Justification Part I (11-14-2006)

I started a blog at Blogger because I changed email addresses and forgot my password at Wordpress. Most of the stuff I've written over the years is kind of dumb, but some of it might be worth preserving. I'm copying it over here so that when I forget my login info again, I can just copy it from this one place.

 

As of late, I have been finding myself in the same slump, time and time again.  I continually get down on myself and the state of the world around me.  I am coming to learn that much of my spiritual frustration and depression is due to my confusion of justification and sanctification.

I’m horrible with names, which is terribly unfortunate, because I am often unable to give credit where credit it due.   Here is one of those cases:   Someone (I wish I could remember who) has said that if we have never wrestled with questions of antinomianism, then we probably do not really understand or appreciate God’s saving grace.

I can appreciate that point, and I think that the aposle Paul could, as well.

 1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2 ESV)

The statment here could have probably gone without saying, unless there were some genuine concern that people might ask this very question: If it is solely by grace by which we are saved, and not of our own doing; and it is this grace that so gloriously and abundantly covers our sinfullness and rebellion, then shouldn’t we sin all the more to make this grace abound all the more?

Logically, this appears to make sense, but this quesiton is met with a resoundingly firm “By no means!”, from the apostle.  This is something that I am learning to wrestle with more and more.  The firm negative response should stifle any tendency to waffle and waver into the realm of lawless liberty, but before we presume to leap to the safety of legalism, we must realize that this is, indeed, a very good question.

As a (hopefully) recovering legalist, I need to understand why Paul would even bother with such a seemingly obvious point.

The reason is because, I believe, the point isn’t as obvious as folks like me would tend to believe.  The reason is because folks like me tend to blur the line between grace of justification and the grace of sanctification, while at the same time forgetting the grace of both.  Knowing that it is holiness that God expects and demands, it seems intuitive to me that, of course, we should not go out seeking sin.  Of course, we should strive to be as good as we can be.  But this misses a sometimes subtle point. This attitude opens the door to self-righteousness, and it is with these thoughts that we often take the first step down the path of legalism and moralism.  Of course we should strive to uphold the law, and we should strive to be obedient, but we must never forget that it is grace by which we are saved; we must never forget that even the best of our righteousness is but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).  We must not get so caught up in being good that we forget that is is not our efforts and goodness that make us right with God.  We must not strive so hard to earn His favor that we forget to rest comfortably in His grace.

Justicfication is part of the completed work of Christ.  It is based on his perfect obedenience (even to death on the cross), and it is by this justicfication that we are clothed in the righeousness of Jesus.   We are justified solely by his completed work, and we are justified and saved by grace alone through faith alone.  It it not by our works, lest any man should boast.  The justified believer need no longer fear condemnation, becuase it is not his own merit that makes him worthy.  It never was, and it never will be.

There is a little word-play circulating in church cirles that says we can remeber justified as “just as if I’d never sinned.”  That’s a bit too cutesy for my cynical mind (something I really need to work on), but I think it also misses some of the nuances of justification.  For one thing — and maybe I’m nitpicking here — the “chalkboard” of our sin is not simply wiped clean, so to speak, for us to begin anew with a fresh to-do list of sins for the day.  This would require one of two things: 1) either a continual justification [I was justified yesterday, but since I screwed up again this morning, I guess I need to go get "just a(s i)f ied (never sinned)" again tomorrow], or 2) a justification that doesn’t reach fruition until judgement.  Once we begin viewing justification as a processes (either gradually rising to its apex or perpetually recovering), then this opens the door to doubt and worry in a believer’s life — at least this beleiver’s life.  Having often forgotten the completed justification of Christ, I have found myself leaning on my own esteemed view of worth;  forgetting that I am justified, I instead look at my own worthiness and sanctified progress, and I find myself broken and crushed with the hopelessness that offers.

The other point that I think this misses is that Christ’s perfect rigtheousness was not simply a passive holiness, but also an active obedience.  It’s not simply that he remained above reproach, but that he also was perfectly obedient…even to death on a cross.  The alien righteousness that cloaks the believers in Christ, is a righteousness that does more than just erases our past, present, and future transgressions; it also covers us with the obedience of Christ.

It is the graciousness of this mercy that should logically prompt the believer to ask questions like the one Paul addresses.  This question is not the simplistic question that I once took it for, but rather it is one that questions the natural conclusion that should be drawn from the abundant, and whelming flood of grace.  It is only once we realize that it is grace — and grace alone — that we reach the point of honestly asking ourselves the question:  Why not continue in sin so that grace may abound?