Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3488
“Being justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.” Romans 3:24-26.
I think, dear Friends, some of you will be saying, “There is that same old Doctrine again that we are so continually hearing,” and I am sure if you do say it I shall not be surprised. Nor, on the other hand, shall I make any sort of excuse. The Doctrine of Justification by Faith through the substitutionary Sacrifice of Christ is very much to my ministry what bread and salt are to the table. As often as ever the table is set, there are those necessary things. I regard that Doctrine as being one that is to be preached continually, to be mixed up with all our sermons, even as, under the Law of God it was said, “With all your offerings you shall offer salt.” This is the very salt of the Gospel! Indeed, it is impossible to bring it forward too often. It is the soul-saving Doctrine—it is the foundation Doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! It is that by which God is pleased to bring many into reconciliation with Himself. As the schoolmaster takes care to ground his scholars well in grammar, that they may get hold of the very roots of the language, so must we be rooted and grounded in this fundamental and cardinal Truth of God—justification through the righteousness of Jesus Christ! Martin Luther, who used to preach this Doctrine very vehemently and forcibly, yet declared that he felt as if he could knock the Bible about the peoples’ heads if he could by any means get this Doctrine into them—for as soon after they had learned it, they forgot it! Over and over, and over again must the Christian minister continue to insist upon this Truth—that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. And forever and ever, as long as the world stands, must he continue to repeat the Truth of God, that we are justified through the righteousness of our Redeemer and not by any righteousness of our own!
I do not intend at this time to try and preach a sermon, but rather give an “outline exposition” again of this Doctrine. And if you turn to the text, I think we can very well divide it, and very properly, too, into three parts, and head it with three words of, Justification, Propitiation and Declaration. Justification—“Being justified freely by His Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Propitiation—“Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation though faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins.” And then we come to the third—the Declaration—to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God! To declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness, that He might be just and the Justifier of him who believes in Jesus! First, then, here is something about—
I. Justification
The sense of this term is, in this place, and in most others, to declare a person to be just. A person is put on trial, he is brought before the judge. One of two things will happen—he will either be acquitted or justified, or else he will be condemned. You and I are all virtually before the judge and we are, at this moment, either acquitted or condemned, either justified or under condemnation! It is not possible that any one of us should be acquitted on the grounds of our not being guilty, for we must all confess that we have broken the Law of God thousands of times! It is not possible for any of us to be declared just on the ground of our own personal obedience to the Law of God, for to be just through our own obedience we must have been perfect—but we have not been perfect! We have broken the Law, we still continue to break it and, by the works of the Law, it is clear we cannot be just—cannot be justified. The Lord, even the God of Heaven and
earth, has planned and promulgated a way by which He can be just and yet can declare the guilty to be just—a way by which, to use the words of our text, He can be just and yet the Justifier of him who believes. That way is simply this, a way of substitution and imputation. Our sins are taken off of us and laid upon Christ Jesus, the innocent Substitute, “For He has made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” Then, when this is effected, the righteousness which was worked out by Jesus Christ is taken from Him and imputed—reckoned—unto us, so that the rest of the text comes true, “That we may be made the righteousness of God in Him.” We are found in Him not having our own righteousness which is of the Law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith. You see, we did not keep the Law of God, but broke it. We were, therefore, condemned! Jesus came and stood in our place, headed up the whole race that He had chosen, became their Representative, completely kept all the Law for them, also suffered the punishment due for all their breaches of the Law, becoming a Substitute, actively and passively obeying the Law and suffering its penalty! And now what He did is imputed to us, while what we did by way of sin was of old imputed to Him and He was made a curse for us—as it is written, “Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.” If you ask me how this can be a just thing to do, I reply, God has determined it and it is not possible that He should have determined anything that was not just!