Living Understanding Pt 27: Justified

Romans 5:1-2                        1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

Romans 3:28-31                     28For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.  29Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Genesis 15:6                           6Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

James 2:20-24                        20You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

Justified through faith.

The dictionary defines justified as having been declared righteous by God, but that is a superficial definition that is not of much help.  In a human court, a justified person has been declared innocent of the crime of which they have been charged and allowed to go free.  It is not that simple with our relationship with God because when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, sin entered the human experience, and death with it.  Being righteous is doing good and being sin-free and is something no human being except Jesus has ever been able to do.  But there is a conundrum here, because God is completely righteous and holy and can have nothing to do with sin.

From the beginning of time, God (who is never surprised) knew he would send his Son as a sacrifice for the redemption of his children from the Law of Sin and Death.  By accepting Jesus as our Savior and having faith that his blood cleanses us from all sin we receive God’s justification.  This is the declaration that despite all human evidence to the contrary we are declared innocent of all sin and are granted freedom from death.  We are then right with God!

Also, remember that before Abraham, then called Abram, there was no Israel.  Every Jew who has ever lived is the remote progeny of Abraham.  The point is that if God found Abraham justified because of his faith, then all of his progeny could be so justified through their faith.

Ungrounded works are useless.

The Torah, that is, all the books of the Old Testament, has 613 commandments including the famous ten.  The Pharisees of the 1st Century thought they were made right with God by complete observance of these commandments, and they were rigorous in enforcing such obedience.  When Jesus came along, he insisted that such obedience was useless unless it was mediated through faith in Him.  This offended the powers-that-be and ultimately got him crucified, but of course this was God’s plan all along because it was the sacrifice Jesus made which has cleansed all who believe in him.

What the Pharisees did not understand was that doing good things, or living moral lives, or perfunctorily offering sacrifices through simple human effort does not do anything about cleansing one of personal sin.  People are happier with us, true, but they have absolutely no input as to our eternal relationship with God.

Faith and deeds are not contradictory.

On the other hand, as James points out, claiming to have faith but having no deeds flowing from that faith brings some question into the veracity of that faith.  If a person is a nice guy, he might express love for another by buying dinner for instance, but if that nice guy never prays for that person, never seeks greater manifestation of God in the person’s heart, or never intercedes when that person is struggling, what long-term help has he been?  So, faith and deeds work together; each is evidence of the existence of the other.

And this is a universal correlation; all persons of whatever heritage may come to good relationship with God through faith in the Son.  The Jews were in the habit of depending on Torah to establish that relationship, so anyone not having the Torah (everyone else!) meant everyone except the Jews were lost.  Jesus offered the better way!

6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6)

What about me?

There is a special peace that comes from knowing you will live forever.  There is no denying that our bodies are frail and wear out over time.  But having Jesus as our Savior changes things; we are made right with God the Father through faith in the Son.  Certainly, that change is permanent, but one wonders sometimes about those pew-sitters who run their businesses with no concern for honor or ethics, and one wonders how the pew-sitter reconciles that hypocrisy.  We are not able to judge another’s relationship with Jesus (that is his job), but we must make sure our walk is consistent with our faith.

I am not a person prone to vulgarity, but recently I realized that traffic brings out the worst in me.  God convicted me that ‘idiot’, or ‘moron’, or ‘jerk’, were only slightly less offensive than profane name-calling when someone cuts me off in traffic.  So, in this area at least, my deeds were not in alignment with my faith.  It is a work in progress.

What about you?  Is there an area in which someone might question your faith?