Transcript
Theology cries out for justification because without that, we're lost. We're hopeless. Imagine for a moment if you believed in the existence of this all powerful, holy Creator God and you believed that you were created for a relationship with Him, but sin has broken that relationship. It's left you morally impure and there's nothing you could do about it. What horrible hopelessness that would be!
Every Doctrine Pushes You Toward Jesus
That's why I believe that every doctrine pushes you toward Jesus because if you believe these things, if you believe God is this God of awesome holiness and power and sovereignty, and I'm a sinner, how hopeless and fearful that existence would be? And so, the doctrines of scripture scream for a Savior, scream for this horrible gap that now exists between me and God, and this horrible condition that I'm left in a sin. Somehow can't that be fixed?
Paul says that we're without God and without hope in the world. Everything is vain. Everything is lost. So God looked at His broken world and He was unwilling to leave it in that condition. In His love, it would have been right for him to just judge, judge, Judge. But He sends His Son because what needs to be fixed, we can't fix.
So Jesus lives [an] utterly righteous life, but He lives that on my behalf so that He can be a perfect, acceptable sacrifice for sin, paying the penalty for my iniquity and satisfying God's anger. And then, He rises again, conquering sin and death, so that all of that then is applied to me as I place my faith in Jesus.
Covered in the Righteousness of Jesus
So I stand before God now covered in the righteousness of Jesus. I stand forgiven, past, present, and future. I stand before God utterly accepted. I can run into the throne room of the Lord of Lords and King of kings, and be accepted. I'm named as His child and He names Himself as my Father. And I understand that this work doesn't just stop with me, but the Bible says He's come to make all things new, that everything that's broken will be ultimately fixed.
Every doctrine screams out for the justifying grace of Christ because if I'm ever going to stand before God acceptable, if I'm ever going to be forgiven, if there's ever going to be such a thing as righteousness put next to my name, someone's got to do that for me. I cannot do that for myself.
Jesus came to do that. He stands in that gap. And so, the anger of God and the grace of God drives Jesus to the cross to pay the penalty and to offer to me what I could never achieve myself. What a beautiful thing to consider! And so, we're sad celebrants. We still mourn the existence of sin, but we celebrate the existence of justifying grace.
