GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #465
Justified By Grace Through Blood
Pastor
Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville,
Kentucky 40422-9438
According
to Romans 3:24-26 God’s elect are a people who stand before him as completely
justified from all sin and perfectly righteous in Christ. The righteousness of
Christ has been imputed to us and we are made to be the righteousness of God in
him. This justification of our souls before God is a work of his free grace
toward us through the sin-atoning blood of his darling Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ.
C. H. Spurgeon wrote, “I must hold that,
in the moment when Jesus Christ paid my debts, my debts were canceled; in the
hour when he worked out for me a perfect righteousness it was imputed to me;
and therefore, I may, as a believer, say I was complete in Christ before I was
born, accepted in Jesus, even as Levi was blessed in the loins of Abraham.”
That is exactly the doctrine of Holy Scripture. When the Word of God declares
that we are justified by the faith of Christ or by faith in Christ, the meaning
is not that our faith justifies us, but rather that Christ the Object of our
faith justifies us. We are not justified by our act of faith in him, but by his
faithful obedience to God for us, as our Representative.
In his life of obedience to the law and will of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ worked out a perfect righteousness for us. In him all God’s elect have
obeyed God’s holy law perfectly (Dan. 9:24; Jer. 23:6; 1 Cor. 1:30). His name
is “THE
LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS”; and that is our name as well (Jer. 33:16),
because he is made of God unto us righteousness. All who trust the Son of God
have been made the righteousness of God in him by Divine imputation (2 Cor.
5:21). We are not made righteous by our works, or even by our faith, but by
grace, by the free imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. His
righteousness is imputed to us in exactly the same way and to the same degree
that our sins were imputed to him.
The life of Christ was as necessary for our salvation as his death. The holy Lord God demands
obedience as well as satisfaction. By his death, our great Substitute paid our
debts, satisfying the justice of God for our sins. But by his life of obedience
to God for us, as our Federal Head and Representative, the Son of God brought
in an everlasting righteousness of infinite value for his people. It is this
righteousness (the righteousness of his obedience) which is imputed to us in
justification, just as our unrighteousness (the unrighteousness of our
disobedience) was imputed to him in condemnation.
When the Lord Jesus Christ died under the wrath of God at Calvary, all
God’s elect died in him, fully satisfying the demands of God’s law and justice
against them for sin (Gal.3:13; 2:20; Rom. 6:6-7; 8:1). In
Christ I died. Thus, by his death, I am freed from sin’s penalty, the law’s
curse and condemnation, and shall forever be freed from all the consequences of
sin in eternal life.
Since our Redeemer is both God and man in one Glorious Person, all that
he has done is of infinite value for all who trust him. He has effectually
accomplished the eternal justification of his people. He has obtained eternal redemption
for us (Heb. 9:12). He has put away the sins of his people (Col. 2:13-15; Heb.
9:26). He has perfected for ever those who were set apart as the objects of his
grace (Heb. 10:14). This is complete, perfect justification. The law can
require no more of us than perfect righteousness and infinite satisfaction
(Eph. 2:4-6). All who believe are justified freely by the grace of God through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
AMEN.