No
Condemnation!
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are
in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
Justification is the opposite of condemnation.
God declares the believing sinner to have a right relationship with
Him, but that does not make him righteous. A sinner does not have any righteousness of his
own, and therefore cannot be innocent. However, God declares believers in Christ righteous
on the grounds of Christ’s atonement.
The believing sinner is declared by God to be just by grace through
faith in Jesus Christ.
Grace of God is the cause of our
justification.
Romans 3:24 reads, “being justified as a gift by His grace
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
No individual can make himself right with God no matter how hard he
tries because he is a sinner. The Bible declares, “There is no one righteous, not
even one” (3:10). The reason is because “all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God” (v. 23).
Since we are condemned sinners worthy of death as a punishment for
our sins, someone else must do the work of righteousness for us (6:23). We do not deserve
or merit God’s love. The source of our right relationship with God is His own free
grace.
The foundation of our justification is the finished work of
Jesus Christ on the cross.
It was Christ “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in
His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the
forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed” (3:25).
God can now freely justify us because of the finished work of Jesus
Christ. Christ paid our sin debt in full when He died for us (5:6, 8). We are
“justified by His blood.”
Justification is an act of justice because when God
justifies sinners, He is not declaring bad people to be good, or saying
that they are not sinners. He is agreeing with the fact that all human
beings are sinners. In justification He is pronouncing them legally
righteous, free from any liability to the law they have broken.
The ground for our justification is the death of Christ.
The means of our justification is faith in
the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His
blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the
forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I
say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the
justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (3:25-26).
Faith is the channel by which justification becomes ours personally.
Our faith in Christ is not the ground of justification, but the means by which God’s
justification operates (5:1; Gal. 2:16).
Faith is essential for our justification, and it is God’s gift
to us (Eph. 2:8-10). It is not works so no one but God can get the credit for our
salvation. God does it, and we receive it freely by faith alone.
Even after a lifetime of Christian living and
sacrificial service, the believer has no works on which to rely. He has
no merits before a holy God. Justification is always by grace through
faith, now, and in heaven before God’s judgment throne (Rom. 3:30; 5:1).
Justification of the sinner takes place objectively
in Christ, and is appropriated subjectively as sinners place their faith
in Him.
The apostle Paul never speaks of justification apart from faith.
The result of our justification is a vital union with
Christ.
The ground of all that God does for and in us is this vital union
with Christ (Rom. 5:1-11). We are now “in Christ Jesus.”
Our victory in the Christian life is accomplished in our daily life
by being “in Christ.” We enjoy a personal, vital, living relationship with
Christ.
“There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ.”
God freely and fully declares us just. This “faith-righteousness” is the end of
“law-righteousness” which was never a “real righteousness” that
satisfies God’s “perfect righteousness.”
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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