the whole New Testament, and the Old as well, stands behind the message, saying it is true. You s- see the point, I trust. We too shall go down to our houses tonight. What a happy thing if we, through our study, went home tonight, unshakably certain that we were right with God and right forever. It is possible. Then there is a third thing we ought to notice, I submit, and that is that there was another man who went home, and when he went home, he was not right with God. He was not justified. Though on the surface he was the very kind of man that we would have said stood the most chance of being right. He was not perhaps the impossible prig that some preachers have made him out to be. Here was a man who, getting into the quiet of the temple one day, went over in his own heart, he prayed with himself, went over in his own heart, what kind of chances he stood of getting to God's heaven. And as he fell to thinking on that subject, he thought to himself, well now, let me see, I fast twice in the week. I'm pretty decent with my goods. I give tithes of all that I, I get. Honestly, without any boasting, honestly, I'm better, for instance, than this publican. I'm not extortionate. When all is said and done, when all is said and done, I- I'm not a drunkard. I'm not immoral. So he went over in God's presence his chances of one day getting to God's heaven. And as they stand on paper, they at first sight seem pretty reasonable chances. But our Lord said that that man, moral and good and religious as he seemed to be, went home. But he wasn't justified. He was not right with God. Obviously the matter needs some very careful attention. I therefore propose to proceed this evening in discussing this matter to take a proposition from the Bible itself that runs like this: that God may be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. I would like us to study this process of being made right with God, and study it in view of this proposition that God lays down. Certainly God is prepared to justify a man or woman, but says God, it must proceed like this. When God has justified that person, God himself must remain just. When we think of God as judge, the Bible bids us consider him as absolutely just. God is immovably. It is not perhaps our favorite meditation to meditate on God as being inflexibly just. It isn't perhaps the quality we admire in our friends most. We, uh, say to somebody, let me introduce you to Mr. Smith over here. You know he is a very nice man. We don't often find ourselves saying to our friends, do we? Come, let me introduce you to Mr. Brown. He is an exceedingly righteous man. No. And when it comes to God, I hazard a guess that most of us like to think of God as a loving God, and so he is indeed. But at the same time, the God before whose bar we must be judged is absolutely, inflexibly just. And because he is just, the Old Testament says it in no uncertain terms, he's a merciful God, but he will by no means clear the guilty. He will by no means clear the guilty. It was a thing that God forbade Israel's judges to do. When God appointed men in Israel to the judgeship of his people, he forbade them to condemn the innocent, but with equal fervor he forbade them to justify the guilty. And what God enjoined on mortal men, he himself will always observe. Merciful, gracious, loving, kind, yes, but he will by no means clear the guilty. There is no passing over sin. There is no pretending that men and women are holy when they are not. Consequently, the very book in the New Testament that is written to show how we may be right with God spends its first two and a half chapters in proving from every possible angle that all men everywhere and without exception are wrong. It is a bitter pill to swallow. Still more difficult when it comes to our own hearts. And yet, I repeat, we must face this, for God is so loving that he will never tell a white lie. The God with whom we have to do will be perfectly honest with us, and he labors much to tell us clearly that we all personally have come short. He points us to the heathen people. Well, we say we can see that in their abominable vices, in their appalling immorality, in their cannibalism, in their sexual perversions. Why, yes, the heathen nations, of course, they have come short of God's requirements. The awful diseases from which they suffer in their bodies are but eloquent testimony that they have broken God's laws and are reaping in their persons the wages of sin which they have committed. But then, common observation tells us that not all people live like raw heathen. There are many people who would make no Christian profession at all, and yet they live decent lives. They would roundly condemn the excesses of the heathen. They would roundly condemn the excesses of their fellow men in their own country. Maybe you will find them in their zeal for helping their fellows on many a society aimed at promoting the common good. And yet, when God comes to sum up them, his word reads like this: Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou doest the same things thyself. Have you ever looked on somebody and said, that's not fair? Have you ever read of, uh, some happening in a newspaper and said to yourself, that man is a rotter? Then God's word says that in doing that, we are condemning ourselves. You say, how do you make that out? Because we do the very same things as we condemn in others. Oh, but you say, come, come, I will condemn a murderer, but I have never murdered. Maybe you have not. But look at it God's way. God says that if you have ever hated anybody in your heart, you've murdered him. You say I've never committed adultery. Maybe you haven't. But God says that if we have entertained the thought in our mind, we have in his sight as good as done the deed. You say, I have never bowed down to idols. Maybe you haven't. Have you ever coveted anything? The Bible says that to covet, to want more than my share, is idolatry. And if we can see it is wrong in other people, so much so that we have condemned these excesses, we have already condemned ourselves because we are guilty of the same thing. The hardest man to convince of this, perhaps, is the man that is much given to religion. In the ancient world, it was the Jew. There were many Jews who took their religion very seriously. They were the nation that God gave the Old Testament to, and God gave them his law. And many of these men were so keen on religion that they gave their lives to the learning of that law. They knew a phenomenal amount about the Bible, so much so that they preached the Bible. They they they preached the Ten Commandments. They taught people that they ought to keep them. They perhaps were the most difficult people to convince that they were sinners. They got it into their heads that because they taught God's word, that they somehow were on his side. Uh, like the man who wrote an ode to virtue and thought thereby he had discharged his responsibilities in that direction. Because they knew all about it and could teach the theory of being good. They thought that was all that was required. It was hard for them especially to have God tear down that idea and show them that with him there is no favoritism. We may, may know the Bible A to Z. That does not spare us from God's sweeping condemnation that we too have sinned. And that aforesaid book that dwells so long in proving to us that all mankind of every description have sinned, ends up its long indictment with the words, there is none good, no, not one. It is one of those statements that, uh, provokes people. I've had people turn around to me and say, well, that's grossly unfair. That the Bible can possibly say there is none good, no, not one. That surely cannot be true. What of the great pioneers of social welfare? What of the people that give their lives to the healing of lepers, the looking after little children? What of those who, in unseen places, are always sacrificing their own comfort for the good of others? Surely the Bible cannot mean that there is none good. Is there not everywhere evidence of much goodness. Oh, well, yes, um, let's get this straight. In our human language, we use the term goodness in several different senses. For instance, I have known it happen very, very occasionally that when I have been playing the piano, people have said, that's very good. Well, I suppose in some sort of context it would be. Compared with a few people I know, my playing is good. Very few. There comes somebody into the room, and uh, she has the degree LRIM. I don't attempt to play. Compared with that, my playing is exceedingly bad. There comes into the room a Mendelssohn or a Beethoven, and the LRAM takes the back seat, wouldn't dare begin. Oh, we're all good at our various levels. It depends at which level you are judging yourself. There, you see, was the fatal mistake that that Pharisee made. In calculating his chances of reaching God's heaven, he he decided he was good, and in a sense he was very good. He fasted twice a week, admirable self-control. He gave tithes of all he possessed. I know a good many people that don't do that. Admirable social work. And he honestly tried to keep God's law the best he knew how. And he decided he was pretty good. But you see, he was judging himself by comparison with his fellow men, instead of judging himself by God's absolute standard. There came a young man to our Lord Jesus once. Good master, he said. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Said our Lord, now please, just a moment. Did you mean what you said just then? Good master? Young man, you know, in the absolute sense, there is none good, save God. In that absolute sense by which we shall be judged, by that absolute standard of God's utter perfection, which is his law, there is none good. No, not one. And we need to face that because if we are counting up our chances of getting to heaven by coming on the ground of keeping God's law, then God has already delivered his verdict. There is none good. And by the keeping of that law, none shall ever be right with God. Let us think for a moment how the judgment proceeds. The judgment proceeds on these terms that God looks at our lives as a whole, not in little pieces. Many folk have the idea, you know, that we perhaps have made mistakes in the past, but we come to God and we confess these mistakes, and then we determine to do our best hereafter, and we shall do enough good to outweigh the bad. Uh, but God judges our lives as a whole. He does not hold court every day of the week. The Bible is very clear here. It says that it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that cometh judgment. That is, God doesn't set up his judgment throne every day of the week on our lives. There is to be one judgment, and at that one judgment our lives will be viewed as a whole. And if there is then one speck in that life, just one speck, then that life will not pass the requirement of God's law. Um, let's ask ourselves the question, how many sins does a man have to do to become a sinner? Adam's own history is that man has to do one sin, and that makes him a sinner. God looks at our lives as a whole. Moreover, God's law is a whole. It is strange how many people get the wrong conception of God's law. Moreover, God's law is a whole. It is strange how many people get the wrong conception of God's law. They look at God's law as though it were a course at some university. You know, we have the kind of courses in which some papers are, are necessary, some papers are optional. Like the new GCE. The old system, you had to pass all of so many subjects to get through, and if you failed in one, you didn't get the exam. Now they alter things, and you can get through if you get through on one paper, you scored, you passed. Or you can get through on two, of course, if you're especially good. If you were an absolute wizard, you might get through on six. But the man that gets one, he is in some sense passed. And there are many people that think God's law is like that. If you get a uh sixty percent, you'll do. The real wizards, the real saints, perhaps they might score eighty five. But the ordinary folks can be expected to score somewhere about a fifty, fifty one we hope. But God says no. His law is not, not, not like that. If you come offering God as your right to his heaven, a performance of his law, then God says the terms are that you keep the whole. If you fail in the one point, you have failed. I must agree with you as one who comes under that same condemnation. The standard is impossibly high, but by those standards, God's condemnation of me as a sinner is perfectly just. It is nothing more than the truth. Then how could it be that that man of whom our Lord spoke in the parable, how could it possibly be that he went home knowing he was right with God? That brings us to our next thing in the proposition. God is just and yet the justifier of him that believeth on Jesus. There is a way of making a man righteous, without any pretense, without abating his righteous standard and hairbreads, God has found a way of being able to declare that certain people are right with God and are permanently accepted with him. The grounds again are technical. You may, I fear, find this lecture very technical. But then I hope we take the things of God seriously enough to be prepared to think in technical terms. If you want to know how your car works, you'll have to learn a lot of technical terms about clutches and carburetors and crankshafts and differentials and what have you. And if we are earnest about our eternal welfare, we shall bring all the strength we have to consider these technical matters. God has found a way of declaring men and women rights, and the basis, says God, is this. Not of works. Not in anything they do, for God could never pretend it was good enough. But on the basis now that his law has been vindicated through the sacrifice of Christ. This is a well-known thing, but its marvel is immense. God, in the person of his son, has suffered the penalty of his own law. We read that God spared not his own son, but delivered him up. The phrase is a vivid one. It's the word you would use of a judge who had condemned a criminal for breaking the law, and having condemned him, he delivers him up to the sanctions of that law. When the Bible says that God spared not his son, but, uh, gave him for us all, it's using this word, not merely gave him to come and be born in Bethlehem, but God handed him over to the sanctions of that law. Nor was Christ an unwilling victim. That was what moved the heart of Paul in such gratitude, says Paul, the Son of God loved me, and he gave himself up for me. That is why the cross stands at the very center of Christian preaching. The cross tells me of a God so, so holy, so exact, so insistent that right be done, that he will not, he will not clear the guilty. But of a God who so loves that guilty man that he is prepared to suffer the penalties of his law for that man. Therein is the basis. If I commit a murder, and the law of the land condemns me to death, and then somebody volunteers to die for me, the deed is done, and I perforce go free. You say, but that wouldn't be fair. Wouldn't be fair that somebody who was innocent should die for the guilty. You say that, uh, surely is impossible that God should let his own innocent son suffer for me who am guilty. It wouldn't be fair to let an innocent third party suffer for the guilty. Indeed, it wouldn't be to let a third party suffer for the guilty. But therein is the marvel of what God has done. It isn't a question of a third party. God is one. There are not two or three gods. There is not one God called the Father, and another God called the Son, and another God called the Holy Spirit. There is only one God. And Jesus Christ, one of the persons in that Trinity, offers this to every sinner, that if that sinner will trust him, he will join himself to that man until in God's sight they are really one. So that justly and rightly, what Christ suffered on Calvary can be counted as having been suffered by that man. That is love to its last extent. That is what transpired at Calvary. Every man and woman that has learned to trust God's Son may know it happened really. Christ has joined himself to them. He that is joined to the Lord, the Bible says, is one spirit. Therefore, what happened to Christ, happened to me. That is the scheme. A God who in his absolute holiness condemns me utterly and demands that the sanctions of his law be poured out on me. A God who loves me, the sinner, and was prepared to suffer the sanctions of his law for me. What are the terms of my being accepted? Again, they are simple indeed. If the penalty, if the guilt of my sin has been dealt with through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, then how do I come into this thing? Surely one may say, if Christ has died for sinners, then are you saying that all sinners everywhere are right with God? Oh, indeed not. Indeed not. We may not think of the atonement in such a crude way. It is not, so to speak, that Christ has paid the debt, and whether men will have it or not, they go free of the judgment. No, no. It demands on my part a certain attitude of heart. That attitude that the Bible calls believing. God is just and the justifier not of everybody, but the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Believeth in Jesus. When a man believes in Jesus, God declares him righteous. Do you get that? Again, a little difficult concept, maybe. But the Bible tries to help us by quoting the example of an actual man called Abraham. Abraham, we read, believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham was one of those men of whom God said, now that man there is right with me, permanently right with me. And if we had asked God, now come look, God, here's this man Abraham, and he's tending his sheep at this moment i- i- in the plains of Palestine. You say that man is right with you. On what grounds do you say that man is right with you? Then God's reply is, well, there in Abraham, you see a man who has believed in me. His heart is right. I'm not looking to his outward works, says God at the moment. I'm looking deep into that man's heart, and I have found in him a man who has learned to abandon faith in himself and stake all his faith in me, his heart is right. When a man or a woman comes to do like Abram did, to abandon all faith in themselves and dare to pin their sole faith to God, God says that person is right with him. And I'm grateful to say that God isn't playing at things, and God isn't pretending at things. That man or woman is right. Is right. Oh, I repeat, it's not a question that God pretends the man is right. The man is right. For being right with God is a matter of the heart, and not at the first level a matter of our works. I wonder if I could possibly illustrate that to you. Here are some pirates of the good old days. Big brawny fellows. They make a living on the high seas and buy a good deal of smuggling. Now, amongst themselves, they are admirable fellows, brave, kind even sometimes to their captives, and among themselves very loyal to the band. They have a sense of honor. There are things that these pirates would not permit in their fellow. If one of their fellows robbed the common chest, they'd have his head off. Such is their keen interest in fairness. They don't believe in stealing, and not among themselves. Ha. Within their own little circle, they're they're pretty decent chaps. Ah, but for all that, there is one fatal flaw. Their high attitude to the sovereign on the throne. And all their goodness and kindness among themselves and their valor and their manliness goes for nothing. In the last analysis, when they stand before the bar of their sovereign's law courts, their heart was not right with the sovereign. Here's another poor fellow. He's gardener in the, in, in the royal palace. He was born with a pretty poor inferiority complex. He's eaten through with desires of wrong sorts. But in his heart of hearts, he loves his sovereign. He wants his life to belong to his sovereign. He may not be the manly, courageous fellow that one of those pirates is, but his heart is right with his sovereign. And this is the personal issue of a gospel. This is the thing that's at stake when a man or a woman faces God. There's our heart. That's why I was so careful to labor that first point. It does matter, you see, whether we will agree with God in his condemnation of our sin. Will we? So long as we, like that Pharisee in the parable, stick to our guns and try to prove that we're pretty decent. God can have nothing to do with us, but condemn us. There are people that do this kind of thing through pride of heart. They will have nobody tell them that they are not good. And in consequence, their heart is not right with God, for God says that they're sinners. There are other people that take the attitude through a mistaken sense of, um, their duty. They are trying to keep the Christian commandments, trying to show love, trying to show mercy, trying to do do good, and it's a desperately difficult thing. And all the while God is saying, look, look, look, I wish you'd drop that. I wish you'd drop it completely. I wish you would come to me and own the facts that you are impossibly bad. For if you could do that, I could begin. But so long as you struggle desperately to gain my favor by keeping my law, then I must condemn you. I must tell you the truth. You fall short, you fall short, you fall short. And much as I love you, while you cling to that attitude, trying to gain my favor by leading a Christian life, I cannot do anything but condemn you. The moment we are prepared to believe God and admit what he says is true, that we are utterly and completely bad and utterly hopeless. That moment God is prepared to give us his son. God is prepared, if we trust that son, to put all Christ did to our account, and free and for nothing, declare us to be right, now and eternally. It is a matter, matter of the heart. And that is why the Bible stresses so frequently that we are justified by faith, not by the works of the law. Oh, but somebody says, Mr. Lecturer, you're not being fair. There is a part in the Bible, isn't there, that says that we are justified by works. I was traveling down from Dublin to Cork in the summer, and busying myself with academic subjects, and presently the gentleman sitting next to me looked over to my page and, becoming a little curious, he dared to ask, how is it that you are interested in the biblical languages? Well, I said, my dear sir, because I'm a Christian. And then bethinking myself, I said, well, perhaps you wouldn't call me a Christian. I said, I'm one of those people that claim to be saved. I claim to be right with God and know it. I said, and I fancy you wouldn't call me a right sort of a Christian, would you? He smiled. He was a man, so he told me, who was hoping for salvation by devoting himself to a very strict way of life. He had embraced poverty. He wasn't allowed to own anything. I saw him in the train beside me reading endless prayers. He was a man, and you could see him through and through, kindly, loving, genial. The man that would have delighted to help anybody. He said to me, you know, we must work, mustn't we? To earn our salvation. He said, didn't the Savior himself say that the man who had a talent and didn't use it was cast out into the outer darkness, he said, and that's the bad place, isn't it? I said, tell me, my good friend, then, how- what is the real position? You say I must work? Yes, he said, you must work according to your ability. If you've got ten talents, you must try and use all your ten talents. If you've only got one talent, God won't expect so much of, uh, you as he would of a man that had ten talents, but you'll have to use them, else if you don't, if you don't work properly, you'll be cast into the outer darkness. I said, tell me, my friend, the man that uses his ten talents, then he works, yes? And gets salvation because he works? Yes. And the man that, uh, uses his one talent and he works, and he gets salvation because he works? Yes. So there's really no difference between those two, is there, that they they both have to work for it? Yes, he said, according to their ability. I said, what would you say of the man who worked not at all? Oh, he said, he's out, out completely. I said, I can't understand you. What do you make this verse of the Bible to mean? And I quoted him those lovely words. Now to him that worketh, the reward is reckoned not of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not. Oh, he's out, said the man again. I said, half a moment, my friend, see what the verse says. To him that worketh not. What about him? To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness. He said, my friend, I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. Oh, how pathetic, I thought. Such a lovely man, grinding his very life out to try and get saved, and doesn't know what the verse means that says to him that worketh not. But believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness. I don't know what it means, he said. If I could believe it, my life would be a lot easier, I thought. Yes, my dear friend, it would. Oh, what rest. What peace, what security, what comfort, and in fact, what eternal salvation his would be if he got hold of what God means when he says to him that worketh not but believeth. His faith is counted to him for being right with God. And even as I say so, I have not forgotten that there is a part in the Bible that says we are justified by works. But that certainly does not contradict this statement. I haven't time to deal with it now. God willing, I will deal with it in another lecture. Shall we take the matter to God in prayer? We pray now, blessed God, thy special help. We pray the encouragement of thy Holy Spirit to face what may seem to us as difficult things. As thy word takes from beneath our feet the things in which we may have trusted, we pray thou will give us the honesty and the grace to face what thy word says, to smite our breasts and confess ourselves impossible sinners. Then show us, we pray thee, what it is that Christ has done for us upon the cross. Show us so clearly that our hearts might go out to him and we learn to believe in him. And come to the blessedness of those of whom thy word speaks when it says, to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness. So lead us to thy peace, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.