Season 2: Ep 7 - What Are the Implications of Justification?
What difference does it make if we are justified before God? How does God relate to us because of this act of salvation? How should we relate with Him?
Podcast Transcript – What Are the Implications of Justification?
So what's this all mean… we’re justified? And we’re justified by faith in Jesus? How can you summarize all that He does to set us free and acquit us from our past sins Completely free us from all debts that we've ever in curd against God, against Satan, against this world, against our friends. What is it that God is doing in justification? I love Packers definition here he says that justification is when God pardons and adopts believing sinners.
What does that look like? I think one of the best illustrations of this is in Luke chapter 15 with the story of what we call the prodigal son. In the story and most of us know it this son asked for an inheritance. He basically says dad “why don't you keel over now, why don't you just let me take the lead? I got it don't need your help from here.” Which is what we talked about is our problem we think that we can run our lives by ourselves and God thank you so much for getting the ball rolling. I can take it from here. That gets at the heart of our pride of pride. That says we can make our own way in life as long as you give me the resources. As long as you set me free, I'll show you what I can do. And the son shows his father and the rest of the world what he can do. You can make a huge mess of your life really fast when you try to take complete control of it. And it's in those moments that we wake up and we have a choice. We have a choice to repent or we have a choice to become hardened in our rebellion against our father.
This son chooses to repent, he chooses to take a second look. The look that he thinks that the father is going to give him is a look of “hey you've messed up royally, I will take you back as a slave, you will pay me back for everything that you have done, you have hurt my honor, you have hurt our family, you have misused our resources.” Many of us who have been around the Christian faith we feel like that. If we've ever chosen to walk away from God and say I'm going to live my life from here. If we never knew anything about it and that's just how we grew up. We lived far apart from God. We can't conceive of going to a good father who is not going to hold it over our heads. With the scope of scripture says is that He is already taken care of it, it's already been resolved and he is looking in the distance for us to just come near to Him. This is the infinite God, you're not going to grasp the fullness of all He has to offer you. If your repentance isn't going to take you back to the exact heart of Him and that's why the father always comes running to us and he says “let me meet you where you're at and when you try to limit my grace, when you try to limit what I offer to you, to just paying me back for all of your sins, let me remind you it's already been taken care of, you are my cherished son, my cherished daughter, welcome home.” And he pulls that son in and He remains. He reinstates him as his child. He throws His best robe on him and puts shoes on his feet so that he doesn't have to walk in shame anymore, He puts a signet ring on him so that he is restored to the authority that he had before he made all these poor choices. The father says you have been reinstated to all rights and privileges. What an incredible gift. It's just as if the son never sinned. Often this is how people in a really simple way, make sense of this concept of justification- it's just as if he never sinned. Just as if nothing has ever gone wrong.
But just because were justified and brought back to the family, we also need to be clear that this is brought back into the family that Jesus is describing in this 1st century. He's not describing a 20th century family. My kids do hardly any work. They do hardly any work because we have so many resources in so many tools at our hands. I don't need them at my beckon call for hours every day. But in the ancient world to be a son, to be a daughter was to be a slave. That's why the older son says “I have slaved for you.” Literally in Greek “I have slaved for you all these years. I have served you.”
But I thought there was this difference between being a slave and being a son? Yeah there's a huge difference. Slaves serve for their benefit in the moment. Sons serve for their benefit for an eternity. That inheritance is something that we have received from those who have gone before us and it is something we will pass on to those who come after us.
Justification is not just for you. It has been given to you from those who've come before in this journey and they've passed on this great work of God's Salvation that was given to them. They simply passed on this grace, they passed on this forgiveness, they passed on this restoration. Because it was given to them first. We in our present, we need to receive this, we need to live into this, we need to find ways in the small things, in the big things and everything else in between. When it relates to us and when it has nothing to do with us. God how can we see your justification come? How can things be fixed so it's just as if nothing ever went wrong?
When we let Him into the smallest to the greatest moment, He changes everything. He makes it new. This is the great story of God. This is the great example of His justification.
And I would also just make one last point since we're using the prodigal as an example. You'll find nowhere inside the story that it calls the son “the prodigal son.” Prodigal in fact means to just pour out, to use extensively and just to waste. This story in the end it’s not about the prodigal son, I would say it’s a story of the prodigal father. The one who pours out the riches of His grace on a creation that does not even begin to grasp just how much He wants to make things right. He's already done the work. He runs to us, to meet us in our simple acts of repentance, He restores us, brings us back as sons and daughters with all rights privileges and authority and calls us to His eternal work. This work that was done long before we came and will be done long after we are gone. To Him be glory honor and praise. This is good news, may we live into it this week, next week and forever more. Amen.
