The Cross: Justification

 

Who will bring any charge against [us]?  Who then can condemn?  Paul asks these two questions in Rom. 8—a text which was our focus last Sunday and will again be our focus this morning.  Who will bring any charge against [us]?  Who then can condemn?

 

These are relevant questions because there’s a lot of charging and condemning these days.  At an international level we’ve got Israeli’s condemning Palestinians and Palestinians condemning Israeli’s.  At a national level we’ve got conservatives condemning liberals and liberals condemning conservatives.  At a local level we hear suburbanites condemned for neglecting the city and urbanites charged with elitism. 

 

 

But some of us experience this on a personal level, don’t we?  We get condemned or charged simply because of who we are.  A friend of mine is a principal in a school.  Recently he’s had to deal with an employee who isn’t performing.  But my friend is white and the employee is black and she’s charging my friend with racism.  The only reason he’s critiquing her performance—she believes—is because he’s white.  If he were a different race, there likely wouldn’t be such conflict.  But simply because of who he is there’s a lot charging and condemning going on.

 

 

Many of us experience this kind of condemning and charging.  Being labeled or mistreated just because we’re not like the “in crowd,” or because of our race, or our background, or our gender.  I remember when Kendra worked for a major company.  She was a trained accountant but the managers treated her and other women as inferior.  That’s the kind of charge and condemnation a lot of us face.

 

And there was some of that going on in the lives of those to whom Paul wrote.  The city of Rome and the church in it had just emerged from great upheaval.  The Roman emperor, Claudius, expelled all Jews from Rome in A. D. 49.  This included Jewish Christians as well as other Jews.  As a result, the church in Rome found itself filled only with Gentile Christians.  Five years later, Claudius was dead, Nero was emperor, and the Jews and Jewish Christians were allowed back in Rome.  But the Jewish Christians found that things at church had changed—much to their dismay.  Based on what Paul writes in Rom. 9-11 and Rom. 14-15 it seems that the newly arrived Jewish Christians were writing nasty emails to the elders about the way these Gentile Christians were running things.  There was a lot of charging and condemning going on.

 

 

And partly in response to that, Paul writes these words^[i]: 

 

What, then, shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He

who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those who God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who then can condemn?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Rom. 8:31-34 TNIV). 

 

We spent time in 8:37 last Sunday on the words “more than conquerors.”  This morning I’d like us to dwell on another word in this text.  It’s found in 8:33—“justifies.”  Most of the words we’ve explored over the past few Sundays come from a specific area of ancient life.  “Propitiation” came from the world of worship.  “Redemption” came from the slave-market.  “Reconciliation” came from the world of family and friends.  And this word—“justifies”—comes from the courtroom.  In the ancient world, the word “justifies” described what a judge did.  Two parties in a dispute would come before the judge.  He would hear the accuser and the defendant.  Then he would render a judgment.  He would find in favor of one party.  And the party he found in favor of would be described as “justified”—having a right standing in that court.[ii]  “Justified” is the opposite of “condemned.”[iii]  “Justified” is the judge saying, “This court finds in your favor.” 

 

 

And according to Paul, who does the ultimate justifying in life?  God does.  He writes It is God who justifies.  That is, who renders the ultimate verdict on us in the court of life?  God does.  It is God who justifies.  This line seems to be written in recognition of those Jewish Christians being labeled traditionalists by the Gentile Christians.  It seems to appear out of acknowledgment of the Gentile Christians who are being charged with liberal practices in the church.  Paul is saying, “What matters more—what the worshiper in the pew thinks of you or what God thinks of you?  The label someone has put on you during a service or the label God has put on you?”  It is God who justifies.

 

This line is a nod toward those of us who face charges and condemnations because of who we are—because we’re a different race or gender; because we didn’t grow up where everyone else did; because of our physical looks; because our worship is more traditional than theirs or more contemporary than theirs.  Paul wants us to consider: “Who renders the ultimate verdict on you in the court of life?  Not your teacher or your parents.  Not your kids or your managers.  Not the church down the street.  God does.”  “What matters more—what the cool kids think about you or what God thinks about you?  The label placed on you by your parents or by God?  How you appear in the eyes of your kids or the eyes of God?”  It is God who justifies.  The only verdict about you that matters is God’s.

 

 

And what is God’s verdict?  It is summarized in one word from 8:33: Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  God’s verdict is found in that word “chosen.”  Your kids may say “Our court finds you old-fashioned and out of touch.”  Your parents may say “Our court finds you irresponsible and lazy.”  Some may say “My court finds you too black, too Hispanic, too suburban, too urban, too Democratic, too Republican, too traditional, or too contemporary.”  But God says “My court finds you chosen.  I have chosen you.”  That’s the only verdict that matters.

 

But there’s more going on with these two questions: Who will bring any charge against [us]?  Who then can condemn?  Ultimately these questions are asked in light of what Paul wrote earlier in Rom. 3:9, 22-23: Jews and Gentiles alike are under the power of sin…There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  The larger reality is that there are some charges leveled at us that stick.  Not the kind of charges and condemnations that come just because of who we are.  But those that come because of what we’ve done.  As we’ve seen in this series on the cross, there are charges against all of us that stick.   We all have done things that contribute to the injustice in the world.  We all have done things which have made God wrathful.  We all have gotten caught up in longings that enslave us.  We all have been part of breaking relationship with others. 

 

And as a result, God himself can bring charges against us.  God has every right to call a trial and say “My court finds you guilty of gossiping about people you say are your friends; My court finds you guilty of neglecting your aging parents; My court finds you guilty of thinking your neighbor is inferior to you.”  Paul is saying that God himself has charges he can level.

 

 

In addition, the Devil has charges to level.  Here is how the Devil is described in Rev. 12:10: the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night.  The Devil is the zealous prosecutor who appears in court, God at the bench, us at the defendant’s table, and he lays charge after charge against us.  And the worst part is they are true.  Every one of them.  They stick.

 

And sometimes, we even condemn ourselves.^[iv]   We charge ourselves.  We replay in our minds again and again the wrong words we said and the wrong things we did, and we charge ourselves. 

 

Who will bring any charge against us?  Who then condemn?  God can.  The devil can.  And even we ourselves can.

 

And the question is, What do we do about those charges?  A recent cartoon shows two men sitting amidst flames.  On a nearby hill is a figure with a pitchfork—the Devil.  And the one man says to the other: I was under the impression that what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas.  The cartoon’s saying that what happens in secret doesn’t stay secret.  Eventually it makes its way out.  The Devil learns of it.  God learns about it.  And the question is, What do we do about these actions that are the basis for the charges we level against ourselves and which the Devil levels against us and which God himself could charge us with?

 

 

A recent article about the Internet told of a twenty-five year old man named John hoping to land a job on Wall Street.[v]  Knowing prospective employers would do so, John “Googled” his name.  To “Google” yourself means to pull up the Internet search engine called “Google” and type your name in the search box.  Google will pull up virtually every reference to you posted on the Internet—by your or by others.  Articles, blogs, videos, pictures—all about you.  John “Googled” his name knowing that prospective employers would also do so.  And right there at the top of the results page was an old campus news blog detailing a bar brawl in which John was arrested.  It was five years old.  But it was the first piece of information which came up.  He knew it destroyed his chance of getting a job.  The Internet is becoming a record of many of our actions and activities—even those we never intended to be made public.  And companies are emerging to help people manage their “online reputations.”  Several companies—for a fee—can manipulate data on the Internet so that bad things like a bar brawl don’t show up on your first couple of search results pages.  But these charges against us are piling up even online.  And the question is, What do we do about them?

 

That’s the question Paul answers: What, then, shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those who God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who then can condemn?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Rom. 8:31-34 TNIV).  Notice that the central image here is the cross—He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.  And according to Paul, what happened on the cross?  God justified us.  The cross turned the courtroom of life upside down.  Into that courtroom walk us—people who are guilty; people who have committed crimes.  In walks the Devil, that prosecuting attorney bent on shedding as much light on our guilt as possible.  At the bench sits God, the judge.  And after the Devil makes his case—a very true case—he fires up the laptop and does an enhanced Google search of our name and pulls up text and video of every angry word we’ve ever spoken, every pornographic photo we’ve every looked at, every racist comment we’ve ever thought, every environment harming action we’ve ever taken, and every plea for help we’ve ignored.  It’s all there.  On a big flat-screen monitor.  But what happens next boggles the imagination: God justifies us.  God says, “In light of this evidence, my court finds you…innocent.”  It’s the strangest twist of justice.  God justifies us.

 

 

How can God do this?  It all has to do with the cross.  Here is how Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:21 – God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  Peter puts it this way: “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Pet. 2:24 TNIV).   At the cross God declared us who are guilty to be innocent.  And he declared Jesus who was innocent to be guilty.  How?  Because on the cross Jesus took not just the punishment for our sins, but the sins themselves.  God made him our sin.  And at the cross, God did not simply forgive our sins.  He gave us the righteousness, the right-standing, of Jesus.  Our guilt became his.  His innocence became ours.

 

 

But it’s not simply an exchange of guilt from one person to another and of innocence from one person to another.  At the cross, for those of us willing to ask for it by faith, Jesus and we become one.[vi]  Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:14 that when Jesus died, we all died.  Paul writes in Rom. 6 that we are baptized into Christ.  So, when I come in faith to the cross, God makes me and Jesus one.  There is no longer Jesus and Chris.  There is Jesus-Chris—a new entity.  And my crimes are thus literally Jesus’.  His innocence is literally mine.  As a result, God is able to look at me and say, “This court finds you…innocent.”  God is able to justify me. 

 

 

Every day you drag yourself off to court, condemning yourself for that website you surfed to, or that comment you made.  Every day the Devil drags you off the court ready to make a case against you for the way you’ve used your wealth for yourself and not for the poor.  But every day, as you present the charges before God, as the Devil presents his condemnation, Jesus rises and says, “Your honor, I must object.  My client has already been tried for these crimes.  He’s already been found innocent.  I’ve already been found guilty.”  God justifies us.

 

 

Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French Army.[vii]  In 1894 he was arrested and charged with spying for Germany.  He was innocent.  But a court found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.  Family, friends, and cultural leaders challenged the court’s findings.  But it wasn’t until 1889, five years later, that Dreyfus was given a new trial.  Anti-Jewish feelings were high at this time.  As a result, Dreyfus, a Jewish officer, did not receive a fair trial.  He was found guilty again.  In 1906, 12 years after his first arrest, his case was reviewed.  Dreyfus was declared innocent.  There is nothing more terrifying and life-altering than being declared guilty, all the while being innocent.  But there is nothing more unbelievable and joy-giving than being declared innocent, your guilt having been taken by someone else.  That’s justification.