Moments away from arriving at the family home for a Thanksgiving break, I hear the siren and the lights flashing in my rear view mirror. As I pull over, one of my kids reminds me of something we had recently been learning as a family: how can we give thanks for this? Sigh. I was speeding and caught guilty. I had no excuse.
Let’s talk today about justification. In God’s courtroom, you are caught guilty. You have no excuse. You can only await the verdict for your sin. But, Jesus is your defense attorney, your advocate. And while He does enter a guilty plea, He also says that He Himself will take your punishment. God slams His gravel down and the case is finished. You are guilty, but because of Jesus, you go free. You are justified. You are declared righteous by God Himself.
In Psalm 32, David writes about this emotional experience of being set free when you were dead to rights guilty. “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!”
But wait, there’s more! Justification has two sides. One is that you are declared innocent or righteous. The second side is that you now have to your permanent record the perfect sinlessness of Jesus Christ! Thus, David goes on to add this in Psalm 32, “How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!”
When I was pulled over, the officer was gracious and let me go with a warning. What a wonderous feeling! How much more so to be declared forever righteous by God, and to have on my record books the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
The last word here must be grace. All of this is a gift to you who believe in Jesus Christ! You are justified by grace and grace alone!