What Are Its Grounds? (3)

The Ultimate Question: How Shall Sinful Man Be Right with God?

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, August 13, 2006, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. The unmistakable testimony of the Word of God and of every unseared conscience is that you and I are accountable to God for all of our thoughts, for all of our words, and all of our actions.

0:34 Further, it is the testimony of the Word of God and of every unseared conscience that we are guilty because of our violation of God's law with respect to our thoughts, our words, and our actions. And the testimony of the Word of God and of our conscience is, if not totally seared, is that we are on our way to judgment. To stand before God and to give an account of our thoughts, of our words, and of our action.

1:15 Therefore, the question, how shall sinful man be right with God? How shall we who are guilty and justly exposed to the wrath of God escape that wrath? It's not a secondary issue. It's not a light issue.

1:35 Rather, it is... The great question which ought to, which must press in upon the mind and heart of each one of us if we soberly reflect on the issues of our accountability to God, our sin against God, and our ultimate judgment by God.

2:01 If you knew, sitting here this morning, that within 24 hours... You would make your exit from this life by the door of death.

2:16 No other question would seem reasonable for one moment of those 24 hours. If you knew that within 24 hours you'd be dead, no more opportunity to settle accounts with God. But surely, in those 24 hours...

2:39 Nothing would seem important but God's answer to this question, how shall I be right with God? How shall I be confident that passing through the door of death will not be my passage into everlasting hell, but into the favor and acceptance of God? Well, it's this burning, this ultimate...

3:10 This ultimate question, how shall sinful man be just with God, that is answered in the full-orbed biblical doctrine of justification. And it is this doctrine that we are presently considering in our Lord's Day morning expositions of the Word of God. Having addressed the importance of this doctrine, the context or supporting truths of this doctrine, the meaning of the word to justify that it is a declaration that we are righteous before the law to which we are answerable, and the judge to whom we are answerable.

Review of Justification's Definition and Author

3:54 It speaks not of something that God does in us, but a declaration that he makes about us. We have then begun to wrestle with the substance of this doctrine of justification, and the meaning of the word to justify that it is a declaration that we are righteous before the law to which we are answerable, and the method that I have chosen to open up the scriptures is to follow the tracks of the answer to the question, what is justification, as that answer is given in the larger catechism of the Westminster Standards. That answer to the question, what is justification, is as follows. Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners,

4:36 in which he pardons all of their sins, accepts and accounts their persons as righteous in his sight, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ by God imputed to them and received, by faith alone. And we have seen together that the author of our justification is God himself and God alone.

5:18 The recipients of justification, sinners. The source of justification, God's free grace. The activity of God in justification, it is an action of pardon and acceptance, and accounting our persons as righteous. And now we are wrestling with this great and vital issue, on what grounds can God justly and righteously pardon all of our sins, and also receive us as righteous in his sight?

The Negative Grounds: Not by Our Works or God's Work in Us

6:01 Well, the catechism sets the answer before us in the negative and the positive. Not for anything done by us, nor for anything wrought in us, but positively, only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ. And I've suggested that the negative and positive statements can be helpfully reduced to three simple propositions. We've considered proposition one.

6:41 Works performed by us have nothing whatsoever to do with the ground of our justification. Works performed by us have much to do to prove that we have true and saving faith. Works done by us will have much to do in the day of judgment, for judgment will be according to works. But with reference to the ground on which God pardons all of our sins, the ground on which he accepts and accounts our persons as righteous,

7:22 works have nothing whatsoever to do, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. And then we saw last week, not for anything wrought in us. The second proposition, God's work in us, has nothing whatsoever to do with the ground of our justification. God never justifies a sinner and settles the issues of the declaration of the court of heaven without doing something in the heart and life of the sinner.

8:03 But that work that he does in the sinner does not enter into, into the ground of his justification. His work for us in the court of heaven rests solely upon the work of the second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ, the incarnate Savior of sinners. God's work in us is the work of the Holy Spirit, and we must never substitute the work of one person for the other. What God has ordained to do for us, in Jesus Christ, is the ground of our justification.

The Positive Ground: Christ's Perfect Obedience for Us

8:43 What he does in us by the Spirit is the essence of his work of sanctification. Now then, we come this morning to proposition number three. And it is this. It is Christ's work for us in his perfect obedience, culminating in his substitutionary death, that is the sole and complete ground of our justification.

9:16 Let me give it to you again. It is Christ's work for us in his perfect obedience, culminating in his substitutionary death, that is the sole and complete ground of our justification. And I want to attempt to open up, the biblical basis for this proposition, under two major heads. Head number one, the biblical evidence that our justification is grounded in the perfect obedience of Christ.

9:56 Now you're going to have to think, and I make no apology, for we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength. And if you love your soul, and you are serious about this great question, how shall I, a guilty sinner, find acceptance with a holy and a just God now, and have that acceptance fully vindicated in the day of judgment? You're going to have to think. Because the truth of the word of God comes to us in categories that demand us to think.

10:41 We are in tense thought. And so I set before you, first of all, the biblical evidence that our justification is grounded in the perfect obedience of Christ. As we've seen in previous messages, as our creator and lawgiver, God rightly demands from all of his creatures perpetual and perfect obedience to his law. He demands of us, perfect, perpetual, personal obedience to his law.

11:18 And if we would be declared righteous in the court of heaven on the basis of what we do, it must be an obedience that is personal, perfect, and perpetual. If we could render such an obedience, God in his righteousness and justice would be bound to declare us righteous, and to justify us, to declare us to be righteous. You remember when the rich young ruler came to Jesus. What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?

11:54 What did Jesus say to him? In Matthew 19, 17, If you would enter into life, keep the commandments.

12:04 Sir, if you will perfectly, personally, perpetually keep all the commandments in all the areas that they touch, the deepest, the deepest springs of thought, of motive, of desire, to the most extensive springs of life, Godward and manward, if you can do that, you will enter into life. But obviously, he had not done that. He thought he had kept the second table of the law. It was evident he had a very truncated view of what the law demanded.

12:41 He had a very limited view. Of where the law touched us as human beings if we are to stand in the presence of the all-knowing God and say, Almighty, all-knowing God, you know that I have fully, personally, perpetually, perfectly kept your law in all that it demands.

13:07 Now, we have forfeited that right or that privilege of standing before God. Our sin in Adam, in Adam condemns us according to the Scriptures. Our personal sin condemns us so that the Scripture says, as Paul does in Romans 3.9, we have before proved that all are under sin.

13:32 And 3.19, he says that none is righteous before God. In Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

13:44 So when God sends, His Son into the world, He sends Him, according to the Scriptures, as the last Adam and the second man. 1 Corinthians 15.45 and 47. There's a sense in which God sees only two men in His world.

14:06 Adam and Christ. In Adam, all die. God piggybacked the whole human race on Adam and when Adam fell, we all fell. We all fell in Him and with Him.

14:19 God has piggybacked all of His elect upon Christ so that if Christ stands and perfectly, personally, perpetually keeps the law of God as the second Adam, as the last man, we will stand in Him and we will have in Him to present to God a perfect and perpetual obedience as the ground of the world. of our justification. Now, how was He sent into the world as the second Adam and the last man? Turn with me, please, to Galatians chapter 4.

Christ's Sinless Life and Obedience as the Last Adam

14:59 Galatians chapter 4 and verse 4. When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might, that He might redeem them that were under the law. How was He sent? He was sent as the eternal Son.

15:35 Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, did not become the Son of God when He was born of Mary. He is the eternal Son for the text says when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son. He was the Son who was sent. Further, He was sent forth, the text says, born of a woman.

16:02 And while this is not an absolute proof text for the virgin birth, certainly the reality of our Lord having no human father is hinted, perhaps some say stronger than that, born of a woman.

16:24 The emphasis falls upon the fact that He came and took to Himself true humanity. In Mary's womb, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, the eternal Son of God takes to Himself a true human soul and a true human body. So that Mary, when she was nine months pregnant and at the waddling stage, was carrying the God-man in her belly.

16:57 That's what was formed in Mary's womb. The eternal Son of God not ceasing to be what He always had been, the second person of the Godhead, but beginning to be what He never had been, true man. And in the mystery of the person of Christ, we have these two distinct natures in the one person joined forever. Who is the Redeemer of God's elect?

17:29 The only Redeemer of God's elect is our Lord Jesus Christ who, being the eternal Son of God, became man. And so was and continues to be both God and man in two distinct natures in one person forever. Shorter Catechism. Every word precise captures the teaching of the Word of God.

17:56 Now, look at the text in Galatians 4. It's the Son of God who was sent. He was born of a woman. Born under the law.

18:11 He was born as a proper Jew. He was under the entire Mosaic framework. He was circumcised the eighth day. He was dedicated according to the Jewish Mosaic ritual.

18:28 Mary was circumcised and she went through the period of purification before she and Joseph began to have normal sexual intimacy which resulted in Jesus six siblings among them brothers and sisters. But he was born under the law and in that Mosaic law there is not only what we call the ceremonial law, the civil law, but the moral law. And our blessed Lord Jesus Christ placed himself under all of the demands of the law of God.

19:12 But remember this. He did not do it as a private person, as a human being who had to render personal, perfect, perpetual obedience to God, but as the last Adam. He came as reprobate representative man so that in placing him under the law he is under that law not merely as an individual private person but as the last Adam. So that his obedience is an obedience wrought out on behalf of all those who are piggybacked on him

19:55 just as Adam was placed as the head of the human race and had he stood we would have stood with him. But when he fell we fell in him and with him so Christ coming as the last Adam, the second man, all of God's elect are piggybacked upon him so that when he is placed under the law we are under the law in him and with him. And in that position what does he do? Turn now to Romans chapter 5 and verse 19.

20:37 In this chapter where the parallel between Adam and Christ the similarities and the differences are constantly being set forth by the apostle look at verse 19 of Romans 5. For as through the one man's disobedience Adam the many were constituted sinners even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous. Through the obedience of the one constituted righteous.

21:20 That's the language of justification. Through the obedience of the one we are constituted righteous heads the catechism rightly says that we are justified as to its ground not for anything wrought in us or done by us but only for the perfect obedience of Christ. And I want you to put on your thinking caps and think with me what perfect perpetual personal obedience to the law means to us. It's meant for our Savior having

22:05 true human capacities. No stain of sin of him it was said at his conception to Mary through the angel the Holy One born of you shall be called Son of God. There's not been one person born in the human race from the time that Adam and Eve gave birth to their first son until Jesus and since then of whom it could be said the Holy One born.

22:41 He's the only one utterly free from any stain of corruption utterly free from being in any way connected with Adam and his sin. He was the Holy One in his conception and when she brought forth that child when we are given little small snippets of what he was like in his infancy and as he came up into puberty and as he came into manhood the scriptures are clear that he lived in perfect total conformity to the law of God in all the height and depth and length and breadth of its demands

23:26 touching motive and thought and desire and impulse and action and reaction Godward and manward. Look at the scriptures in Luke chapter 2 Luke chapter 2 and verse 40 and the child grew and waxed strong filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him. There's a description of the infant and toddler Jesus the child grew

24:10 that holy child with no inbred sin no native corruption unlike your children and unlike you when you were a child natively learning how to stick out your lower lip and say no I won't learning how to be selfish how to strike back at your siblings when they took your toy how to say no to mom and dad when they took and they give you directions long before anyone by example or by actual speaking to you taught you you had within you that which was your teacher to be sinful to be selfish to be disobedient

24:55 but our blessed Lord the child grew waxed strong filled with wisdom and the grace of God rested upon him rested upon that human nature and it was so suffused with grace think of it now that never once as a little toddler and when other siblings came along and there was sibling rivalry never once did he selfishly reach out for his brother or sister's toy when they were playing and say mine not once not once and when his siblings

25:39 were unjust to him never once did he strike out and strike back in sinful anger never once when he began to understand the Aramaic in which his parents spoke and they gave a direction never once did he even feel the slightest motion in his holy heart to stick out his lip and say no let alone actually say no never once personal perfect obedience to the law of God and then he grows up

26:23 and becomes a young man he's come into puberty and he's found with his parents at the temple in Jerusalem move on in that chapter and we read that when they finally found him after missing him for a couple of days and they speak to him and they are a bit petulant son verse 48 why have you dealt with us behold your father and I have sought you sorrowing and he said unto them now notice there was no cheekiness no petulance no spirit of disobedience no arrogance no carnal precociousness how is it that you sought me

27:07 did you not know that I must be about the things of my father can you not hear how he would have said that with a smile with all due respect to Mary and to Joseph for he was utterly sinless and when they expressed their irritation he did not respond in kind and say well you've judged me wrongly why did you do that no he expected in the light of what he was in that home and the disposition he had manifested to all the previous trips up to Jerusalem and the special feast there at Jerusalem

27:50 and all that he manifested in attendance at the local synagogue and his love of the scriptures and his love of the praise of God that surely they would have known that he would be about the things of his father and yet what does he do verse 51 he went down with them came to Nazareth and he was subject unto them and his mother kept all these things in her heart and Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men what did it mean when he came into puberty and began to feel

28:34 what all of you young men feel I'm beginning to become a man I've got four whiskers on my chin and three on my lip and men are leaders so I'm going to start to lead long before you've got a right to lead and long before you're competent to lead and you begin to butt heads with your pappy and of course you're much smarter than your mama and you're not at all reluctant to let her know when she's ignorant and you know more than she does our Lord grew into true manhood felt all the changes in his hormones that turn a boy into a man yet never once did he sinfully challenge the headship of Joseph and of Mary

29:19 he was subject to them not just externally like the little Quaker kid sitting in church pulled down into his seat and looks up at his mother and says me sitteth on the outside but me standeth on the inside never once from the depths of his spirit every directive given by Mary and Joseph his heart leaped with a sense of the privilege of having parents to lead him to guide him to direct him he was subject to them

30:02 subject in his spirit subject in his demeanor subject in the totality of what subjection means and as he grows and waxes strong and begins to feel the surging urges of a true man never once never once never once did it break the traces of the fifth commandment of the Lord honor father and mother never once as he felt all of the urges of the developing hormonal system of a man for the scripture is clear that he was a man and on air not mankind

30:47 generically anthropos but he was on air the man Christ Jesus never once a lustful glance never once an inordinate perfect strictly holy in the light of the seventh commandment never once in that poverty stricken setting for he was born into and grew up in relative poverty never once did he covet when he saw the neighbor's kids having a brand new bike and he had an old banger that was picked up at a yard sale never once

31:30 did his holy soul experience the burning of covetousness let alone to say oh mom and dad why can't I have it Johnny's got one never once do you see something of the wonder of sinlessness in real humanity in a sin-cursed world with his unbelieving siblings all around him for you read in John 7 when they are adults and he's an adult they taunt him and they say hey hey hot shot nobody wants attention and stays home during the feast time everybody's at Jerusalem why did you go up to Jerusalem

32:13 the scripture says for his brethren did not yet believe on him and then when he enters his ministry think of what it was think of what it was to be called in league with the devil think what it was to be called illegitimate think what it was to have your motives maligned think what it was to be patient with those dull disciples and yet never sinning when you would say to them oh fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken

32:57 to call some others fools with no sin you and I can't do it he did how long shall I bear with you to speak so scathingly to thee Pharisees and the scribes in Matthew 23 whitewashed sepulchres and yet not one paint of carnal anger and in his compassion in his tenderness with the vilest of sinners neither do I condemn you go sin no more no sinful indulgence you see where we're going

33:39 no wonder the father could say when he stood in the waters of Jordan on the front end of his minaret in his ministry this is my son my beloved in whom I'm well pleased why? because my son has personally perpetually perfectly kept my law through all the stages of development from a toddler to a junior to a pre-adolescent to an adolescent into manhood this is my son my beloved my beloved my beloved my beloved I'm well pleased with him as I see to the depths of his soul

34:22 and as my eye has searched every action of his life I see nothing but perfect complete obedience to my law and later on after many of those incidents to which I've made reference in his public ministry in Matthew 17 in the mount of transfiguration when there is the appearance of Moses and Elijah with him in our Lord in those moments something of his essential deity shines through and glistens through the veil of the humanity and then a voice comes from heaven this is my son my beloved

35:05 in whom I'm well pleased listen to him listen to him dear people that obedience was not only rendered that he might be the spotless lamb of God who could take away the sin of the world by his substitutionary death but that obedience was rendered as the last man and as the second Adam that you and I might have a human obedience under the law credited to us in the courtroom of heaven so that almighty God

Christ's Full Satisfaction: His Substitutionary Death

35:49 seeing us in Christ can say justified by perfect obedience to the law not in yourself but in your covenant head the Lord Jesus Christ justification has as its ground nothing done by us nothing wrought in us but solely for the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ of Jesus of Jesus and that obedience culminates

36:34 in laying down his life for Paul says in Philippians 2 having humbled himself he became obedient unto death even the death of the cross and that's why I changed the word rather than stating it as the catechism does but only for the perfect obedience and the perfect obedience and the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ I said the perfect obedience culminating in his substitutionary death that is the ground of our justification

37:18 now come back to Romans 5 and verse 19 and I hope we come back to it with a richer understanding and a fuller appreciation of the ground of justice of the ground of our justification as through the one man's disobedience the many were made or constituted sinners even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous but then I must hurry on my second head this morning is this to set before you the biblical evidence that our justification is grounded in the substance

38:00 of Christ now the larger catechism uses the word satisfaction and I want to read just a few sentences from a very helpful article in the Baker's Dictionary of Theology listed under satisfaction the word satisfaction occurs only twice in the old authorized version as the rendering for a Hebrew word literally meaning a price paid as compensation theologically the term has played a significant part in the doctrine of the atonement especially since the time of Anselm A-N-S-E-L-M

38:45 prior to his massive work the view of Christ's death which prevailed most widely was that the death of Christ was a ransom paid to the devil in order to deliver the souls of men over whom the devil had a legal right to live in the world and to live in the world that was the prevailing early church fathers began to articulate that and then through the medieval period that Christ's death was primarily a ransom it is a ransom Christ speaks of giving his life a ransom for many but that the ransom was paid to the devil so that the devil lost his legal claim over those of us who had given ourselves over to him

39:29 and became his willing bond slaves Christ's death was not a ransom it was the ransom paid to the devil to release us that was the prevailing concept but Anselm by contrast stressed the fact that the death of Christ was a satisfaction rendered to God's justice and honor since his time this view has become one of the essential ingredients of the orthodox doctrine of the atonement and so when our old catechism says that the ground of our justification is the perfect obedience of Christ and the full satisfaction of Christ

40:13 they are simply saying that Christ's death on our behalf viewed primarily in reference to God and his law and his justice is the basis the ground of our justification so I've stated it this way we're going to look at the biblical law and the biblical evidence that our justification is grounded in the substitutionary death of Christ and the basic idea of scripture is this God's holiness and justice and truth cause him to be bound to uphold the majesty the dignity and the threats of his law

40:57 therefore if sinners are to be pardoned God's wrath must be appeased his law must be vindicated and upheld as we said last week God would sooner send us all to hell than in any way diminish one ray of the glory of his own perfect being any of his attributes he will not allow them to be stained so when Christ died he died to render satisfaction to this offended God to meet the demands of a broken law before God now where is that taught in the scriptures well turn to Romans

41:42 chapter 3 Romans chapter 3 we've spent much time in these early chapters of Romans in this series and rightly so verse 21 after proving universal sinfulness verse 21 but now apart from the law a righteousness of God has been manifested there is a law there is a law there is a law there is a law there is a law there is a law there is a righteousness that is of God as we saw last week God is its author it is a righteousness that has God-like characteristics I read a statement this week that is one of these that at first you say I'm not sure I get it but the more you think about it William Cunningham said

42:26 the righteousness of our justification is nothing more or less than the righteousness which the righteousness of God requires him to require that's what it is the righteousness of God in our justification is the righteousness which the righteousness of God requires him to require and God's righteousness requires that a broken law be satisfied that judgment be meted out and so here in Romans 3 in the manifestation of that righteousness that is the very substance of our justification

43:10 it's witnessed by the law and the prophets it's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God now we're coming to the heart of it being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forth a propitiation through faith in his blood to show to demonstrate his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime in the forbearance

43:55 of God for the showing I say of his righteousness at this present season that he himself might be just and the just the fire of him who have faith in Jesus what's the heart of what the apostle is saying here's the heart of it that our justification that comes to us by God's free grace in connection with the redemption that is in Christ is a justification taking into its orbit propitiation in the blood of Jesus and what is propitiation it's a propitiation it's the turning away of the wrath of God on the basis

44:40 of a sacrifice offered when the sacrifices of the old covenant were offered there was a turning away of the wrath that was due to the people on whose behalf that sacrifice was made but in so doing there was no true final putting away of sin and it appears that God is passing over sin on the basis of the blood of bulls and of goats but Paul says but now because the propitiatory sacrifice is the incarnate deity son of God who is God and man in one person forever in that propitiatory sacrifice

45:25 in his blood there is a true putting away of sin and God is now manifestly both just he said the wages of sin is death the soul that sins it shall die he is a purer eyes than to look upon iniquity and now when his only begotten son hangs upon the cross and God vents the fury of his righteous wrath until his holy son cries out my God my God why have you forsaken me he abandons him he pours the very fires of hell and he into the soul of his son this is a true

46:10 turning away of the wrath of God by exhausting it in his own son on behalf of all for whom his son hangs upon that cross as the second Adam as the last man as the propitiatory sacrifice so this passage in Romans shows us that the basis of our justification is the full satisfaction that is the substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus in which he receives the outpouring of the wrath that was due to us a second passage Galatians chapter 3

Biblical Evidence for Christ's Substitutionary Death

46:54 seeking to demonstrate from the scriptures that Christ's substitutionary death is the second major component of the ground of our justification Galatians 3.13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become an instrument to persuade God to relax the curse no no a thousand times no how did Christ redeem us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us for it is written cursed

47:39 is everyone that hangs on the tree he redeems us from all that our accursedness deserved and would receive by taking upon himself all of that cursedness that was due to us God does not change the sentence cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them that's God's sentence that's the demand of the law Christ comes in our room and in our stead as the second Adam as our surety as our covenant and federal

48:23 head and when he hangs upon that cross God does not simply see his son he sees the great multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred tribe and tongue and nation all of his elect from all of the ages he sees them upon him and in him and he vents the fury of his righteous anger upon his son so that the ground of God saying to them all of your sins are pardoned I will receive and account your person as righteous all of this is grounded in the perfect

49:08 obedience and the full the satisfaction of Christ first Peter 2 and verse 24 just a specimen of the key text first Peter 2 and verse 24 Peter is setting forth Christ in this setting as the example for suffering saints when he suffered he did not revile committed his cause to him who judges righteously but then the suffering example is more than a suffering example verse 24 first Peter 2 who his own self bore our sins in his body

49:52 literally up to the tree he bore our sins in his body in his person personally he bore them up to the tree when he bore them up to the tree there as we read in Galatians he was inundated by the outpouring of the curse of God upon him as our substitutionary sin bearer and then you know the words of Isaiah 53 6 all we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one of us to his own way and the Lord literally has made to strike

50:37 upon him the iniquity of us all further on in that chapter it says it pleased the Lord to bruise him when you Jehovah shall make his soul an offering for sin God was active as well as Christ being active and God pours out upon his son the judgment due to our sin you see there is no other explanation you can't begin to unravel when you read in the gospels and come up to Gethsemane and Golgotha you can't make sense of it apart from this fact he was the substitutionary

51:20 sin bearer you remember Gethsemane three of the gospels recorded Mark says he began to be sorrowful and sore amazed and he uses tenses in the verbs that picture him staggering falling to his knees and rising coming to the disciples staggering and falling to his knees and what was it that filled his holy soul in mind it was what he called the cup oh my father if it be possible let this pass from me the scripture says after coming to the disciples he came back and prayed the same words

52:05 if it be possible let this cup this cup this cup and Luke tells us he was in such an agony such intensity of spiritual exercise that he sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground bursting the capillaries in his forehead mingling with his sweat on a cold night in which Peter's warming his hands by a fire just a couple of hours later what in the world justifies the agony of Gethsemane you come to Golgotha from the sixth hour to the ninth hour

52:50 darkness over the whole land and toward the ninth hour he cries with a loud voice my God my God why have you forsaken me why have you abandoned me and you see that's all a mystery until we understand that it is the agony of Golgotha that validates the legitimacy of the trauma of Gethsemane he was facing for the first time in a new way what it

53:34 would mean for him to bear the wrath of God to experience what sinners will experience what you and I would have experienced had he not been our willing substitute to be cast off cast out outside and as he sees it approaching his holy soul recoils from all eternity he was the eternal word who was with in face to face inner Trinitarian delight and love and communion and now to feel in his soul cut off he staggers

54:19 there's agony revulsion but the cry of dereliction validates that revulsion was understandable Gethsemane validates the trauma Golgotha validates the trauma of Gethsemane and Gethsemane is a picture of what he will face on Golgotha and between Gethsemane and Golgotha there is absolutely no rational explanation for them apart from this teaching he was made a curse that God might have a just basis

55:04 to declare us pardoned forgiven no case against us case because his last cry was to tell us die it is finished it stands accomplished the wrath of God against the sins of those whom he represented was fully vented fully exhausted in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus so what is the ground of our justification it is the perfect obedience of Christ and the full satisfaction that is

Active and Passive Obedience and Union with Christ

55:48 his effective substitutionary atonement those things alone constitute the ground of our justifying righteousness now this may help some of you who have seen in your reading the terms the active and the passive obedience of Christ some of the older writers use that some of the contemporary writers the active obedience is Christ obedience to the precepts of the law his passive obedience his suffering received as a result of the penalty of the law for the law has both precepts to be obeyed and penalties

56:33 to be issued for disobedience and one of the ways the old writers tried to capture both of those strands of his perfect life of obedience issuing in his death was to speak of the active and passive but there's an element in there that can take us afield from far afield from the biblical teaching for never was our Lord more active than when in the language of Hebrews he offered himself without spot unto God he poured out his soul unto death Isaiah 53 he laid down his life of the sheep so we should rather consider the language that I've suggested

57:17 he's the one of Hebrews 10 who said lo it is written in the book I come to do thy will through which will the scripture says we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all he lived he died he rose again he transfers to us God does all the virtue of his doing and his dying when we are united to him by faith what is the ground of our justification nothing done by us

The Present and Future Realities of Justification

58:00 nothing wrought in us it's in Christ alone in the perfect obedience of Christ in the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ and we are now I want to ask you you found all this boring ho-hum you were to stand before God in the next 24 hours you wouldn't for you come to that standing before God and this is the only refuge Wesley caught it when he translated Count Van Zinzendorf's hymn Jesus thy blood

58:45 sacrifice and righteousness life of obedience Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus your blood and righteousness my beauty are my glorious dress amidst flaming worlds when Christ returns in these arrayed with joy shall I lift up my head bold shall I stand in thy great day for who ought to my charge shall lay fully absolved from these I am from sin and fear and death and shame and I that's the truth of the gospel and then the old gospel hymn some of us used to sing

59:30 when he shall come with trumpet sound oh may I then in him be found dressed in his righteousness alone faultless to stand before the throne and this has glorious and wonderful present realities Romans 5 1 having therefore been justified by faith we have peace with God and then Paul goes on to say not only this but we have access through faith into this grace wherein we now stand and we rejoice in hope confident expectation of the glory of God and not only so we glory in tribulation you see

60:14 to know that you stand before almighty God justified don't ever use that little cute thing justified means just as if I'd never sinned it means much more than that it's just as if I'd fully perfectly kept the law of God because in my surety and substitute I have and all the virtue of his obedience and all the virtue of his death form the seamless robe of righteousness in which we are dressed when we have fled to Christ and when by faith we continue to abide in Christ and in the and in Christ alone as our righteousness

60:59 I close with Isaiah 61 and verse 10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord my soul shall be joyful in my God for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation he has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland and as a bridegroom as a bride adorns herself with her jewels can you say that this morning I personally will greatly rejoice in the Lord my soul shall be joyful in my God

61:43 he has clothed me with the garments of salvation he's covered me with the robe of righteousness God grant that that will be your testimony and your joy and if you're not in Christ take the shortest route to get to him cry to him for mercy and the promise of the word of God is whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved let's pray our Father how we thank you for your word thank you for the marvelous truths set forth in the scriptures

62:27 Lord Jesus we thank you for your willingness to come from heaven take to your heart yourself a true human soul and body in Mary's womb thank you for your life of perfect obedience thank you that you resisted the devil in the wilderness thank you that never once was your holy soul tainted with sinful anger with jealousy with envy with covetousness with lust with pride oh Lord Jesus we marvel at sinless in this human condition but we bless you that we can run and hide in that perfect obedience

63:11 that you rendered to the law and we would hide afresh in that full satisfaction that you made to the broken law by your own blood shedding by your willingness to tread the winepress of the wrath of your Father all alone on our behalf oh Lord Jesus may we love you may we cling to you may we find it our joy to speak of you to others thank you for helping your servant to preach thank you for your grace that meets us in our need we worship you and praise you in Jesus name Amen