Justification - Part 1 — Charles Leiter

Well, let's open our Bibles this evening to Titus, the third chapter, Titus chapter 3. Let's have a word of prayer before we look into the Word once again here. Our Father, we confess again our utter need for Thee.

We need Thee, Lord, to speak. We need Thee to understand. We need Thee in order to hear. We can't receive, we can't feel these things the way we should. We can't understand them the way we should. We can't see them the way we should unless You help us.

Lord, these very basic, simple things that I'll be saying this evening, I just confess, Lord, I don't understand them but a little bit myself. I pray that You'd open up to us something of the reality of what we'll be looking at this evening.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Titus chapter 3, and we'll read verses 4 to 7. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Justification and Regeneration as Foundational Gospel Doctrines

I've read these verses as a sort of introduction to the two subjects that I believe the Lord would have us to consider these days. The first one is justification, and the second one is regeneration. And we'll be spending two days on each one of these as the Lord wills, trying to get at least a basic overview of what the Bible has to say about justification and what it has to say about regeneration.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these two doctrines for a proper understanding of the Gospel and a proper understanding of the Christian life. Very basic, very foundational. When Paul begins to talk right here in Titus about this great salvation that we have, right away he gets into regeneration.

He starts talking about the washing of regeneration in verse 5, but he can't go very far before he starts talking about the foundation of everything, verse 7, being justified by His grace. And that's the way it is all through the New Testament.

Whether the terms are there or not, the concepts are there repeatedly. Justification and regeneration. They are absolutely foundational, but they are very poorly understood, even by people that have been Christians for a long time.

Sin as the Starting Point for Understanding Justification

In our study of justification and regeneration, we want to begin where the Bible does, and that is with the subject of sin. Notice here, even in verse 3, Paul has been talking about sin. He says, We also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

Isn't that amazing? Sin. If I were to ask you this evening, what is the ultimate problem of mankind, or you could just about, you could boil it down, you could say, what is the only problem of mankind?

I hope you'd say the problem is sin. That's the problem. Sin. Fallen humanity's ultimate problem is just one thing, sin. And your problem tonight is just one thing, sin. You don't have anything else to worry about tonight except sin.

That's the only thing. That's the only problem that any one of us have. And the Bible has a lot to say about sin. We're going to talk about that a little bit before we get into justification. We become used to this.

We become callous to this. But it is amazing what the Word of God has to say about sin and what sin is in this world. First of all, sin is absolutely universal. Romans chapter 3. There is none righteous.

I say we're used to this. But this is incredible. There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. There is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Now, some of you people I've never met here tonight, and you've never maybe met me. But we know before we ever are introduced, one thing you know about each other is that guy's a sinner. Isn't that something?

Every man, every woman, every child, every elderly person, before you ever lay eyes on one thing you know about them, I know this much, they're a sinner. Now, I say we're used to that. But that's an incredible thing.

The absolute universality of sin in the human race. It doesn't matter, I say how young you are, I have seen some of the most wicked things done by little children that you can imagine on their level. On their level, with the amount of strength they have to do it.

No matter how young, you see, universal, race, nationality, doesn't matter, doesn't matter how civilized the country is you're from, look at what Nazi Germany did, doesn't matter how uncivilized the country you're from.

Harris Reathead was a missionary to Africa, he says, I went to Africa to save a bad God from putting good men in hell. He had the idea that these bad guys were running around, you know, they've never had a chance to hear about Jesus.

He said, when I got there I discovered they were monsters of iniquity. It's not a matter of never had a chance to accept Jesus, it's never had a chance to kill a missionary and rape his family. We're talking about no matter what race, what nation, what background, how civilized, how uncivilized, everywhere, universal, absolute.

This is reality. You know, it wasn't too long ago men were daydreaming about how everything's getting better and better and better all the time. That kind of cooled off after the second world war. Universal, sin is universal, it's all pervasive, it pervades every aspect of human life.

It has affected the mind. The mind is all messed up and blinded. The mind is blinded by sin. The God of this world has blinded the mind. You think of how the human mind has been perverted and affected by sin.

You want to know, just take a look the next time there's a funeral and people are sitting around laughing at the funeral. They don't even wait to get outside. Men live right in the face of death. Beloved, our lives are going to be gone just like that.

And the mind is so messed up that you can sit right in the presence of death, go outside, light up a cigarette and joke about what's going on, forget all about it, you see. The mind is messed up. The will is corrupted.

Sin's Effects on the Mind, Will, and Emotions

Genesis 6, every intent of the thoughts of their hearts, only evil continues. You will not come to me that you might have liked. No man can come to me. The will, you see, has been affected by sin. The mind affected, the will affected, the emotions affected.

You talk about something that has been messed up by sin, people all over the world tonight are laughing at things that ought to make them weep. That's what keeps talk shows on the air. The emotions are such a mess, and on the other side of the coin, you have people weeping and can't even figure out why they're weeping.

And every preacher knows what it's like. You're going over these precious truths, and your emotions are where they ought to be. And sometimes you get up and start sharing these things, and your emotions are exactly the opposite of what they ought to be.

What is that? There's something messed up in us. We're a mess. We have been affected by the fall in ways that we cannot imagine. Not only is sin universal, all-pervasive, it's absolutely irrational. You try to frame a theology of sin by definition of things that are irrational, you can't figure out how in the world, how did sin get started?

It is probably the hardest problem in theology there is, trying to figure out how in the world did sin come around? It's because it's irrational in itself. You give me one good reason to sin, any time you have ever sinned, you've regretted it, and then you've gone back and done it again.

It is irrational. It's insane. The prodigal son, it says, when he came to his senses, he came to himself, all of a sudden he wakes up and says, what am I doing eating this pig food? You see, sin is irrational.

It doesn't make any sense. Here's a guy who takes his birthright, this precious birthright, sell it for a bowl of soup. That's going on all the time. Men are throwing away their family, their children, their marriage, and everything else for one night of lust.

It's insane. People take what's the most precious organ in your body, your brain. Sniff glue until you destroy it. The absolute irrationality of sin. It's insane. Sin is irrational. Sin is deceitful. Hebrews 3, verse 13, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

You tell me sin, it will deceive you. It will deceive you. The Bible says it's deceitful. Don't think you're going to be smart enough that it's not going to deceive you. It will deceive you. And it's hardening.

Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. You get harder and harder and harder. And you say, I'll go that far, but I'll never do that. Do you think a man like Adolf Hitler, when he was a little boy, do you think he was just like he was later on?

I mean, all along the way you get harder. Like John Bunyan said, man knows the beginning of sin. No man has ever known the end of sin. You don't know what you'll be doing. You'll be doing the same thing that would have shocked you in horror a year or two ago, and you'll be doing it and thinking nothing of it.

And saying, I won't do that down there. Yes, you will. Sin hardens you. Sin enslaves you. John 8, verse 34, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. That's that word slave again. Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

You can't get free. If you're not a Christian here tonight, sin is riding on you. The Bible says sin reigns unto death. You are no more free than the lowest slave. You're a slave to sin, and sin is riding on you, and it's going to ride you right down into hell.

Sin reigns unto death. It really holds a club over the lost man. And you have got a chain around your neck, and you cannot get away from sin. And you say, well, I can quit that. Yeah, you quit that, and then you'll have another sin.

And you stop doing that, and then you'll swell up with pride and be real proud and go to hell for your pride. Sin enslaves you. You cannot get away from it. On top of all that, sin is absolutely defiling, wicked, and perverse.

The Defiling and Exceedingly Sinful Nature of Sin

It's absolutely. Sin is not a trifle. It's not cute. It's not funny. The Bible says that sin is exceedingly sinful. All sin. There's not any of them that are nice, you know. We think they are. Every now and then you get a glimpse of how sinful sin is, don't you?

Every now and then. I say we're hardened to be sinful. The older I live, the more I am amazed at how wicked the human heart is. And yet we get used to it. I'm amazed at how used to it we are, how callous we are to that wickedness.

Just think about the thing of war. You just start thinking about it a little bit. The whole history of the human race is a history of constant war. All over the world, constantly, ever since the beginning of the human race, men have been killing each other.

Isn't that amazing? We're used to that. We think it's normal. War itself. Concentration camps. Torture. Rape. Child pornography. All those things you could go on and on and on. There's no end to it. We're used to it.

Sin is defiling. It's exceedingly sinful. Sometimes God will use the so-called little things to show you how bad it is. Augustine was a very immoral man before he was converted. You know the thing God used to show him?

He and some other guys went out and stole pears off a pear tree. That's what God used to show him how wicked sin was. Isn't that amazing? Because there was no reason to steal those pears. They didn't eat those pears.

They just stole them because they wanted to destroy them. And sometimes God will use something that the world might look at, but it will show you how wicked you are in your heart. I remember when I was a little boy, I must have been maybe three or four years old.

I don't know, maybe four. I still remember it to this day. I went out to gather the eggs, and all of a sudden it just came into my mind. I put those eggs in a bowl and just mashed them and beat them with a stick.

Just demonically. Why? I knew I was doing wrong. Just for the pleasure of sin. Beloved, you've got some things you can think about. I hope that you can see. I hope God has opened your eyes a little bit to see.

The things that you look back on and say, what in the world? What in the world? That's sin. Man's great problem is sin. But that sin problem has two aspects. First of all, it has an internal aspect on the inside.

It has to do with what you are on the inside. It has to do with a bad heart. It has to do with the fact that man himself is corrupt and vile. Mark 7, 21 -23. Remember what the Lord Jesus said concerning the heart?

He said it's not those things that come from the outside. But he says, Out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts and fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

All of these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. So your problem with sin. The problem with the man out here on the street. The problem with anybody you meet. The lost man. He's got a problem with sin on the inside.

He's got a bad heart. He's corrupt. He is defiled. He's corrupt. He's evil on the inside. And if you're not a Christian here tonight, you are more repulsive in your person. You're more repulsive to the Holy God than you can possibly imagine.

You don't have any glimpse of it. You don't see what it is. But it gets worse than that. Suppose by some miracle you could become a totally different person, a brand new person, and never commit another sin again the rest of your life.

I hope you don't think you'd go to heaven. You'd go to hell. Why would you go to hell? Because you not only have a corrupt, defiled heart, you've got a bad record of all the crimes that you've done that haven't been paid for.

You're a fugitive from justice. Now look, you've got a sin problem. What is it? It's internal. You're defiled. It's external. You've got a bad record. You've got a criminal record and that has never been paid for, you see.

Alright? Two aspects to the sin problem. Internal and external. You see, in the very character of God, and this is something I don't think, oh, I don't think we've got a hold of this very well at all, but in the very character of God and written on the human heart as well, is a thing called justice.

Divine Justice and the Moral Necessity of Punishment

Equity. That's why when one of these abusers and murderers of these little girls that we've been hearing about in the last few months, he comes in and stands before the judge. They go through all the evidence and all the stuff that he did.

The judge says, that'll be $20. See, if that happened, what happens? There's an outrage. It's wrong. I want to ask you something. Tell me why it's wrong. You prove to me. You prove to me that he deserves to be punished for that sin.

You can't prove that. It's something deeper than proving. You know it absolutely. He ought to die for that sin. It is something inside a man that's so deep it's beyond proving. There has to be equity.

The scales are tipped like this, you see. And you drop a little bit in this side, and that does not equal it out. And that's going on day after day after day in the courts of our land. You've got to get those scales leveled out.

And there is, in the human heart, there is a knowledge, inescapable knowledge that justice has to be done. And there's an outrage in your heart when it's not done. And I say that has to do with justice.

It has to do with the justice of God. Those scales must be balanced. And in the very nature of God, we know that sin deserves to be punished. It deserves to be punished. And those scales have to be balanced.

And I tell you what, if you're not a Christian tonight, those scales are way, way, way out of whack right now in your life. They're way out of whack. And I can tell you on the authority of God, that God will never rest or relent until you're in hell.

God will never hold back until the scales of justice are balanced. And righteousness is upheld and justice is done. That's because that is the very, the whole moral fabric of the universe would collapse if God didn't put you in hell.

That's how serious it is. We live in a day. You see, what's the reason for punishment for crime? Number one reason, satisfaction of justice. Number two reason, the good of society. Take care of this thing for the sake of society.

Number three reason, possible restoration of the offender for the good of the offender. Sometimes a good spanking will help somebody. Alright? What's happened in society? Number one has gone right out the window.

There's no thought of satisfying justice. Number two, the good of society, that takes second place. You know, turn them loose. Let them go back out and do the same thing again. Number one, the good of that guy.

We're going to try to do him some of this. We'll put him in a reformatory. They're reforming. You see that? We have lost the foundation of everything. And if you don't have the foundation, which is the fact that sin deserves to be punished, if you don't have that, you've lost it all.

It has to do with the very character of God. You know, my wife and I were talking on the way down here. I think that's a large reason why hell seems so unreal today. And there's no fear of God. Look, a kid can fail in school.

They'll pass him on through. You get in trouble with the law. Daddy comes down, pays him off, and you're out of there. No problem, you see. You realize what you're doing to a child when you do that? You're telling them that there's never going to be a day when God is going to come down and say, You must satisfy justice.

It must be done. You see that? You teach them that there's nothing back there behind the law. You see, if there's no penalty to the law, it's not law. This is good advice. You really ought not to do that.

But if there's a penalty there, well, let's suppose the penalty is just remitted. Just drop it. Then it's just good advice too. It doesn't mean anything. There's a threatened penalty to the law when it comes right down to it.

You know you're not going to have to pay that. Right? That's what is going on in our day. Well, that brings us to the greatest problem that has ever been since the fall of man. How in the world can an absolutely righteous, just God, an absolutely righteous, just judge ever justify an absolutely guilty and condemned criminal?

That is a big problem. That's a big problem. How in the world can any human being ever escape the damnation of hell? Proverbs 17, verse 15, maybe one of the most important verses in the Bible. It says, He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both of them an abomination to the Lord.

Here's a righteous man. That is, he didn't commit this crime that he's being accused for. That happens all the time. In communist countries, for example, this guy is brought up here. He's accused. He's put on trial for something he didn't do.

And they slip the judge some money or whatever, favors, and he condemns that righteous man. That's an abomination to God. But another abomination is, is when here's a wicked man. He's wicked. He's done the crime.

They prove that he's done the crime, and the judge lets him off and says, You're right in the eyes of the law. That's an abomination to God. Now, how in the world is God going to justify the ungodly? That's what it says He does in Romans 4.

He justifies the ungodly. How in the world is He going to do that? Proverbs 24, 24, He who says to the wicked, You're righteous. We're talking about judges here now. We're talking about standing in the eyes of the law.

He who says to the wicked, You're righteous, peoples will curse him and nations will abhor him. How is God going to say to the wicked, You're righteous. You're right in the sight of my law. This is the big problem, and it's been the problem all down through history.

That's why you've got people out there cutting a chicken's throat and dripping the blood. They're still doing it in South Sea Island. They're still doing it in our day. Sprinkling the blood of a chicken or something.

Why is it? Because they know that something's got to pay for this, you see. Job. You see it all the time in Job. Just listen to these. Job 9 .2. How can a man be in the right before God? If one wished to dispute with him, he could not answer him once in a thousand times.

You want to argue against God? I saw one time a guilty man. He was charged with drunk driving. I saw him try to defend himself in court. It was a pitiful thing. It gave me a little glimpse of what it's going to be like.

Job 15 .14. What is man that he should be pure, or he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he puts no trust in his holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in his sight. How much less one who is detestable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water.

Job 25 .4 -6. How then can a man be just with God? That's the problem. How can he be clean who is born of a woman? If even the moon has no brightness, and the stars are not pure in his sight, how much less man that maggot and the son of man that worm.

Now nobody feels the force of this more than a repentant sinner. A repentant sinner feels it. He feels it. He knows that he deserves to go to hell. There was a fellow a few years ago that was a mass murderer.

His name was David Berkowitz. He went under the name Son of Sam. I don't know if some of you might remember that. He killed one young woman after another. It looks like that man has been converted. You go to his website and read it.

It's very hopeful that the Lord has saved him. And he wrote a letter to the parents of one of these girls. He said, I don't want you to worry about me. He was coming up for parole. He said, I don't want you to worry about me getting out.

I deserve to be here, and I'm not trying to get out. Look at this. That has to do with the human course. How does a man come before God and think that God is going to embrace him? You see, a repentant sinner realizes how is a holy God going to put His arms around me and put a blessing on me and smile on me?

How is this going to be taken care of? You see? How can a man like me be in the right before God? How can I be right in the eyes of God and have all that taken care of? Well, there's only one answer, isn't there?

Christ's Atoning Death and the Satisfaction of Divine Justice

Somebody has to pay for your sin. Somebody has to satisfy justice for you. Otherwise, you will certainly satisfy justice yourself in hell. That's the only way. It has to be satisfied. Well, glory to God, that someone has come.

Now listen now, don't you love this? He bore our sins in His own body on the cross. I mean, we're talking about those sins. We're talking about carrying your sins. They're not hanging out there in the air somewhere.

He bore them in His own body on the cross. He bore them. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. He was numbered with the transgressors. He took His place in line right there with the transgressors.

Isn't that amazing? You know, even out there with John the Baptist, he says, what are you doing coming here? What am I doing baptizing you? You need to baptize me. He says, suffer it to be so now, for thus it's going to fulfill all righteousness.

What's he doing there? He's numbering himself with the transgressors. Go out and get baptized. You know, John's out there talking to these sinners to be baptized, and here comes the Lord Jesus. He says, I've taken my place in line here.

You think the Jews did it? He was crushed for our iniquities under the wrath of God for sin by His stripes were healed. How does it work? Just stay with me a little bit longer. I want to talk some more about how it works.

To understand how it works, we have to understand that little word impute. Impute or translated reckon or count. Impute. Consider. And we get a feel for what it means in Philemon chapter 1. I'm sorry, Philemon verse 17.

There's only one chapter. Philemon verse 17 and verse 18. If then you regard me a partner, accept him as you would me, but if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account.

That's that word impute. Charge that to my account. Now, you remember, the slave Onesimus had run away from Philemon. He'd been converted in between there and he's going back. And Paul says, look, maybe Philemon might have even stolen something from you.

He owes you maybe. He owes you something. Impute that to me. In other words, this is not Paul's debt. Paul didn't owe this money, but he took it as if it was his debt. And he initiates. He has to be the one that initiates.

And he initiates. He says, you put that on my account and I'll take care of it. And just as real as if Paul had owed that money, it's put over on his account. And he says, I'm going to pay that. Lay that charge out to me.

I'll take care of it. That's the word impute. Now, David describes the blessedness of the man to whom God will not impute sin. How can He not impute it to me? Because He did impute it to Christ. The man whom God reckons, there's that word again, reckons righteousness apart from works.

How in the world is He going to impute righteousness to me? Because Christ has got some righteousness that can be imputed to me and put on my account. One more passage of Scripture. Leviticus 16. This great day of atonement and the bearing of sin.

I love that word. Bearing sin. Leviticus 16. Starting at verse 7, he says, He shall take the two goats, Aaron, and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat.

Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell and make it a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it.

To send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat. Then you come down to verse 15. He shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as He did with the blood of the bull and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.

And he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins. And thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities.

Verse 20, when he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat. Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sin.

And he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. And the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land.

And he shall release the goat in the wilderness. You see, both these goats are a picture of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You couldn't picture it all with one goat. What happens? Through His death on the cross, He atones for sin.

And as a result of that atoning work, sin is carried out, effectually carried out, away from the presence of God. Taken out of His presence. He bears their sins upon Him. Now if this is an imputation, what in the world is it?

Put your hands on the head of that goat and confess all of those sins and all of those iniquities. And lay them on that goat. And He bears those sins. Isn't that amazing? Have you ever laid the hand of faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ and just given all those things to Him?

And trusted Him as your sin bearer? You know, Isaac Watts, he said, Not all the blood of goats on Jewish altars slain could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stains. But Christ the heavenly Lamb takes all our sins away.

A sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they. And then when he goes on, he says, My faith would lay her hand on that dear head of thine, while like a penitent I stand and there confess my sin.

The Central Purpose of Christ's Incarnation and Cross

You see, what did Jesus come for? Some liberal said, he made the statement, he said the crux of the incarnation was Christ setting an example for men. Something to that effect. You see, the very word crux is the word cross.

That's where we get the terminology. You can't even talk about Him without bringing in the cross. He was born. You ever notice that in the Gospels? What biography have you ever read of anybody's life that spends 90 of the biography on the last day or two of his life?

You see, it all centers around his death. He came in order to pay for sin. To bear sin. To carry it. What does he say there in Romans 3? He came and died. Let's look at it. We've got just a little. I'm sorry, I know you're tired.

Let's just look at it in closing. Romans 3, verse 24, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.