Justification

 Imagine being in a courtroom.  Everyone in the room knows you did it.  There is no denying your guilt.  Multiple eyewitnesses.  Your fingerprints are all over the crime scene.  It is the ultimate open and shut case for the prosecutor.  You are going to jail for a very long time.  The prosecutor has spent the past three days proving your guilt time and time again.  Now is the time for closing arguments.  You plead for your own freedom expressing your guilt and regret seeking one last bit of leniency.  The judge now turns to the prosecution who shares their closing arguments.  They recap their case, and just as they are finishing them up.  The prosecutor says, "all this evidence proves guilt.  I am ready receive the punishment.  The defendant is free to go."  

Wait a minute.  The prosecutor wants to go to jail for you?  How? Why? What changed?  Well, it was your own closing argument.  Think through it again.  You expressed guilt (confession).  Regret your actions (repentance).  Seeking some level of leniency (asking for forgiveness).  Here is one more piece to the puzzle.  The prosecutor is Jesus Christ.  Add this all together and it begins to look exactly like justification.  There was nothing in your own power which could have changed the judge's mind in this case.  The only thing that could change was the charges brought by the prosecutor.  Jesus brought the charges and upon your confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness, He dropped them.  1 John 1:9 shares, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  By his own word, you have been freed from the punishment.  

Justification simply means God no longer holds our punishment over us.  We can live a life free from the penalty of sin which according to Romans is death.  God seeks to make us whole.  In this life, you may never find yourself in this situation in a courtroom, but each and every one of us will one day before God Almighty.  We each will need to give an account for our lives, the good and the bad.  Unfortunately, the bad will always be enough to separate us from God except for the grace of God through Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection where he takes our punishment in our place.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From the Earth to the Moon and Spiritual Formation

Image
              This week for an assignment, we were charged to watch part ten “Galileo Was Right” of the HBO series “From the Earth to the Moon” which can be purchased from YouTube as well as on HBOMax.   Within the episode, the astronauts are charged with learning geology as a part of their training for the Apollo 15 mission.   The astronauts had a singular focus on what their mission was to be.   The lead astronauts first believed their mission was simply to fly to the moon grab some random rocks and return home where the “real geologists” would then test their theories.   The thought process was that anything would work, and the actual flight was far more important.   If the rocks returned were not satisfactory, there would be other missions to find more adequate samples.   Unfortunately, the NASA Apollo program was beginning to traction in congress budgetary concerns would limit future missi...
Read more

Wesley and Christian Perfection

              Perfection is a word we use to explain when something is faultless.   Perfection comes with the mindset there can be no blemish.   A perfect game in baseball means no hits and no walks.   A perfect season means no losses or ties if the sport allows for ties.   A perfect grade means no wrong answers.   So, what does Christian Perfection mean?   Does this mean a Christian with no blemishes on their record?   They live without sin?   Many think this is what John Wesley taught when he preached Christian Perfection and entire sanctification.   There became a counterpoint that Wesley said we could be perfect in this world.   While Wesley used the term perfection, he did not stick to a faultless definition of perfection.   He chose to describe perfection as completion.   To Wesley, Christian Perfection was a perfection in love.   Love is the summation of ...
Read more

Grace and Us

Image
              Have you ever heard this chorus? Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that will pardon and cleanse within; Grace, grace, God’s grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin!             It is an older hymn chorus.   I can remember my home church singing this chorus often.   We would sing it as an after prayer song or even a chorus for Wednesday night bible study.   The words are simple.   The meaning is beyond simple.   What is this grace greater than all our sin?   To answer that, one must first look to how great our sin is.   For the nature of sin is to separate us from God.   Sin is an act of rebellion against God.   God is pure and holy; therefore, He cannot be around any sort of sin.   God’s holiness cannot abide with our sinfulness.   By our very nature, we will always fail God.   We are a...
Read more