Lent - Day 32

Larger Catechism – Day 32 of Lent

Question 70:  What is justification?

Answer:  Justification is the act of God’s free grace to sinners, by which he pardons all their sins and accepts and looks on them as if they were righteous, not because of anything worked in them or done by them but because God imputes to them the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ that can only be appropriated by faith.

There are times when it is challenging to take off my “pastor’s hat.”  When worshiping at another church I like to see what they are doing, learn new songs and get some ideas for things that might be used here at Evergreen.  When I attend a wedding I like to get ideas of things that might work well at a future wedding.  I think that you get the picture.

Unfortunately, there are times when I see things with a critical eye.

There have been too many funeral/memorial services where I have heard someone say, “He was a good guy.”  There is a part of me that wants to stop the service and say, “How good was he?  Who’s measuring system of ‘good’ are you using.”

According to God’s measuring system none of us is “good” – in and of our selves.  Original sin has tainted every corner of our being.  We all fall short of God’s command to be perfect.

One of the first memorial services I conducted as a pastor was for a man who drank himself to death.  This man had not been a “good” man.  He spent most nights at the local bar.  There were lots of things that he did that were not “good.”  Eventually, two things caught up with him:  a liver that failed and a Lord that loved him.  Marshall came to know Jesus a couple of years before he died.  His liver was so far gone that there was nothing that they could do. I spent time with him most every day for the last few weeks of his life on earth.  Everyone attending Marshall’s funeral new his history.  Many at that service did not know that Marshall came to know Jesus.  At the service I was able to say (with total integrity) that for most of his life Marshall had not been a nice man; however, he came to know Jesus and that Jesus had paid the price for Marshall’s sins and that Jesus had given Marshall his righteousness.

Justification is God’s act of giving us Christ’s righteousness as Christ takes our sins upon himself.  None of us is “good” enough by God’s measuring standard.  We need to be clothed with Christ’s righteousness.  That is justification.