Click here for the video. This short message is from my first “preaching lab” at Graceland Church in New Albany, IN. The following is the complete transcript/manuscript of the message. I was not able to finish the whole message; see the last paragraph for closing remarks.

THE PROBLEM OF JUSTIFICATION: How Man Attempts to Solve it, and How God Solved it (Romans 5:1–2)

Roadmap

• Big Idea: There is only one fact in existence by which Man can escape the punitive judgment of God, and that is this fact: that Jesus Christ obeyed the Law of God perfectly––yet He died. (i.e., JESUS JUSTIFIES)
• What is justification? Why do we need it? How do we get it?

What is justification?

Theologically, I would define justification as a redemptive fact. Paul uses the word justification all over Romans. The clause in verse one––“since we have been justified by faith”––is actually a summary of Paul’s argument in the prior four chapters. Since justification is a legal term, I think it will be to our benefit if we compare the human attempts at justification to the biblical solution. Summarily speaking, legal justification is the finding of a fact that rescues or removes a wrongful act. A classic criminal case out of England demonstrates the shortcomings of human justification:

It was the summer of 1883, when four seamen found themselves shipwrecked after a terrible storm overtook their 52-foot yacht. They remained on a lifeboat 700 miles away from shore. They had some food to last them for a week or so and collected water from the occasional rainfall. But after going a week without food, and with no rescue in sight, things were not looking very good. Now there was a seventeen-year-old cabin boy named Parker who was very ill. Seeing no rescue in sight, and having no food to eat, the captains of the ship, Dudley and Stephens, took matters into their own hands. They slit Parker’s throat in his sleep and consumed his body as food. A rescue boat found them five days later. A lawsuit was later brought against Dudley and Stephens for the murder of Parker. The court had to decide whether or not the killing was justified.

What was justification in that case? Killing out of self-defense, according to the law, would have “justified” the killing of Parker. But that obviously wasn’t applicable here because Parker was killed in his sleep. Instead, the question for the court was whether a killing out of “necessity” is legally justified. The cabin crew was starving to death—would it not be okay, and maybe even necessary, to kill one to save some? Regardless, as far as I know, no court of law has the power to bring Parker back from the dead. No matter what the court decides in this case or that case or any case concerning human beings, the fact of the matter is no complete justice can be found here on earth. No matter how much money the court throws at a plaintiff who lost his wife in a car accident, that doesn’t absolve or remove the fact that this plaintiff, this person, lost his wife in a car accident. There is no closure, which means there’s no real justice to be found here.

And this gets to the heart of the problem with all legal systems, and it is the problem of justification. The first and primary problem of justification is actually identifying the problem. What needs justified? we might ask: The act of murder, or the murderer? The act of rape, or the rapist? The act of theft, or the thief? Human law is obsessed with particulars, or fragments of the moral equation; it is concerned about resolving, or giving the appearance of resolving, wrongful actions or failures to act. The law asks, “What needs to be justified?” instead of “Who?” Put another way, the law only knows problematic verbs; it has no clue as to what to do about problematic subjects.

But that is exactly who and what the Bible says human beings are: problematic subjects––people who both commit wrongful acts and are themselves wrongful actors.

Thus, the second question: Why do we need justification?

We need justification because we are sinners who have sinned. The fact is: we may be law abiding citizens of earth, but we are far from law abiding citizens of heaven. Verse 1 of Romans 5 says, since we have been justified by faith, “we have peace with God.” That means if we do not have the faith that leads to justification, or the justification that leads to faith, then we are not at peace with God. If we are at odds with God, our Creator, then we are literally living against the grain of eternity. Moreover, verse 2 says that through Jesus we have obtained “access by faith into this grace in which we stand.” Another translation for that word “access” could be “introduction.” Thus, the exclusivity of Jesus, for in Jesus, and in Jesus alone, is man introduced to his Creator God, for man does not naturally seek after His Creator but instead seeks to be his own creator––life is what you make it kind of mantra. As Psalm 14 says, which Paul quotes in Romans 3:

“The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.

³ They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one.

⁴ Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
    who eat up my people as they eat bread
    and do not call upon the Lord?”

In sum, the problem is not that we sin, but that we are sinners. Why do we need justification? Because we are the injustice in the world (not the only injustice, as the Devil lives here too; but we are part of the injustice in the world apart from Christ).

Thus, the third question: How are we justified before God?

If we accept the biblical reality that we have more than just broken the law of God, but that we are inherently lawbreakers, that is, rebels to God, then must accept the powerlessness of our condition. Hence, when we understand the human condition as it really is, then we should not be surprised when Paul says in Romans 3 or the Psalmist says in Psalm 14 that there are none who seek after God in a natural state. Thus, I think Blaise Pascal was right to say, “Whoever seeks after God has found him.”

Do we then see how much we are like Dudley and Stephens? Do we see that we too are lost at sea, that is, the sea of life, with no clear direction for where to go or what to do, that we’ve used up all of our food supply, that is, our good works and accomplishments, and that we really only have two options for survival: Option 1, consume our fellow man now, who is struggling to survive himself. We, like Dudley and Stephens, often take matters into our hands––hands that were of course given to us by our Lord, while also using a mind that was engineered by a much Greater Mind. But do we not yet see where this humanistic recourse leads us? When we take matters into our own hands, not only do we destroy ourselves, we also consume the lives of those around us. Sin is indeed death, in that every lie, every hate, every lust eats away at the life inside of you and around you. Remember what Psalm 14:4 said, “Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord?”

But the Lord has so kindly given us a second option for survival: consume the God-man Jesus Christ, who said, “truly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son, you have no life in you” (Jn. 6:56). Let us then cease from consuming the self, let us cease from consuming society, and let us instead begin or continue more than ever before consuming Jesus in heart, in mind, and in soul. There’s a popular saying that “you are what you eat,” but that’s a very materialistic interpretation of reality. I say, and I think the apostle would agree: “You are what you believe.” And belief in Jesus Christ justifies, not only our wrongful actions, but also our wrongful nature. This is holistic justification. Let us turn from ourselves and believe in Jesus, the One––the only one––who lived without breaking the law of God, yet he died, so that lawbreakers like us who believe in Him might be raised to life again, and life eternal. This gospel message transcends history, permeates the person, and elevates the human soul to the heavens as it is, indeed, a heavenly gospel––from start to finish. Amen.