Justification Illustrated
This is the text of a message I preached at Roswell Alliance Church in Roswell, GA. Click on the link for the online service if you prefer to watch or listen. The sermon begins at about the 15th minute.
Video: 37 minutes
Reading time: 7 minutes
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
Text: 1 Corinthians 6:11 “such were some of you. But…”
In my last message we looked at Psalm 111 and several things it says about God’s work. The Psalmist was anxious to meet with God’s people and tell them, “Great are the works of the Lord! I will praise the Lord with my whole heart.”
I want to continue that theme today and look at three great works of God in the individual. Paul identifies them in this portion of his first letter to the church in Corinth.
You were washed, justified, sanctified.
I can imagine how the faces of people he had met in Corinth came to mind as Paul wrote. There is the one who had been immoral and another who had been stealing. There is the family who had lived in fear because of domestic violence
—the father provoked his children and abused his wife. Paul thinks of the ones who were often drunk. The Corinthians were an unruly bunch, far from the kingdom of God. And then, Paul thinks of the great work of God in this city. He smiles as he writes, “Such were some of you.” They are different because of the work of God. Jesus has changed them.
How we need this work of God today! It isn’t just the Corinthians Paul described. We are no better. Jesus speaks a truth in John’s Gospel that we don’t want to hear. “You are of your Father the devil, and his desires you do” (John 8:44).
Paul writes that, without Christ, we live according to the prince of this world, and by nature are children of disobedience. Our past isn’t pretty.
We may be nice, but we aren’t good.
Jesus said, “Make the tree good.” This is what God is doing: making us good. He converts children of the devil into children of God. He gives birth to sons and daughters who partake of His divine nature.
He puts a new song in our mouth, a song of praise: “Behold, what manner of love, that we should be called children of God.”
But when Jesus comes, we have hope; we have God; we are brought near to Him; we are God’s “own special people, called out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
How great is the work of the Lord that we can say: I was, but now. I was lost, but now am found. I was blind, but now I see. Amazing grace!
Let’s look more closely at these three great works God does in the individual.
Washed
The word translated “washed” is used twice in the New Testament, both times by Paul. Here, in Corinthians, and in Acts 22:16, when Ananias told Paul, “Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”
The word means “to bathe the whole person, washing away what was near.”
When Paul applies this to the Corinthians, he is thinking of his own experience. The one who had been “chief of sinners” was now among the saints. The one who had hated followers of Jesus now followed and suffered with them. Paul had been washed of his sins. The same Jesus washed the Corinthians.
Our sins cling to us like rags, but Jesus washes away what was near. He removes it. Paul, and the Corinthians, were not what they used to be.
Justified
This word means “to render just or innocent; equitable (in character or act); innocent, holy”. I want to focus on that phrase, equitable in character. When we become Christians, the focus of our lives changes. We no longer live to suit ourselves, we want to be like Christ. When God justifies us, He bestows the testimony that John professed, “In this world, we are like Him” (1 John 4:17).
Sanctified
This word means “to make holy; to purify or consecrate.” It has the idea of separation. God separates us from our sins and our old nature and sets us apart for His use.
These are works of God. God washes us. He justifies us. He sanctifies us.
This is especially important to remember when it comes to being holy. We do not make ourselves holy when we go to church, pay tithe, read the Bible, or pray. Hebrews tells us, “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family” (Hebrews 2:11, NIV).
We do not make ourselves holy; we are made holy. This is a great work of God in the individual.
Someone has said that words that end in -ion are God’s work (Salvation, Justification, Sanctification, etc.). Words that end in -ness are our part in working out God’s salvation (holiness, righteousness).
There is deep theology in these words, but let’s get practical. What does justification, in particular, look like?
To illustrate, I will borrow from the publishing world how text is aligned on a page. In print, justification is about fitting words on the page within the margins. In our spiritual life, our lives are about how we fit in Christ. Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:13, “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (emphasis mine).
Justification
Attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
This first figure depicts our life without Christ. It is a picture of self-justification.
This is left justified—each line is even with the left margin, and the lines are different length. This is called ragged right. It is just like us without Christ.
Isaiah 64:6 says, “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” We have excessive behaviors, like lines that run long on the page. We have shortcomings; we fall short of the glory of God. This is the classic definition of sin: Falling short; missing the mark. We don’t measure up.
Figure 1 Left justified, or ragged right
The second graphic depicts self-examination. At some point, we become aware of our imbalance, our highs and lows, our shortcomings and excesses. We come to the same place as the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans and confess that no good thing dwells in me. We lack self-control. We set about identifying boundaries and adjustments (the shading on the right).
Figure 2 Self-examination: looking for new boundaries of self-control.
From self-awareness we move on to self-improvement. We embrace the strategy that Paul describes in Colossians 2:20 and embark on diets, Just Say No endevors, New Year’s resolutions, and may even admire the teachings of Christ. We submit ourselves to all sorts of regulations, only to learn Paul is right: These have no value in restraining sensual indulgence. I still fall short. I’m still ragged right. I am still in my sin because I don’t have it in me to measure up.
Figure 3 Self-improvement: submitting ourselves to rules and regulations, even to the teachings of Christ. But He remains on the outside. It is all self-effort, and we still fall short.
The effective solution is when God justifies us in Christ (Figure 4). This is what Paul said the Corinthians had experienced. I stop justifying myself. Christ is no longer “out there,” on the margins, but Christ is in me, “the hope of glory.” He changes me. My life looks different as I live for Him and not for myself. He becomes the boundary, left and right.
This is Ephesians 4:13 come to life: “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
In the parlance of both publishing and Christianity, this is full justification.
Figure 4 Full fustification, when Christ is in us, and we are in Him. See how the lines are even with the margins, left and right.
So, God justifies us. There is the one-time act when God makes us just. He deals with our past, forgives our sins. Someone has said that, to be justified, it is “just as if I had not sinned.”
But what about now, and what of the future? How do we stay aligned?
Sanctification
The daily work of God to justify of our lives in Christ
God also sanctifies. This is our ongoing life in Christ. Once God evens us out, He does not turn us loose to make good on our own.
Believers in Galatia tried this, and Paul asked, “Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). Paul called them foolish for such thinking. Rather, he said, God began a good work and He continues it. God realigns us in justification; He keeps aligning us in Christ each day in sanctification.
What does daily sanctification look like?
There are still areas where we go to extreme, but we don’t hold on and wrap them, the way a word processor does. We cut them off.
Jesus said: “If your right hand offends you, cut it off. If your right eye offends you, pluck it out.” Remove whatever would keep you from God’s kingdom.
Paul said to put off malice, lying, anger, filthy language, hatred, jealousy, dissension, and so forth.
Actions and attitudes that are out of Christ’s character are cut off and brought back into line.
Likewise, there remain areas where we come up short, and sanctification adds godliness to our lives, just as the word processor adds spacing between words to bring the line up to the margin.
Said Peter: Add to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, brotherly kindness (2 Peter 1:5-7).
Paul agrees: Be kind to one another; forgive; be humble; be patient.
When Christ is the boundary of our lives, we set our eyes on Him. “We make it our aim to be well pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).
Text fully justified on a page is neat. Similarly, the life of a person who is fully justified in Christ is attractive. This is the beauty of holiness.
You were … but now you are washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Have you been washed? Have you called upon God to justify you?
Can you say, because of Jesus, “I was, but now…”?
Today is the day of God’s favor. Call upon Him now, and let God put your past in the past.