The Justice of Justification

Please turn in the Word of God to Romans, Romans in the third chapter.

Little Gabriel and Gabriella made it out last Lord’s Day, but I didn’t say. I do rejoice also in these little twins in our midst. Is that just two sets of twins that have been born in the church? I’m not sure. Anthony and Gregory is all I can think of, but I don’t know. Some may fill me in if there’s been other twins that have been born into the church in the past.

Romans 3, as we continue on looking at the doctrine of justification. It’s encouraging to get some of you just passing on a remark here and there to encourage the preacher. That’s appreciated. And as we continue looking at this theme, I hope it really shores up in your heart a sense of confidence in what Christ has done. And if you’re not saved, if you’re not in Christ, or you’re not sure where you stand before God, then this is the theme you need to think upon.

So Romans 3, we’re going to begin with the well-known language of verse 23.

Romans 3 verse 23, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath 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 which believeth in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith.

Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. Amen.

We’ll end our reading at the close of the chapter, and what you have heard is the infallible and inerrant Word of the living God, which we are all to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, give help now in Thy Word. We ask for the illumination of the Spirit of God. The difference that is made when the Spirit comes and opens up the Scriptures. That’s what the two on the road to Emmaus enjoyed. Their eyes were holden, and then in the breaking of bread, He was known unto them. So therefore we pray that Thou wilt condescend, that in the opening of the Word Thou wilt be pleased to make Thyself known unto us.

We do thank Thee for all Thy love and mercy. We thank Thee for what we have, for what we have in Christ, the blessing of being able to point and say that in the cross I find the answer for my sin. In Jesus Christ I find sufficiency before a holy God.

We pray that everyone here would know with confidence the power of the gospel to save and deliver. I pray that Thou wilt remove all uncertainty. Thou wilt be pleased to deliver every single person from any sufficiency in self or any illusions that are damning. So I pray that everyone would get a hold of what it is to know repentance unto life and a true saving knowledge of Christ.

Grant, Lord, that none of us on that day would hear those awful words, Depart from me. May we all receive the welcome, Come, ye blessed of my Father. So grant that Thou wilt be very merciful to bring that to pass, and use this message to help us.

Come now, Holy Spirit, give victory to hear, receive, and rightly respond to the Word. Give us deliverance over all the enemy has planned to discourage us. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Early on in my ministry in Calgary, when I arrived there in early 2015, I put out an evangelistic video, very short, about 90 seconds or so, that was intended to answer the question, What will the holy God do with my sin?

Now, in putting forth such a question, I’m well aware that there are some who will respond with a denial either of sin or a denial of the existence of God. And yet to do so—to deny sin, to deny the existence of God—is to destabilize the very foundation upon which men stand and the assumptions they have about the world in which they live.

If you deny either God or the existence of sin, it eliminates objective morality and destroys the concept of justice. And most people, if you talk to them and inquire, they’re not going to want to live in a world where there is a removal of objective morality and especially any concept of justice.

The rational, reasonable person will see the logical conclusions and be brought then to accept that I must recognize the reality of sin as well as the reality of God. That question then comes to men: What will a holy God do with my sin? That’s a question for you to consider. What will a holy God do with my sin?

Over these weeks we have considered the legal aspect of the gospel—that men are justified legally, that forensically they’re placed by faith in Jesus Christ to obtain the standing before God that is complete. And so when we’re without Jesus Christ, the question is, Well, what will God do with me?

We know that a judge that lets a murderer go free is not a just judge. He is not being merciful; he is being corrupt. He is a traitor to his office. He defiles himself and the very office he represents.

So how then will the Judge of all the earth, whose throne is established in righteousness, look upon you with your sin? And that’s what the children need to wrestle with. What will a holy God do with my sin? Will He be content that I was born into a Christian home? Will He be content that I have familiarity with the Word of God? No. Will He be content that I prayed the Lord’s Prayer? No. Will He be content that I was baptized? No.

What will a holy God do with my sin? That’s a question to wrestle with. Will He declare you guilty? And if so, the question then is, well, what will He do with the guilty? To be guilty before God—what an awful place to be.

So, in the gospel, what we have is God dealing with the problem; that the only answer for us in our guilt before a holy God is the good news—the good news of God sending His Son, the good news of His Son taking on our nature, the good news of Him living in obedience before the Father, the good news of Him being made sin for us and dying upon the cross, the good news of His victory over death and His resurrection, the good news of His acceptance before the Father to be received up to His right hand, the good news of His victory in all ways on our behalf.

In Romans 3, the apostle presents the unmistakable, the irrefutable standing of all men before God. All have sinned, verse 23. All have sinned. All—that includes you. You have sinned. You can say, I have sinned. I have come short of the divine expectation.

So what are you going to do? What is your hope? Your only hope is in the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The redemption, verse 24, that is in Christ Jesus. In Jesus Christ there is a plan of salvation, a work accomplished, a gospel that you can believe to the saving of your soul.

You come to verse 25. The apostle says that God hath set forth this Jesus 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 which believeth in Jesus.

One of the concerns is, how come this is all happening now? What about the way God forgave David and others that could be named? Did He in some way just overlook David’s sin when the prophet comes to him, and he acknowledges his sin, and the prophet’s able to declare to him that he is forgiven? What happened there? And can we not, therefore, come to our present point and say it’s enough just to handle or get a grasp of what David did there, and this whole argument of the need for God’s Son is irrelevant? David didn’t need it.

That’s in part what the apostle is arguing here. The sins that are past—they needed to be forgiven in the same way. And so that God, in His righteousness, His righteous character, is not in any way overlooked or set aside, but it is true that those who in the past sinned also needed the same—needed Jesus Christ, needed Him to be set forth, promised from before the foundation of the world that He would be the Lamb slain, and that by faith in His blood, by faith in His sacrificial death, there is a standing for the believer to be pardoned before God.

But the statement that closes verse 26 is powerful: that He, that is God, might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. That He might be just—yes, maintaining the integrity of His justice, while on the other hand justifying the guilty.

So I want to think tonight of the justice of justification. The justice of justification. Very simple headings that will guide us through our thoughts for this evening.

First of all, consider then: justice demanded. Justice demanded. When God is declared to be just at the end of verse 26—“that He might be just”—it is maintaining that which He is in His character. That’s the need. That’s the dilemma. How does God stay just while at the same time forgiving the guilty? And the dilemma then is, how does this work out? How do you, with your sin, be acceptable before God?

That’s a real problem, because God’s not going to change His mind, and He’s not going to just turn a blind eye in terms of looking at your sin. He is going to deal, with exactness and precision, with every sin that was ever committed.

So justice is demanded by the very character of God, and, as we will see, through the gospel it is maintained. He might be just. Justice is demanded by this God that we worship and we adore.

Think of this in a couple of ways.

First of all, justice demanded historically. Justice demanded historically. Throughout history, God gives glimpses of the fact that He’s not going to turn a blind eye to sin. He’s not going to overlook that which is wrong. He is going to deal with sin, as He has said.

You go right back to the garden, and Adam is told—it is said to him—the day you eat of that fruit, this positive command, this positive law that is given to him, a tree in the midst of the garden, and he is told, Don’t eat the fruit of that tree. It’s positive. It’s not something that is inherent in terms of a moral understanding that Adam would have had. God adds this aspect to test his obedience. And the question is, Will Adam obey? Will he obey God? And he is told, The day you eat thereof, you will die.

Now, we all know what happened. Eve took of the fruit, she gives to her husband, he partakes, and God comes on a mission, graciously condescending. He could have, in fulfilling what His language might imply, He could have struck them dead right there, with the very taste of the fruit upon their lips. He would have been just in smiting them right there. The day you eat thereof, you will die.

But He comes on a mission: Adam, where art thou? And He confronts Adam, engages with Adam. And in the midst of all that discussion and dialogue, the gospel comes out.

But here’s the point: God doesn’t just overlook. Death occurs. Immediately something happens to Adam. We don’t see it in the outward. We don’t see him begin to become grey-haired and wrinkly, the death of the body beginning to ensue upon him. We don’t see that. That’s not described for us. But we do see the death of his spirituality, because he runs from God. He runs from God. He tries to hide his sin; they sew fig leaves together. You see the whole framework of his soul is altered by this act.

God doesn’t come to him in the message of mercy and just say, Well, you know, Adam, let’s…I didn’t really mean what I said. No. Adam already has experienced within his soul the death of his fellowship with God. He’s running away from God. And his body is beginning to decay. So there’s a spiritual death, there’s a physical death, and there’s a promise of an eternal death. He is going to die in this world, and yet he will live on, but he’s going to live on in a place of eternal judgment.

And more to the point, the reality of death is expressed not just in what Adam experiences, but in the need for the promised Messiah, because He’s going to have to suffer. He’s going to experience the pangs necessary as a result of Adam’s sin.

So even there in the garden you see that God doesn’t overlook. Yes, there’s a sense of delay. He’s going to let Adam live on. He’s not struck down immediately, but the consequences of death become apparent in him running from God, and the need then for One to step in in his place.

When the flood comes upon the world, again this is a recognition, as God looks upon the world and He sees that the thoughts of men’s heart are only evil continually. And it reaches a crescendo, as it were, a high point, at which God finally says, Enough is enough. I’m going to cleanse this world. I’m going to judge it with water.

And so Noah becomes the instrument to communicate this message of judgment. There are other messages that are there, which I’ll not get into now, but God is showing that this judgment is coming. God is not messing around. There’s a delay. It seems to take a long time.

You go to the Ark Encounter and you see how they use sanctified imagination to communicate the sense that it may have been felt at that time as Noah is building this ark and the world is watching on thinking, What on earth are you doing? And it doesn’t make any sense to the world. But death is coming. And when it came, it came with such devastation.

I’m not the first to observe this, but I do find it humorous, when I think upon the murals that are done for children of the flood. You have this boat or ark that’s placed on the water, and sometimes you see, you know, maybe it’s presented with the rain actually happening in the midst of the judgment, the rain is falling down. And there’s the ark and there’s little Noah up there looking out, and maybe the head of a giraffe stuck out as well somewhere else. But we don’t paint in the corpses that are floating around in the sea. The death that would have filled so much of the very surface of the water. The bodies of people. The bodies of animals. You looked out of that ark, and there was just death.

During the time of Abraham, the increasing sin of the cities of the plains, Sodom and Gomorrah—again you see that God will not hold back. A time comes when judgment will fall. The prosperity of Egypt is allowed to continue for a time. They gain some of that prosperity on the backs of the slavery even of the Hebrews. But when God strikes a blow upon Egypt with plague after plague, it is devastating, and Egypt will never be the same again.

Historically, we see God is not to be trifled with. We are not to ignore His warnings. When He says that sin brings death, we are to pay attention.

Now also, justice demanded ultimately. Not just historically, but ultimately. God will demand justice ultimately. God is just. The gospel is maintaining His justice. And so He is going to have His way. He has said, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. No exceptions. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. You will die. I will die. There’s no escaping it. You’re going to die.

Isn’t it amazing that—what are the odds of winning the lottery? And yet people go and they buy the ticket in the hope that just, maybe me. Maybe me. This faint, so many millions-to-one odd of ever winning. And they have this great expectation, the possibility: It might be me.

But there are odds staring at them every day: You’re going to die. And they do nothing about it. Nothing. Nothing.

Oh, they may do some things. They exercise. They try to eat a little more healthily and cut out the sugar, leave out the sweet tea. The Southerners never like that stage of life when they realize that they should stop drinking sweet tea. And we try. We try. But death is looming. It’s staring at us. It’s going to happen sooner or later. And we’re not promised a certain length of time.

As we said this morning, those twins living both to reach the age of 100, it’s an unusual thing. But death will come, and God will not overlook. He is going to deal with sin. He is going to address sin. He is just. He’s not going to deny His holiness. He’s not going to give an out for certain individuals. No. We have committed high treason against God. We have rebelled against God. We are guilty. That’s what verse 23 is saying. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

There’s no escaping it. There’s no cry, Spare him, and justice cries out, Away with him!

It’s sobering, isn’t it? I mean, there’s no getting away from it. There’s no circumventing it. There’s no negotiating it. God says, You sin, you die.

So, justice demanded.

Justice also delivered. Justice delivered. How does God deliver justice in the gospel?

Verse 25: Jesus Christ is the One that God hath set forth, or foreordained, to be a propitiation, a wrath-ending sacrifice. He set forth His Son to be a wrath-ending sacrifice. This is what He is doing in sending His Son. He sets Him forth to end the wrath for those who believe—that is, have faith in the sufficiency of His death. “Through faith in His blood” is the language, by believing in what His Son has done.

Jesus Christ becomes the wrath-ending sacrifice. He stops it. And that’s what the cross is all about. The cross is about ending the wrath of God toward you. The cross is about Jesus Christ taking the guilt, taking the shame, bearing the judgment, so that those who believe in Him, through faith in His blood, escape the wrath. It does not come upon them.

Just think of this in a number of ways.

Justice delivered in the shame Christ bore. Justice delivered in the shame Christ bore. When Christ is set forth, when He is foreordained, when He is put out there by God to be a propitiation, to be the one who ends the wrath toward those who believe, when He is doing that, He has to then take on the shame of it—the shame of sin. And so He so embodies this position that men look upon Him not with adoration, not with worship. No. Instead they look at Him, and He is despised. He bears the shame all the way through His life.

In His birth, there’s very few who come to give any recognition. Through His life, almost total obscurity. Engaging His ministry, He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. And He goes to the cross, and they spit upon Him, they mock Him, they crown Him with thorns, they launch blows at His face—all the things that culminate in that central act of redemption, and how He is dealt with by the religious leaders, how He is treated in the scourging of Pilate, how He is led outside the city to be made a spectacle upon a Roman cross. It is showing the shame of sin.

There’s no way to make this pretty, you see. There’s no way to deal with sin and make it look respectable. There’s no way. When God sends His Son, He has to enter into the shame of it, the shame of sin, the loathsome appearance of it—how men treat Him and how He is treated.

What a sight. Can you see the Father planning out the way of salvation, setting Him forth to be a propitiation? It’s not like when God plans something the wheels of His mind turn as He figures out how to solve the problems. It just is. We get that. But there is a sense of pondering for us as the Almighty sets forth the Son to be a propitiation—setting Him forth. I will set Him forth.

Well, what does that involve, Father? Oh, it involves Him taking on all the shame of sin. The shame of it. Can He suffer in a way where there’s dignity? No. No. No. They will mock Him, and they will scourge Him, and they will crown with thorns, and they will nail Him to a tree. And as they go past, they will wag their heads at Him. He will be the song of the drunkard. They will shove a sponge into His face when He cries, I thirst. And He will be there in all the shame of His nakedness.

What a sight. You think of all the shame you have for your sin, the shame you have wrestled with at various times in your life. That shame is on display as Christ is set forth to be a propitiation.

Justice delivered in the shame Christ bore.

Justice delivered in the sorrow Christ endured. Oh, He did not with a grin bear this responsibility. Oh, He was anointed with the oil of gladness, and there was a joy that supported Christ in all that He faced. But He was also a man of sorrows. He goes to the garden to wrestle there before the Father, to pray, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. The agony of the matter. The agony of it, as guilt and sin is borne by Him, as the responsibility to be made a curse is borne by Him. As the humanity of the Son is wrestling with the great need for victory in this matter, longing to be raised from the dead, longing for victory through the cross—that if I do this, oh, give the victory. Give the victory that I might rise from the dead. And He was heard, in that He feared. The Father heard His cry.

Through all that agony and sorrow, He took that bitter cup of all of our guilt and sin, and He took it, and He said, I’ll drink it. But He did it with sorrow. Sorrow that His creation would rebel, that His creation would be so unthankful—made in this world to enjoy it, given dominion, so loved, so treasured, so valued, so elevated—and they turn and throw it in His face. And the Father sets forth the Son to be a propitiation and take on all the sorrow that was necessary.

Now also we can think of this: justice delivered in the separation Christ endured. Not only the shame He bore, the sorrow He endured, but the separation He experienced. Separation. Separation from what? Did He lament the fact that He would be separated from various people in this world? Was the separation a lamentation that was just about something that He was disconnected from in this life? No. No. That wasn’t it.

He’s there on the cross bearing all the responsibility that was necessary for the Mediator to bear. And in a moment on that cross, His heart is filled with a sense of the realization of the displeasure of the Father. The Father is displeased. My Father’s displeased. And so He cries.

And all the other times when He would refer to His Father, He would refer to Him as Father. I thank Thee, Father. Many times we get these little insights of His prayers calling upon the Father. But in the realization of the Father’s departure, of the separation, the language changes. He takes to His lips the language of the psalmist, Psalm 22: My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

The distance. The distance. Lord. God. Separation. Separation. It was a kind of hell that came into the bosom of the sweet Son of God. That’s the worst thing about hell. There’s no sense of the mercy of the felt presence of God. The only presence of God is a presence of wrath and judgment.

He stands in the place of the rebel, set forth to be a propitiation, to a wrath-appeasing sacrifice. What’s it going to take? Shame. Sorrow. Separation.

And also, we might include, justice delivered in a stroke carefully exacted. Justice delivered in a stroke carefully exacted. There needed to be the final blow. There needed to be the experience of death itself. It’s not enough. He can’t appease the wrath; He can’t be a propitiation; He can’t turn away the wrath of God unless He steps into the full experience that was pronounced upon Adam: The day you eat thereof, you will die. And He has to taste death for every man.

And there He steps into death. The wages of sin is death. Oh, but He didn’t sin. No, He didn’t. The sins of His people are laid upon Him. Our sins are laid on Him, and He bears the guilt, and He must die. And that’s the awful thing. The curse of death falls upon the Son. Spotless though He be in and of Himself, He must go through the experience of death. He must pay the debt to the uttermost farthing. He must take the cup and drink it dry. The sword of justice must be plunged into His bosom. That which hovered as a threat, a real threat upon man from Eden, must fall upon Him. Jehovah bade His sword awake. O Christ, it fell on Thee. What a thing this is.

And here, just before I move on to the final point, here’s the encouragement. I want you to get this. In this—justice delivered, Him being set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood—what is going on here, in Jesus Christ being set forth to appease the wrath, to be the wrath-ending sacrifice, what is going on here is that He is bearing this shame, He endures this sorrow, He experiences this separation, and this stroke of death comes upon Him in order that all of those experiences radically change for you and me who believe.

Oh, we still taste our shame sometimes. We still at times look at what we have done: I can’t believe I said that to that person. What was I thinking? How selfish. Oh, the selfishness within our homes. Does it not bring grief to the heart? Do you not see it? These are not infrequent reminders of selfishness that bleeds out of us still in our relationships within the home, and we feel shame—and rightly so.

But we’re not left with it. We have a place to go. We have a place to go. There He is, the Son of God, bearing shame for me. And if I confess my sins, He is faithful and just to forgive my sins and cleanse me from all unrighteousness. I have One who bore that guilt. Let me confess it all—all the sins that bring it about, the conscience that pangs with the sense of my shortcomings—and I can put it all on Him. And He becomes the guilt-bearing One. I take my shame and the sins that produce that shame, and I lay them on Jesus. There in the cross He bore it all, set you and me free from that heavy weight of guilt and shame.

And He takes the sorrow. Sorrows that we feel before God, sorrows of having broken His law at times without number. Sorrow. Not just shame, but sorrow. And the sorrows of this life and all the agonies—but He becomes a man of sorrows. He takes sorrow. He bears sorrow upon His heart. He lifts some of that sorrow from us. Sorrow as a result of our sins—again we can turn to Him and confess and find peace.

And that separation—that separation before God—God enters into covenant. He says that because of what Christ has done, because My Son paid the price, because He stands in the place and He appeases the wrath, now you will never know this separation. There may be times in your life where you’re not as conscious of the divine presence, but you will never go through the experience of utter abandonment. So we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet we fear no evil, for He is with us.

You see, if you’re not in Christ, you don’t have this comfort. Shame is yours. Sorrow is yours. Separation is yours. You will be cut off forever. God has set forth Jesus to appease; by faith in the cross-work of Christ you obtain the freedom that the gospel promises. No more shame. These endless sorrows and sense of separation, and the eternal judgment to come, is gone.

Finally, justice displayed. Justice displayed. We understand that God hath set forth Jesus to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness. Now, there’s a lot of debate over what that means. And people get all tangled because, Well, over here, righteousness means that. Over there, then, it must mean the same. No. If you think that the same word is always going to mean the same regardless of context, you’re going to get into all sorts of exegetical problems. It’s a broad word—righteousness. And here, the context shows that the challenge is declaring God’s righteousness for the remission of sins that are past. How does He maintain the integrity of His character when there are those who knew the securing of pardon in the past?

So I want us to think about a couple of things here.

First, justice displayed for past sins. There’s justice displayed for past sins. In the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, God foreordaining—that’s how you could translate it—whom God…Jesus Christ is the One whom God has foreordained to be the wrath-appeasing or wrath-ending sacrifice through faith in that sacrifice, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.

These Old Testament saints looked forward. They were believing in the same thing. They didn’t know all the particulars. They didn’t have insight into all the details. But they knew this: God has promised. He has promised to set forth One—One who will be that promised One, the Servant of Jehovah, David’s Son—and through Him there will be redemption. And that’s then who they’re looking towards. They’re believing upon Him.

God was not just turning a blind eye to the sins of those in the past. No. These individuals are looking to and believing on God’s provision. When Nathan says to David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die, we might say, Well, where’s the punishment? It is upon the One David hoped in, the One David believed in. He looked forward, and he trusted that God would make provision.

And so, as the centuries pass, God is forgiving sin on credit, as it were. He is looking and He’s seeing, because in His mind He’s already set forth, He’s already foreordained His Son to put away sin, to appease His wrath. And so those who believe, who have faith in His blood, even before the event happens, have the assurance of their pardon. God is not overlooking their sin. He is vindicated in the fact that Jesus Christ comes centrally in time so that those looking forward enjoy the same as those who look back.

He never had another plan. See, that’s right. He never had another plan. Historically—thankfully there are not too many who believe this these days—historically, there have been those who saw in the coming of the Messiah, Here’s the plan. God is sending His Son, sending the Messiah, and He’s going to redeem Israel, and He’s going to set up His kingdom and all the rest of it right here and now. And then He’s rejected. He’s rejected. Lo and behold, He is rejected, and in that rejection God then pivots to plan B. Plan B is that He will die, and after His death and resurrection there will be a time of gathering in the Gentiles before then finally He will turn His attention back to those who are of the line of Abraham and gather them in in a great quantity.

There are people who believe that, and this verse says otherwise—that God foreordained, always it was, that Jesus Christ would be propitiation. He would appease the wrath of God through His sacrifice. Never was any other way. Through faith in His blood. How do you get around that? How do you escape the logic of that? He is addressing this reality. It was always the plan. And so God wasn’t overlooking sin. He was forbearing in the sense that there is a waiting for the sacrifice to take place, but He’s not overlooking. He’s not saying, Oh David, it’s no big deal. He’s not looking at Abraham and saying, Never mind, Abraham. It’s fine. No. No. These men are looking forward—which is what the next chapter goes on to say—using Abraham and David as examples of the same faith that you and I possess.

God never, never, ever treated sins lightly.

So, justice displayed for past sins.

And justice displayed for present sinners. Because it’s for us as well. To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness—that even now His righteousness is declared and proven, as He is the just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Even at this time, it’s the same.

Oh, how can it be effectual for me? I wasn’t at Calvary. I wasn’t there. I didn’t touch His body. I didn’t feel His blood physically. I wasn’t there to see it. So can it be efficacious for me? Yes. This is the thing. God’s plan always was to send His Son so that those looking forward and those looking back find rest and deliverance in the same sacrifice. So this is the hope for you and me.

You’re here tonight and you’re in your sin. You’re faced with the dire consequences of your sin. You might wonder, What will become of me? What if I die tonight? What if I perish? What if I’m rejected and turned aside from God and I’m lost forever? What will I do?

The gospel comes in waves of mercy, in sweet melody of pardon to you. That in this time, in this hour, this day, this moment, still the sacrifice of Jesus Christ will appease the wrath of God by faith. Justified by faith.

God might be just and the justifier—that is, He sets you as justified.

Because of what? What did you do? What did you do? How come I’m justified? How come I have this acceptance before God? Believe in Jesus.

Could it be more glorious? Believe in Jesus. Oh, it doesn’t deny that there’s a need to acknowledge sin and turn from sin. No. But there is a simplicity to that expression, isn’t there? Him which believeth in Jesus.

I say to you tonight, if you’re lost, if you are still in your sin, young or old, familiar with the gospel or new to it, I appeal to you: Believe in Jesus. See there the awfulness of sin. Oh, the horrific nature of sin. It’s so awful. It’s so awful. Father, could You not have found some other way that was less horrific? A sanitized way to redeem the sinner? No. No. It must be this frightful display of shame and sorrow and separation, and the ultimate experience, even death. To see Him there dying, life extinguished, all the shame of that, in order that this truth be announced to the world: that God might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

I invite you tonight. I invite you now to believe in Him. To have this legal pronouncement declared in which the Father looks and says, Justified. Justified. All sin. All sin. All your past. All of it. He sweeps away, as it were, as under the blood of Jesus Christ. He pays the price. And on you it is—not one, not one sin remains. It’s gone. Christ pays for it. And you stand with the perfection of His Son, accepted in the Beloved. Child of God. Redeemed.

Yes, redeemed. It’s a great word, isn’t it? To be one who is redeemed.

Where are you tonight? What keeps you from saying, It’s time. It’s time. Tonight is the night I’m going to believe. I’m surrendering my heart. I’m confessing my sin. I’m believing in Jesus Christ. He, He is the answer for me. No. No. I come. I come to Him. Come. Come.

Let’s bow together in prayer.

What will a holy God do with your sin? Either He will punish you, or He will find satisfaction in His Son. Having punished His Son, the debt is paid in full. But here’s the deciding difference—whether you believe. Turn your eyes unto Jesus tonight. Come to Him where you’re seated. Cry for pardon. Children, seek the Lord while He may be found. Don’t delay. Escape the wrath of God through Christ. And if you need any help, I’d be glad to open God’s Word and seek to answer your questions and pray with you.

Lord, please give help. Help us to appreciate afresh what our Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished, and help us to find contentment in the fullness of His sacrifice. We pray that Thou wilt bless us with a fresh sense of the glory of the cross and all of its horror, yet it remains the only answer for sinners. I pray that there would be those here tonight who close in, who in simple, childlike faith believe in the Lord Jesus.

O God, have mercy. Have mercy upon the sleepy sinner who doesn’t know the horrors that await them because of their sin and unbelief. Awaken them tonight. Give no rest. Give no peace until they close in upon Thine invitation to forgive them.

Hear prayer. Be with us this week. Bless our fellowship before we part and go home. Give us strength to live for Thy glory. Give us joy in the Holy Ghost and much peace in believing, and help us to be winners of souls as opportunity arises.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of every child of God, now and evermore. Amen.