Justification By Faith

Justification by Faith
"The righteous shall live by faith" - Habakkuk 2:4

What’s The Difference? A Discussion Around Justification & Sanctification
Adapted from Steve Marshall, 1979.
God is love. And because love does not live to itself, God created a universe. He created life. Life outside of Himself. Intelligent individuals. Free moral agents, designed with minds that could comprehend and appreciate something of God's love. They were given the power of choice so they could accept His love and love Him and each other in return.

Transcript of God's Character
God wanted His own character, His own attitude, His own essence of love reflected through His creatures. And when God created life, that life was created and functioned under divine law. Law in fact, is the very fabric of life. Everything that God created in this whole universe operates because of his divine law. Without God's law there is no such thing as life. Law is not some arbitrary thing that God dreamed up to tie His creatures down. Law is what enables a creature to live and love freely. All law, physical and spiritual, is absolutely necessary for life to continue as God intended. Without law there is no life.

You might think of God's law, both physical and spiritual, as being like threads woven together to make cloth. Those threads that go in two different directions. If you pull any one of those threads out, you destroy the fabric. It's the same with God's law.

Confusion over the law
It's very important that we understand this, because there is a great deal of misunderstanding today about God's law. Without any one of God's law you destroy life itself. We're seeing that today in the world’s messed up ecology. As man tampers with the laws of nature, the result is imbalance and destruction.

Think of all God’s laws, spiritual and physical, as being links in a chain. The chain of life that connects the creatures with the Creator, with the Source of life. If you break any one of the links in that chain, you break the connection with God, who is the Source of life, and therefore death is the result.
Law, Love & Obedience
So, God is love. And love is life. And life exists only because of divine law.

Now, man’s loving response to God’s laws of love is called: obedience. That’s a dirty word to many today. We don’t like the word obey. And this may be because the word has received some rather negative connotations. Governments make all kinds of rules for us to obey. They restrict us. Parents also make rules that don’t seem necessary, just rules that are more convenient for the parent, and those rules restrict the child. So we learn very young not to like rules.

And sometimes we have a problem distinguishing between human rules and divine laws. We carry our distrust of human laws over to divine laws as well, not realizing the big difference. We might do very well without some human laws, but without God’s laws, there is no life.
Alright, so obedience is our response. Obedience to God’s law really means to be in harmony with God’s law. To cooperate and function within that law. And another Bible word we often use in connection with obedience is righteousness. God created man - in fact, God created all of his holy beings, the angels and all of the intelligent beings, whoever they are - He created them righteous. Perfect and holy. Perfectly righteous. They were created within His perfect law and they were created with the natural inclination to obey. They were designed to function in harmony with law. It is natural for the righteous creatures to obey God, and so it was with Adam and Eve. God created them absolutely perfect. They were in perfect harmony with all of His laws, physical and spiritual. It was natural for them to live in obedience to God. It was not hard. It was natural.

Now, the circle in this image represents the physical nature of Adam. He was perfect in his physical being, in perfect harmony with all physical laws. The heart represents Adam’s mind or his spiritual nature. He was spiritually perfect; perfectly obedient to all of God’s spiritual laws. It was natural for him to trust and obey God.

Now, our first parents could have lived forever in that state of perfect obedience to God’s law by simply continuing to function in the power of the Holy Spirit as God had created them. If they had continued to choose to obey, they could have lived obedient lives and lived eternally. In fact, in order to live eternally each creature must live a 100% perfectly obedient life to all of God’s laws, physical and spiritual, without fail for one moment. As long as he maintains that perfect obedience, he will live naturally forever. God created him that way. That was His purpose and intent.
The Results of Rebellion
The problem was that Adam chose to rebel. He chose to break his trusting love relationship with God and he fell. When Adam fell, disbelieving God, he sowed the seeds of rebellion in his own heart. He polluted his own mind. He destroyed the ability of the human mind to naturally trust God. He polluted himself and that pollution of the mind, the spirit of man, affected his body immediately. His body began to experience the result. He began to experience hunger, thirst, heat, cold, pain and his body began to die. It began to decay immediately.

He forfeited his eternal life. He broke the connection, the chain that connected him with eternal life. The natural result of this is eternal death. But God didn’t create humanity to die. He created us to live. And it broke God’s heart when it happened. But now, God had a real problem on His hands, because not only did Adam fall, but in Adam was the seed of every single human being in this whole world. Thousands of years ago you were there, I was there, in Adam. and when Adam fell, he polluted the whole human race. He passed on to us the effect of rebellion on our physical nature, as well as a mind that no longer naturally trusts God. Instead, we have a mind that naturally distrusts God. So every person in this world born from Adam, every single one of us, is born fallen. No longer trusting, righteous creatures, but unrighteous, distrusting, self-centered, faithless creatures. Every single one of us. We are all experiencing the results of Adam’s sin.

God's Problem
God wanted the race to live eternally. But instead, He has a whole human race born into rebellion against Him, already born out of harmony with His law. Born doomed to die.

How is god going to save this race? How can He do it? The holy law of life has been broken, humanity must die.

There was only one solution. God must provide a substitute. That substitute, that savior, whoever he is, must be a human being because it was a human being who had broken life’s law. So whoever is going to substitute for the human race has to be 100% human.

And whoever is going to substitute for the human race is going to have to be a perfect human being. He must have the same kind of mind that Adam had before the fall. He can’t have a mind like you and I have. He must live a 100% obedient and perfect life.

But not only that, this substitute must also be divine. Why?
Why does the savior of mankind have to be God as well as man?

Because if God created merely another perfect human, and that perfect man lived a 100% perfect human life, he would indeed prove that Satan was a liar when Satan accused God that none of His creatures could live perfect obedient lives. Satan said, “The way You make intelligent creatures, holy and righteous and good, as You say You make them, they still can’t live in harmony with Your laws. I couldn’t. The other angels that fell couldn’t. And Adam couldn’t either. He fell too! None of Your creatures, including man, as You made him, can live perfectly obedient lives.” That was Satan’s accusation about man and God’s law. God had to prove that Satan was a liar. So God said, “It’s not true. I’ll send a substitute.”
The point we are trying to make should hold its due weight. God could have made another perfect Adam and proved that by that perfect man’s life that holy creatures as God creates them can live perfectly obedient lives. But had He made another Adam that was merely human, and should that human being live a 100% perfect life, God would still have the problem of a whole race who were doomed to death. Because that perfect human, though he lived in perfect harmony to all God’s laws of life and thus proved that Satan was a liar, still couldn’t do anythingto save the already fallen members of the human race (all of the first Adam’s offspring). You see, he would owe all of his own obedience for his own eternal life. He would have no obedience leftover to give away to his needy fellow humans.

Are you following? The Savior must be more than human, He must also be divine. And more than diving, He must be Deity. He has to be God, because only God does not owe obedience to His law for His own life. GOD IS LIFE! God exists before law. God created law. Law depends on God for its validity. All law issues forth from His character.

Now when God came in the the Lord Jesus Christ, He was as much human as He was the infinite, almighty God–100% man and 100% God. (Don’t stress your mind too much on this, this truth is incalculable). By living a perfect human life, He then could give that perfect human-life-obedience to the fallen human race, and still live Himself, because He is God and possesses infinite life.

God sent Jesus Christ to earth where He took upon Himself a human body. He took a human body with the affect of sin upon that body, after centuries and generations of sin. He took the weaknesses of human flesh. His body was like yours and mine. He experienced birth, He experienced hunger, thirst, cold and weariness.

But what about His mind? Jesus Christ had a human mind like Adam’s mind before the fall. He had a perfect human mind. A mind that was naturally loving and trusting towards God. A righteous mind in absolute obedience to all of God’s laws. He trusted the Father, as Adam did before the fall.

The Nature of Christ
Jesus used none of His divine power to obey. He used only His perfect humanity to continue to live in perfect obedience to all of God’s laws.

Now, this hangs some people up. In fact, since before the reformation, there’s been a considerable amount of haggling over the nature of Christ. And it persists today. There continues to be a great deal of discussion and even division, regarding the human nature of Christ.

Without an understanding of Christ’s nature, we cannot rightly understand or appreciate the Gospel. There are some that say Jesus Christ was exactly as you and I are. They say that He had to have a fallen spiritual nature just like us. He had to be tempted from inside, just as we are, or else it’s not fair, He had an advantage over us.

Spoiler alert–He did have an advantage over us! And praise God! If He didn’t have an advantage over us He could not have saved us. If Jesus were just like you and me, He would have needed saving and to be born again. He would have been condemned to death for His own sin condition, for His own sinful nature. But Jesus was not just like you and me.

Someone may say, “Well that’s not fair!” Let us ask, did Adam before his fall have an advantage over you and me in our current state? You bet he did. He had a perfect mind and a perfect body. In the same way, Christ took the effects of sin upon His human body, but not the infection of sin upon His human mind. Satan’s accusation against God is regarding His holy creatures. Satan and God both know that fallen creatures cannot live perfectly obedient to God’s laws.

Satan maintains that holy creatures as God created them–perfect, righteous, obedient–can’t continue to live obedient lives. And God says, “That’s a lie. Adam could have, but he chose not to. He could have, and I’ll prove it.” And so He sends His own Son, in the likeness of human flesh with a perfect Adamic mind; a mind just like Adam’s. And Christ meets the tempter just as Adam did before the fall. But at every temptation, Jesus yielded to the command of the Father, saying ‘it is written.’ Christ’s perfect life proves that Satan is a liar. He proves that holy creatures as God makes them can continue to live holy lives. Obedient and righteous.

Not only that, but Jesus lives that perfect life for you and me as our substitute. Jesus Christ’s perfect life-record, His infinite report card, can be accounted to us.

Jesus Our Example
Jesus is only our example after He is our substitute. Many people will say, “Listen, Jesus did it. And He proved that you can do it. So do it!” But He is our substitute first. He took our place, and completed a work that only He can do. We have to have what he did for us in order to be saved. In order to live forever we have to have a 100% perfect, pure, holy life from the first moment of life, and through the entire life.

Just shaping up and following Christ’s example and becoming a good person will not make you good enough to save. Even if you could, from this point on, never sin again. If from the moment you accept Christ you could follow his example in word, thought and action, and never again think an evil thought, feel an evil feeling, do and say an evil word, or work an evil action, you would still not be good enough to save! You are still polluted. From the moment you were born, that anyone is born, we are polluted.

Smuts Van Royen once said, “It is not good enough for God to squeeze the pus of sin out of the sinner, when God’s law demanded that he never become infected in the first place.” We must understand this or we can’t really appreciate what Jesus did. If you think you can be saved by God making you good enough, and that by finally squeezing all the sin out of you, you are fit to be saved–you will never truly appreciate what Jesus did. You will never understand what righteousness really requires, nor will you understand how perfect and holy God’s law is.

God’s law is an infinite standard. It demands that a person never even think or feel an evil thought or feeling. Not even once. And Jesus never did. But every single other member of the human family has.

In the story Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian is on the road to the Celestial City when a couple of prostitutes slink out from the side of the road and attempt to seduce him. Immediately Christian turns around and runs down the road. He resists the temptation and runs away as fast as he can, but Moses jumps out from the side of the road and knocks him down with a club that has ‘THE LAW’ written upon it. Bap Knocks him down and begins to beat him with this law club. Bam! Bam! Bam!

And Christian says, “Why are you beating me? I didn’t yield, I ran right away!” And Moses, while continuing to beat him with the law says, “Yes, but your flesh twitched.”
You see, God’s law demands that our flesh doesn’t even twitch. It’s not something we can train ourselves out of. We cannot practice it away. What does the 10th Commandment say? “Thou shalt not covet.” You know what this condemns? Every natural inclination in us to desire something that isn’t aligned with God’s law. It condemns our very nature. Even wrong thoughts or feelings without acting upon them. Even the slightest urge we feel to do something wrong condemns us by God’s law.

But Jesus Christ never felt like doing any of those things. He said, “Satan comes but he has nothing in Me.” There’s nobody else in the history of the world that can make this statement. Nobody. Jesus Christ as a little child never once took the biggest piece of bread off the plate, never once snatched a toy out of another child’s hands, never lusted, never rehearsed a narrative about someone else’s intentions, never name-called, the list could reach into eternity. He never wanted to. He always loved.

Even Little Babies
Now, I was telling this to a group of young people one time and there was a mother sitting there in the front row holding a tiny little baby girl. Sweetest little thing you ever saw. All dressed up in little pink ruffles, a beautiful pink bonnet, pink booties, just all pink.

She had a pacifier in her mouth. And that baby was cooing and smiling and just having a wonderful time. Lovely little “innocent” child. I was trying to get the point across to these young people the difference between Jesus and us. And I said, “We are all sinners the moment we are born. We are one great, big heap of selfishness. And selfishness is sin. But Jesus wasn’t like us. You see this sweet, ‘innocent’ little baby there in the mother’s arms? That little baby is not innocent! That little soul is a sinner, a potential hillside strangler.”

Those kids looked at me and though I was crazy. I said, “Let’s prove it to them, mom. Would you please remove your baby’s pacifier?” The baby is lying there, sweet little thing, and as soon as the pacifier is removed, ‘WAAAAA!’ The baby threw a fit. See? That’s the way we all are. ‘Me! Me! Me!’ That is sin. But Jesus never once had even the feeling of selfishness, because He was perfection in human flesh.

Jesus Our Pinch Hitter
In His humanity Jesus Christ met the law’s demands of a perfect righteous life for the whole human race. Perfect obedience to all of God’s law. He did it for you and me, just like a pinch-hitter. Have you ever played baseball or softball? And you had a hurt arm and coach sent in a pinch-hitter for you? As a kid, the way we used to do it was you would stand there ready to run, as the pinch-hitter stood at the plate. You couldn’t bat. So they sent in Big Wally. And Big Wally, man, he had arms like Atlas! Big Wally would stand at the plate, and the first pitch that comes his way “KAWHAP!” Over the fence it goes. And what do you do? You run around the bases and get the credit for the home run.

In many ways this is exactly what Jesus did on Calvary. He earned us the gift of eternal life by His perfectly righteous life and we reap the benefits of His work. Isn’t that good news?

But that’s not all. If Jesus had merely lived a perfect life, we still couldn’t have eternal life, because all of us owe the penalty for God’s broken law. Death. It took two things to save us. 1) A perfectly righteous life, and 2) the Savior dying the second death in our place.
Jesus and the Second Death
On the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ took all of our sin. As He took our sins upon Himself, He experienced total rejection. He was rejected of the whole human race and felt the rejection of Father God because of the sins of the world being imputed to Him. The Father hid His presence of the Son on that cross. The Father was right there, but in His humanity Christ could not sense the Father’s presence. He felt and experienced that blackness of soul which is hell itself. That ultimate horror the Bible calls “The Second Death.”

Jesus experienced total separation from the Father and it broke His heart. His heart burst in agony as His whole being was wrenched by guilt and the condemnation and separation which sin causes. He identified the cause of his anguish by crying out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” But before He breathed His last, Jesus gave a victory shout, “It is finished!”

Then the Lord Jesus bowed down His head and died. He breathed His last breath. He experienced the second death for all of us. He drained the cup to the dregs. The Son of Man died.
A Sabbath Rest
Jesus died around 3:00pm on Friday afternoon, just before the sun went down. On the sixth day, just before the Sabbath. And, before He died that Friday, He made the same declaration that He made on the sixth day of creation week, “It is finished.” In the beginning, He had finished a perfect creation work, and now, in His life as a human being, He had finished a perfect work of salvation and redemption. He finished His work on the sixth day and He rested in the tomb on the Sabbath day.

It was finished for every single one of us 2000 years ago on that cross. Our sins were all forgiven clear on that day. The righteous life was completely lived and completely given for you and me. It is accomplished. It is finished!

Christ was taken down from the cross and our sins were taken down with Him. He was buried in a tomb and your sins and mine were buried there too! He rested on the Sabbath day and so the Bible Sabbath to Christians is a symbol not only of the finished creation work, but it’s a symbol of a finished salvation work. We observe the Sabbath because He put an end to our trying to save ourselves by our works. He did it for us! By faith, we enter into the Sabbath rest of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. Keeping the Sabbath is a symbol of entering into that rest. We don’t keep the Sabbath in order to be saved, but because we are saved.

Jesus was buried in that tomb and rested over the Sabbath day, and on Sunday morning He rose! Now remember, the divinity of Christ could not die. Only His humanity died. The Father called to His divine Son and the divinity of Christ took hold of the humanity of Christ and He raised Himself from death as if from sleep. He came forth victorious from the tomb!

A Perfect Glorified Body
Now notice—Jesus Christ came out of that tomb in a perfect, glorified human body. The only vestige of the fallen race upon Him were the scars in His hands, side and feet. He had a glorified body now, and ascended to the Father in heaven in that body. He ascended in a perfect human body and perfect human mind and character.

Now God again had a relationship with the human race that He had at the beginning with Adam. Only it was an even better relationship because the human race in Christ had been tested and Christ had proven a perfect human character through every kind of temptation. God now had a relationship with the human race that He always intended to have and that He had started with Adam in the first place.

And in Christ, God accepted the whole human race. The Father wrapped His arms around His Son and He said. “Son, I am wrapping My arms around the whole world of sinners. I accept every single one of them who turn in faith to You, because Your perfect life and death can be accounted for in their place.”

“But Son, We cannot force this gift of forgiveness and eternal life on them. Though You’ve earned it for them they must want it and choose to accept it. Every one who will believe on You and accept You as their Savior will live with Us eternally because of what You have done for them.”

Isn’t this the greatest news of all time? This is the GOSPEL, the good news. The good news has to do with Jesus Christ, what Jesus did in His life and His death on the cross. He did it for you and for me and God, by accepting Jesus Christ, accepted you and me. He has justified us!

Justification & Sanctification
Now it is time for some technical terminology. We need to define some of the terms used when people talk about salvation. When the scholars and theologians talk, it seems that they often use such big words and hard phrases that many of us get more confused than we were before they even started to talk about it. So this is an attempt to put key concepts into simple language.

There are two terms which are especially important to understand. What we have talked about thus far in this piece is justification. Justification is what Christ did for us in His life, death and resurrection. Justification is God’s acceptance of us sinners just as if we had done what Jesus did. We did not do it, our Substitute did. But God accepts us because of what our Substitute did for us. It is a finished work. Justification, the Gospel, is a finished work. It’s finished, 2000 years ago it was settled and done. Your sins were forgiven. You were given the gift of eternal life in Christ’s righteousness; His obedient life. Justification—what Jesus did in His life and death—is the cause of our salvation. That’s what saves us.

There’s another work of God which accompanies justification and that is sanctification. Sanctification is what is done in us by the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is what the Holy Spirit does in our life to transform us. It is character development. It is an ongoing process. It’s a continuing work as we grow in grace and come to reflect the person Who saved us.

And how long will that sanctification continue? It is the work of a lifetime. It never ends. You will never come to the place where the work of sanctification in you is finished. Never. Listen to this statement from Christ Object Lessons, p. 332, “A character formed according to the divine likeness [the process of sanctification, becoming more and more like Christ] is the only treasure we can take from this world to the next… and in heaven we are continually to improve.”

How about that? Sanctification continues forever! In eternity we will continue to become more and more like Christ our Savior. Remember we said justification is the cause of our salvation, sanctification is the effect of our salvation.
Imputed & Imparted Righteousness
Two other key terms that are tied to justification and sanctification are “imputed righteousness” and “imparted righteousness.”

Imputed Righteousness has to do with justification. What does ‘imputed’ mean? What is in the middle of the word? Put. Impute means to put something to someone’s credit or account. So, imputed righteousness is Christ’s righteousness. His 100% perfectly obedient life is put to your credit when you accept Him as your Savior. God looks at your spiritual bank account before you accept Christ and it’s empty. You accept the Lord Jesus Christ and it is instantly full. God the Father puts Christ’s perfect, 100% righteous life to your credit. He fills your spiritual bank account to be overflowing with perfect righteousness. Christ’s own infinite and unending righteousness is imputed to you.

No, let’s look at imparted righteousness. What is in the middle of the word imparted? Part. Imparted righteousness is righteousness that becomes part of you. It’s the same as sanctification. It is becoming like Christ. But it does not save you. The imputed righteousness of Christ saves you. The imparted righteousness changes you. And it will continue to change you forever. Throughout eternity you will continue to improve.

Now, we are talking about the difference between justification—imputed righteousness, and sanctification—imparted righteousness. Let’s say I have a red sweater and a white coat. One represents us and one represents Jesus. Which is which? Of course the red one represents us with the scar of sin. The white one represents Jesus, perfect, pure and righteous.

Christ Jesus in Himself was absolutely perfect. He never sinned once. Inside and outside He was perfectly righteous. He lived a perfect, righteous life. And then He was nailed on a cross, and on that cross God imputed to Christ our sins. God put to His perfect Son’s account, all of our sins. At that time, God the Father and Judge, looked down at His Son with our sins imputed to Him, and what did He see? He sees the totality of a sinner? Of course not. But God saw Jesus with our red sweater put upon Him as if He were, and God makes a judgment. Guilty. Christ died for the sins that were imputed to Him. He didn’t commit them, they weren’t in Him, but were put on Him, and He suffered the penalty. That’s God’s imputing to Christ your and my sins, and punishing Christ for those sins.

Now, when you and I accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we ourselves are quilty, wretched sinners. But the moment we accept Him as our Savior, God imputes to us Christ’s perfect righteousness. He puts to our account that perfect, righteous, obedient life. In ourselves we are still sinners, but we now have the white coat of Christ’s righteousness and God looks upon Christ’s works instead of ours. He looks at us with Christ’s imputed righteousness and how does He judge us? Not guilty! Innocent! This is what imputed righteousness means. Though we are still sinners, we still fail and we may fall, God doesn’t see or consider that. As we trust in Christ, He sees the perfect obedience of Jesus in place of our imperfect obedience.

Is the difference between justification and sanctification clear? Justification is the finished work of Christ for us, 2000 years ago. It’s done. We accept it and immediately as we accept Him, sanctification begins in our lives and we begin to become changed. We want to be changed. We begin to look to Christ as our example. We want to be like Him. We may slip, we may fall and we will fall short of absolute perfection, but we get up and we go on in the narrow way after our Lord. Throughout eternity we will continue to draw closer and become more like Him.
Rising Toward Perfection
Many of us grew up with the false idea that justification only takes care of past sins and that once you accept forgiveness, then sanctification takes over and if you are sufficiently changed by the Holy Spirit you will be saved. Absolute perfection is up at the top end and the further you grow in the Christian life, the more sanctification you get, the less justification you need. Eventually you are supposed to arrive up at perfection, and at that point you no longer need any justification at all because you are perfectly sanctified.
If that were true, it would mean that you could come to a place in your Christian life where you don’t need Christ anymore. This teaching makes you your own Savior and that by the transformation the Spirit does in your life, you infuse yourself with divinity such that you can finally get to the place where you’re so good you don’t need Jesus anymore.

This is a false idea of sanctification and is not the way the Bible teaches. Justification does not just take care of past sins. We need justification (the work of Jesus Christ) to cover our good deeds too! We need it to make our sanctification acceptable to God. Even in our obedience done in the power of the Holy Spirit is not acceptable to God, unless it is covered by the perfect righteousness of Christ. You can never come to the place where you do not need Jesus. NEVER. We need the righteousness of Jesus (justification) to covers even our sanctified life.
"Forgive Our Good Deeds"
Before attending a healing service, a group of us agreed to pray together and ask the Lord to reveal to us any sins that had not been dealt with. After doing so, a pastor present prayed, “O Lord, forgive us our good deeds.” And I thought, “What?! Forgive us our good deeds! Pastor, you’re off your rocker, isn’t that what it’s all about? God saving us for good deeds? You’re asking God to forgive you for your good deeds, like the hundreds of people you have led to the Lord and baptized into the faith?!”

A couple years later I was reading about the life of Martin Luther, the great reformer, who understood justification so clearly. And Luther made the statement that he discovered that his best works were deserving nothing better than death. His best works! His best sermon, his best whatever, all deserving of nothing but death. And I thought, “Can that be so?” It is then that I remembered Isaiah 64:6, where he says all our righteousness (good deeds) are as filthy rags.

The work of the Holy Spirit is point us back continually to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s how we are convicted of sin, by seeing what perfect obedience is. This is what makes us serve God out of love. That’s what the Holy Spirit does in our hearts. That’s how He intercedes for us and how He changes us. He points us at what Jesus did for us. He shows us how complete out forgiveness and our acceptance and our salvation is in Jesus Christ. And that brings out of our souls the response of gratitude and praise and love. That is the source and springboard of all of our obedience. We obey because we are loved. Our obedience is a result of His love.

Sounds good doesn’t it? But how ‘good’ is that obedience? The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heaven;y sanctuary, but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. All of the good things we do because of our love for God are do polluted by self that why can’t be acceptable to God unless the merit and blood of Jesus Christ covers them. Justification is like an umbrella, covering both our sins and our good works. The things we do are never acceptable in their own merit, they must be covered by what Jesus did. Without the “intercessor Who is at God’s right hand presenting and purifying all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God.”

This is what it means to ‘pray in Jesus’ name.’ We come to God through the merits of Jesus. Because, though the Holy Spirit works perfectly in us, by the time we work out what He works in, we have polluted it. Sanctification has to be saturated in justification, the blood of Jesus before it can be accepted by God.

Notice this last statement. “Oh that all may see that everything in obedience, in penitence, in praise and thanksgiving, must be placed upon the glowing fire of the righteousness of Christ. The fragrance of His righteousness ascends like a cloud around the mercy seat.” Do you see what a mighty thing it was that God did for us in Christ? Nothing we do adds anything to the perfect work of Jesus Christ in justifying us.

The Gospel is that perfect work of God, accepting us as if we had done it, when we did not do it at all, but Christ Jesus did. This is the Gospel and how glorious it is! The results of the Gospel are that the Holy Spirit brings our of our hearts a response of love. As we begin to come into harmony with Him, we begin to reflect His love back. This is sanctification.
Ground, Tree, Leaves, Fruit
Consider this illustration. Justification is the ground of our salvation. Who did the work to save? Jesus did. Justification is the Gospel. Jesus’ life and Jesus’ death; that which He did for us 2000 years ago. It is finished. It’s all done. Before there ever was a tree on this planet, what was already there? The ground. Before there ever was a sinner, Jesus Christ was the “Lamb Slain from the foundation of the world.” The Gospel existed before there was ever a sinner. So Christ is the ground of our salvation.

Now, did you ever wonder why they call it ‘ground’? What does ground describe? Earth. It’s ground-up rock and other kinds of matter isn’t it? What is another name for Jesus? The “Rock of our salvation” right? The Rock that was crushed for our sins. See the picture? Christ is the ground of our salvation. He had to be crushed in order that we might be able to take hold of Him. Just as a rock must be crushed into ground in order for a tree to take hold of it, so the believer is like a tree. A tree takes hold of the ground, and stands erect when the wind blows. It doesn’t topple over because it has a hold of the ground. Right? So it is with you and me. We will never be blown away by false winds of doctrine if we have hold of the ground—the finished work of Jesus Christ—the Gospel. If we clearly understand it and are clearly accepting it we will never be blown away.

A tree not only takes hold of the ground, but it also accepts elements from the ground. The tree begins to drink in from the soil all the goodness that comes up through the roots and up through the vein system of the tree. In the spring, after being bare-bones all winter, the tree begins to put out leaves. It’s the same as the Christian. As a Christian keeps a firm hold on the finished work of Jesus Christ, and meditates on the finished work of Christ he begins to be changed. Instead of being the skeleton of death barely hanging on, he begins to grow colorful and lively, providing fruit and shade to others around him.

The fruit is a result of that tree’s roots being in the soil. Sanctification is the fruit of justification. It’s the result of accepting the finished work of Jesus Christ in our lives. It’s just as natural as it is natural for a tree to produce fruit. An apple tree does not produce apples to become and apple tree. An apple tree produces apples because it has roots in the soil and it is an apple tree. A Christian does not do good things in order to to be a Christian. He does good things because he is a Christian. He does not become an obedient person in order to be saved, he does obedient things because he is saved.
Tree Think
If you could a tree think, what do you suppose you would hear? Would you hear a hyperactive focus on fruit? Something along the lines of ‘My purpose is to produce fruit! Fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit! Am I producing enough? AH! That branch doesn’t have any. I better try harder.’ OR, would you hear something more along the lines of ‘Ground! Ah, this is good ground. I’m just going to sink my roots nice and deep into this wellspring of nutrients and life. Wow, I’ve never tasted that before, delicious! Let me see what else I can taste and see.’

The ground-perspective is how a Christian ought to think. We ought to get our thoughts off of our fruits and get our thoughts on the ground; on the Lord Jesus Christ. We should drink in the Lord Jesus, get to know Him, meditate on Him, talk to Him, talk about Him, share Him, study His life, drink in more and more aspects of Jesus Christ and our finished salvation.

You know what ironically happens when our focus is consumed by Him? Fruit will come naturally. It will be there. Our lives will be transformed and others around us as a natural result.

The problem with many of us is that we have been some of the world’s worst fruit-inspectors. We have been focusing on what we and others ought to be doing—do this, that, the other—but we have neglected sinking our roots into the person of Jesus Christ. We must be Christ-centered and understand the Gospel. This means having our attention, focus and desires set upon Him!

Whom the Lord justifies He always sanctifies. The two always go together. One saves, the other changes. One is the cause. The other is the effect. Sanctification does not save you. And it does not add anything to your salvation except proof, visible proof to the world that you’ve accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. That’s what it’s all about.
Big John & Jesus
Let us close with a story to illustrate what we’ve been describing. Back in the early days of this country, as people were moving West and homesteading, cutting out this nation with their bare hands, there were a lot of little one-room school houses. There remain a few around the country to this day.

In those days there were many teenagers who weren’t able to get all the way through school because there were so many responsibilities on the homestead. They had to plant, or plaw, or cut timber, and many times kids never got all the way through 8 grades of school. They’d be able to go for a few weeks at a time, maybe a month or six weeks, then they’d have to drop out and go to work on the farm for awhile. Then maybe get back in school for another couple of weeks later.

This meant that sometimes in these one-room schools, you’d have students who were 18, 19 years old with the littles. They would attend for a two-to-three months during the year, whenever they could get back to school for a bit.

Our story is about such a teen. It had several older fellows who had never been able to make it all the way through and they had a ring leader. His name was Big John. Big John was 19 years old and he still hadn’t made it through five grades in school. There was so much work to be done on their place that John had to work most of the time. Now Big John was a real leader type and whether he was in school or not he always led out with those kids who were in school, and he thought it his duty to make it rough on the teachers. In fact, there was seldom a year that hey didn’t get rid of at least 2 or 3 teachers. This one year they did-in 5. Wiped out 5 teachers! These kids were so rowdy, nobody could handle them.

Well, the school board sent to the East for a new school teacher. The fellows, under the leadership of Big John, could hardly wait to see what this new school teacher, this dude from the East, would look like.

The stagecoach arrived in town, and John and all his friends and minions were down there to watch Mr. Primble get off the stage. And when Mr. Primble climbed out of that stage, he looked even funnier than his name. Primble was wearing a funny little boller hat, a cutaway coat and striped pants. He had on bright shiny shoes, not boots, shoes, and white spats. He was carrying a black umbrella and it was 112 degrees in the shade (and there wasn’t any shade).

As Primble stepped off the stagecoach, John and his gang went behind the livery stable and rolled on the ground, laughing and holding their sides. “Oh man! Are we gonna have a time with Primble! We can get rid of him in about 3 days I’ll bet,” said Big John.

You can be sure every single one of them was in school the first day. They were all waiting to see what was going to happen. And Big John was sitting in his usual place in the back of the room with his feet propped up on the desk ahead waiting for Primble to come in. Now John had already warned everybody to keep quiet and follow his lead. “Don’t start out anything till we hear what Primble’s gonna say. Cause you know when you go to battle you always want to know what ammunition the other army’s got. So we’ve got to hear him out and plot our scheme and be real careful, if we want to do the job the best.”
So Primble comes in that morning, hangs his hat on the nail, hangs up his umbrella, comes over in front of the desk and sits on the desk with his feet dangling in front.
That kind of took them off guard. They had never seen a teacher do that before. And then Primble speaks. He says, “Good morning class. My name is Primble.” He did not sound like a sissy. “As you all no doubt know, I am your teacher for this year. Now, before we begin anything, there’s a few things I really need to talk about.”
“Well here it comes,” thought Big John. But what Primble said next threw everybody off guard.

“You know class, I understand you have had a lot of problems with teachers in the past, and probably those teachers didn’t handle things very well here. Probably they made some rules that you fellas and girls didn’t like very much.”

“Well I’ll say! That sure is true,” thought Big John.

“And you know, that can really be a pain, to have a lot of rules that just don’t seem to make any sense. Now, I’m a little bit different than most teachers. In fact, I am quite a bit different than probably any teacher you’ve ever had before. You see, I never make any rules for my classes. And I’m not going to make any rules for this class either.”

He let it soak in. Then he said, “Well, that’s really the truth, I’m not going to make rules. But you know class, a town can’t function with any kind of efficiency without there being some kind of regulations and rules. In fact, you can’t even have a decent game of marbles without there being some kind of rules.”
Big John thought about that. “Yeah, guess that’s right. If you didn’t have to shoot behind the line, everybody would be putting their shooter up next to your aggie and you’d lose all your marbles in no time. Yeah, you really do have to have rules, even for marbles.”
And after that soaked in, Primble said, “So we really need to have some kind of rules here in school. But I’m not going to make any. I believe that you ought to be able to make the rules for the school year. So all I’m going to do is write the rules that you want on the blackboard. Fair enough?”

So Primble goes up to the board, takes a piece of chalk and says, “All right, what kind of rules would you like us to live under here as a family in school this year? What are some of the regulations you’d like us to have? Anything you want. Let’s make them fair though.”

So somebody says, “No coming in late.”

“No coming in late. That’s fair enough. If we’ve all got to be here we all should be here the same length of time. Okay, no coming in late is on the board. What else?”

“No fighting.”

“No fighting. That’s a good one. We can’t get much done if we’re fighting all the time. It hurts besides. Now that’s on the board. Anything else?”

“No spitting on the floor.”

“That’s a good one. I’ll vote for that. No spitting on the floor. Okay, something else?”
“No stealing,” says Big John.

“No stealing. Good rule. No stealing.”

And so they made up a list. It was quite a list, by the time they got done. Primble looked at the list and he realized it was a longer list than he would have made, however he did not share that with them. He said, “Now, you know class, that’s a terrific list. It really is. I think you’ve done a great job of making rules. I think we can all profit very well by living by these rules here this year. You know there’s one thing about rules though, rules really aren’t much good unless there’s some kind of penalty if you break them.”

Big John thought about that. “Even in a game of marbles, if you shoot out of turn, you lose your turn. If you fudge your shooter off the line, you lose a marble.” Big John said, “Yeah that’s right. You’ve gotta have some kind of penalty.”

“So we really need to have some kind of penalty for these rules. But I’m not going to tell you what they ought to be. You know better about that than I would. What would you like the penalty to be for each of these things? How about coming in late? What should the punishment be?”

“Four hits with a ruler back across the bare knuckles.”

“Well alright. Four hits with the ruler across the back of a bare hand… How about fighting?”

“Lose your recesses for a week.”

“Okay, lose your recesses for a week. … Spitting on the floor?”
“You have to clean the sloppy mess up and forfeit your lunch.”

He wrote it on the board. “No stealing?”

“Fifteen lashes with a belt across the bare back.”

Fifteen lashes across the bare back! You have to remember in those days there weren’t a lot of material possessions to be had. Material things were very precious in the frontier days, and thieves were just about as bad as anything could be—even as bad as a murderer to those folks. And so they agreed on 15 lashes with a belt.

You know, it’s amazing how well that year ran. Smooth, real smooth. For about six weeks. And then one day, just before lunch, Big John came rushing into the room.

“Teacher, somebody stole my lunch! Somebody stole my lunch from that coat closet and nobody’s gonna get no lunch around here. I’m gonna find out who’s got my lunch, that’s on of the rules…”

“All right, John. Sit down, John,” said Primble.

“Somebody stole my lunch…”
“All right, John. Sit down. I’ll take care of it.”
“Well, find out who took my lunch…”

“All right class, put your work away. You all heard what John said. Somebody has taken his lunch. No probably somebody’s just playing a trick on John. And you got his goat and it worked really well. But we’re not going to have lunch until whoever it is who took John’s lunch gets it and brings it here. Okay? Now just go ahead, you can go get it and bring it in here.” There’s a long pause.
“No, which one of you took John’s lunch?” Another long pause.

“Well, class, this is one of our rules, and probably no one really stole it—you’re probably just playing a joke. It was funny for awhile, but it’s not funny any more. We’re all getting hungry, so whoever’s got it go get it. Now!”

Nobody moved.

“Well class, nobody’s going to do anything until we find out who took John’s lunch.”

Dead silence. So Primble waited. Five minutes. Six, seven, ten, and then he hears a “Sob. Sniff.” And there’s Timmy with his head down on his desk. Little Timmy. On of the littlest kids in the class. “Timmy, what’s the matter? Timmy, what’s the matter?”

“Teacher, I took John’s lunch.”

“Timmy, you took John’s lunch?”
“Yes.”

“Well Timmy, go get it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I ate it.”

“Timmy, why?”

“Well teacher, my Daddy died a year ago. And my Mom and me have been trying to make it on the place all by ourselves. And, Teacher, it’s been awful hard. And, Teacher, three days ago we run out of food and I had nothing to eat for three days. This morning’s recess I was so hungry, I saw that big lunch. I was so hungry…”

“Oh no. Why in the world didn’t you just say something? Why, Timmy, did you have to steal? Why didn’t you just tell me?”

And Primble, along with the rest of the class, looked at the blackboard. Fifteen lashes with a belt across the bare back. And he was the littlest kid in the school.

“Timmy, come up here.” Primble knew he had to do it. The rule was a rule. It had been broken and the results had to be met. Timmy came up front. “Timmy, take off your coat.” Timmy was eight, but he looked like he was about six. He peeled off that shabby little coat. You could see right through his shirt. It had holes in it. “Take off your shirt Timmy.” Little Timmy peeled off his shirt and when he took his shirt off, the whole class gasped because they’d never seen a body as skinny as that. That poor little boy was emaciated. They hadn’t ever noticed before because he wore that big coat. You could see every rib. And his skin was a milky white. You could see the veins right through that transparent milky skin.

The teacher looked at that little body and realized that if he beat that little kid he would kill him. But what could he do? Those were tough times. The frontier was tough and there were tough lessons to be learned and he had to do it.

“Timmy, bend over the desk.” Little Timmy bent down over the teacher’s desk and reached out and grabbed hold of the desk. You could see every one of the vertebrae on his back. Some of the girls were already sniffling and hiding their face in their hands. Primble looked at that scrawny little back, and he felt sick. But he knew he had to do it. So he took off his big, thick, leather belt. “Timmy, I’m sorry. I’ve got to do it.” He reared his belt back and he knew that had to lay it on. He got the belt back ready to make that first lash and all of a sudden there was a husky voice from the back of the room.

“Teacher, just a minute!” It was Big John.

“What is it John?”

“Uh, well Teacher, um, Teacher is there anything that says that somebody can’t take his whuppin for him?”

“Well we never talked about that John.”
“Well Teacher, um, if it’s okay with you and if it’s okay with everybody else, um, I’ll take his whuppin for him.”

“Well,” said Mr. Primble, “It’s okay with me. How about it class? Is it alright with you if John take Timmy’s punishment for him?” The whole class nodded in unison. “All right John, come up here.”

Big John came up to the front and he peeled off his coat. He peeled off his shirt, and there was that great big strong 19 year old body. Muscular and tan. Big John stepped up behind little Timmy. Timmy was still stretched out across the desk, shaking and biting his lip to keep from crying out loud. He probably hadn’t heard any of what was happening. Big John stepped up behind him, bent down over that skinny little boy, reached his arms and took hold of each one of those skinny little hands and grabbed hold of the desk. He said, “Okay teacher, lay it on real good.”

The teacher took the belt. “Crack!” went the belt, “Crack!” again and again. Welts rose up on John’s back. Five, six. Blood spurted. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. Mr. Primble has to look away. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. And it was finished. John, all lacerated and bleeding, straightens up. Blood running down his back. No little Timmy turns around and as he sees the blood, tears stream down his face and he throws his arms around John and he hugs John and he says, “Oh John—I’ll love you forever!”

That’s the Gospel. Saved by our substitute meeting the demands of the law for us. And the results of the Gospel is a heart broken in love. A heart that will love God and all the souls He died for, forever.

So you see there is a difference between justification and sanctification. Justification saves us. Sanctification changes us. Justification is our ticket to eternal life. Sanctification is the proof that we have accepted the ticket and are on board.

Aren’t you grateful for what Jesus has done for you? Will you accept His saving grace and the good news of His Gospel? If you have not already, it’s as easy as saying “Yes.” Thank Him that you are now justified. Ask Him to change you, to love the deep, rich soil and endless love that He provides. Ask Him to reveal His love for you, and in turn, you will begin to truly love others. Always remember, that your peace with God and your assurance of eternal life is in what Jesus did for you, not what you do for Him. Now that we see it, let’s live for Him and give for Him and love for Him. Forever.