WWUTT 103 Justified Never Done It (Romans 1:16-17)

Justification as a Paid Debt in Christ

When God forgives us of our sins, He doesn't just forget our sins. He forgives us because the debt has been paid for by Christ. That's what it means to be justified when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gate. Thank you, Becky. Romans 1, 16 -17, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, The righteous shall live by faith. We get to what I would consider to be the thesis statement to Paul's letter to the Roman Christians, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

Here's a question for you, what is the subject of the book of Romans? What's it about? Well, in writing this letter, Paul unfolds a theological treatise of sorts on the subject of justification. Variations of the word justified come up about 18 times in the book of Romans, which is more than it comes up in any other book.

What does that mean to be justified? It's a legal term that means to be declared or made right. The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that's Romans 3 -23, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, that's Romans 3 -24, and that's the gospel message.

Perhaps you've heard the doctrine of justification explained this way, to be justified means it's just if I'd never done it. Well that's true, but it's not exactly the whole picture of justification. It's not just if I'd never done it, it's also just if I'd done it.

The fact of the matter is you did break God's law. Everyone has. Isaiah 53 -6 says that all of us are like sheep and have gone astray. Every one of us has turned to his own way. But even that verse gets to the gospel, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Why did Jesus have to die? Because we sinned. It is our love for the gospel of Jesus Christ that we remember that. We remember, according to Romans 6 -23, that what we deserved for our sin was death, but what we got was the free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Understand that God doesn't merely pardon our sin. He paid for our sin. He doesn't just erase it and go, what sin? To be justified means that we owed something and the debt was paid. In this case, we owed a debt that we couldn't repay, and Christ stepped in our place and paid for it by his perfect blood.

We're declared innocent because we're bought and paid for by the precious blood of Christ. We like to talk about God forgetting our sin, and that's a misunderstanding of Psalm 103 -12 when we say God throws our sins as far as the east is from the west and he remembers them no more, or we'll misuse Isaiah 53 -25 which says, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

That doesn't mean that God has forgotten. For God to have blanked from his own mind any memory of our sin means that there is a time in our past where God doesn't remember being there, and that makes no sense.

God would be neither all-present nor all-knowing if there is a point in time that he doesn't remember. Romans 14 -12 says that each of us will give an account of himself before God. Matthew 12 -36 says, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they speak.

There is a record of this stuff being kept. But for followers of Jesus, that record has been cancelled. In Colossians 2, 24 -25, you who were dead in your trespasses, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. This is that legalese being used here again. A record of debt that stood against us because of our sin, and was paid by Christ, nailing it to the cross. And now we have been justified.

Christ died because we sinned, and now in the eyes of God, it's as if we never sinned. It's justified never done it, and it's also justified done it. That's justification. God is not holding our debts against us.

They have been paid for by Christ. And that's good news, which is exactly what gospel means. It means good news. In that message is the power of God for salvation for all who believe. Remember it, and share it with others.

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