If the most important question we can ask is, “How can I become the person I want to be?”, the best answer might relate to a new diet plan or learning new techniques to relieve stress. But what if the most important question really is, “How can sinners like me be justified in the sight of an infinitely holy God?” On this program, the hosts will attempt to answer this question as they begin a new series that takes a deep-dive into the doctrine of justification.
SHOW QUOTE
“This is something that I think we really miss in our culture, and the church perhaps doesn’t do such a very good job at it, is that we stop halfway with our job. It’s okay and good and praiseworthy to point out sin. It’s a necessity and why is it a necessity? Because God wants to diagnose your problem that he may get you to the solution to that problem. Nobody, generally speaking, is interested in just going out and hanging out at a doctor’s office because they enjoy the music and the Highlights magazines. People go to the doctor for one reason only, they know they’re sick. And by the same token, when God reveals to us our sin and the law, it’s not because he delights in it, rubs his hands together and laughs maniacally, but he does it with an aim toward introducing us to our Savior, letting us know our need. And the church so often is known for pointing out the naughtiness in society and the shameful acts that people commit but falling short of getting to that thing that God so desires people to know which is the mercy and forgiveness in his son, Jesus.”
Steve Parks
TERM TO LEARN
“Justification”
Those whom God effectually calls He also freely justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting them as righteous, not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone. They are not justified because God reckons as their righteousness either their faith, their believing, or any other act of evangelical obedience. They are justified wholly and solely because God imputes to them Christ’s righteousness. He imputes to them Christ’s active obedience to the whole law and His passive obedience in death. They receive Christ’s righteousness by faith, and rest on Him. They do not possess or produce this faith themselves, it is the gift of God.
(Taken from the 1689 London Baptist Confession, Chapter 11, Section 1)
