Justification

RV182-02

I appreciate the many comments received following the previous session. We who are in show biz have a term that we apply to jokes that we use – jokes that prove to be sleepers. Sleepers are humorous things that you don't think are going to hit it off big, and you get an explosive response.

One time when I was teaching about the kinds of people you should marry, and giving some guidance for picking a marriage partner, I had previously written on the overhead projector, "Do not marry;" (with the semicolon), and then I was going to put under that the kinds of people you should not consider for marriage. So, I announced my subject: "I'm now going to give you advice concerning the subject of marriage," and I flipped the overhead projector on, and everybody read, "Do not marry." There was an explosion of laughter, and that was a sleeper. And I was caught off guard. For a moment, I couldn't figure out what caused the humor, and then I realized the connection.

Well, the previous session sermon was a sleeper. It was a review of the whole doctrine of how to go to heaven; salvation; and, the enormous confusion and deception that Satan has done with that subject by taking the gospel and giving it a twist that veered people off into the lake of fire who think they're going to heaven. The remarks included, "Isn't it sad that so-and-so wasn't here?" One young man said, "I had gotten this person to church last Sunday, and this Sunday was what they needed to hear especially, and they're absent." Isn't that always the way it is? Somebody said, "I really do have to get the tape on that." The tape ministry is going to be working overtime, getting fast copies of that particular message, because it was amazing how many people said, "That is the clarification. I have a family member need that needs that understanding." Or they said, "That was a great clarification to me." And what are we talking about? We're talking about the gospel.

One lady went out from that session and said, "You'll be interested in knowing that I was at a funeral recently. 11 years ago, you preached the funeral of a father in this family." This lady was at that service, and she said, "I remember to this day at the funeral of your father-in-law, that presentation of the gospel. It was the clearest presentation, and it opened my eyes, and it gave me confidence on how to go to heaven."

It is my custom to honor the person who has died and to honor God by not zeroing in too much upon the individual, but to zero in on the Lord in whose presence that Christian resides, and the gospel message which ought to be commonplace to Christian people and to church people. But it is amazing how little they know about what the Bible calls the gospel of the grace of God. Most church members are abysmally ignorant, and they're so stubborn and bullheaded, and they're so confident that they will not say, "Tell me, what does God say?" But they get sobered when they're sitting at a funeral service, and where they wouldn't listen otherwise, there they give an ear. Yeah, we had a sleeper in the previous session, because it dealt with the crucial subject that makes all the difference in the world as to where you will spend eternity.

The Eternal Gospel

God's Plan of Salvation

Don't Add Human Actions

What are Human Actions?

If you haven't got that straight, perhaps that's why you're in this room at this point in time. And you look back upon this point in time for eternity, and you will say, "Thank God that I was there. I got that straight." Or you look back upon it and say, "Oh, God, had I only paid attention, I would not now be in this agony."

The Rich Man and Lazarus

The Gospel – The Good News

Grace

Early on in the New Testament church, they immediately had a battle over the doctrine of salvation, because Jews who had become Christians, from their background, could not let go the old system and said, "No male goes to heaven unless we have performed the religious act of circumcision upon him." This is just as people today say, "Nobody goes to heaven unless we have performed order baptism upon him." Paul said, "If you keep doing that, and you had your circumcision to what Christ has done on the cross, you're going to put your whole body in hell forever. If you keep adding some religious ritual to what Christ has done, you will put yourself in hell forever." There is no question about it. God has spoken clearly about this subject. The issue facing a human being is accepting God's grace offer.

It is sad to say that most of mankind since Adam have rejected God's offer. They have devised their own plans of salvation, none of which can work. All of them are basically adding something to what Christ has done.

The angel here in Revelation 14:6 is giving a final proclamation of grace salvation to the tribulation world, a salvation which is viewed as eternal because this is the one that existed from eternity past when the Godhead held that meeting, and decided how mankind would be brought back out of sin into heaven. Everyone must choose, therefore, in favor of human righteousness or divine righteousness as the basis for facing God. Some of you were deeply impressed in the previous session when I outlined for you the difference between human righteousness and divine righteousness. God is not asking you to give that human righteousness, which might be 60%, and let Him give the remaining 40% that you need to get into heaven, because human righteousness and divine righteousness are totally different.

God says that it has to be all of His absolute righteousness, and none of your human righteousness, which actually comes out of your sin nature. People today fail to distinguish between these two types of righteousnesses. And unless God gives them the understanding, they miss the point completely. If you sit here now and say, "Oh, I believe that I must do something to deserve to be saved, or I must do something to maintain my salvation, then I can tell you that you're not only wrong, but the sad part about it is that God has not chosen to invite you. So, don't compliment yourself. You've missed the boat completely, and God has not illuminated you, or you would see it immediately. There's great confusion over God's plan of salvation in society today, and in the issues that are involved in what God has done to make it possible for a sinner to enter heaven.

Deception

In Philippians 3:9, the apostle Paul expresses his preference for divine righteousness rather than human righteousness. The apostle says, concerning himself (his hope): "That he may be found in Him (in Christ), not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law." He says, that it is not his human righteousness because he kept the moral Law. Well, who doesn't want you to keep the moral Law? That's what you should do. But is that going to take you into heaven? No. Paul says, "That's a different kind of righteousness. That's a human righteousness. It's a righteousness that I have achieved by obeying the laws of God. But that's not going to take me into heaven. It's not enough." Paul says, "But that righteousness which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith." He says, "The righteousness I prefer is the one that only God can give me; that is, the righteousness of Jesus Christ."

The Glory of God

So, man can produce a relative righteousness. He can produce a righteousness where he is better than the person sitting next to him, or the person down the street. That is a relative righteousness that human beings can achieve, but that is totally useless with God. You can be the best person on the block, but it is meaningless, even if you were 100% good on man's scale of righteousness. It doesn't count with God. That's a different kind of righteousness. Without God's absolute righteousness, no one can have eternal life to go to heaven.

Well, you might say that God asks the impossible of us. That's right. In fact, God the Father said that He has declared all mankind under sin. Can you imagine what He's saying? He's saying the moment I'm born into the human race, I come under Adam's guilt, because what Adam did as our representative puts us all on the road to hell. So, we're already condemned, and that condemnation locks in at the moment that you are old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong – accepting and rejecting Christ. At that point, your condemnation locks in. Now you are faced with the fact that you are hopelessly doomed to the lake of fire, and nothing can change that without receiving the absolute righteousness of God. And when you come into the picture, waiting upon God to give you that absolute righteousness, then everything changes, and suddenly, you are qualified to go to heaven. In that way, you can be as good as Jesus Christ.

If all you're depending upon is that you're better than the next person, or that you're as good as you can be by your efforts, it is useless. It's not a matter of securing 60% of righteousness on your own, and getting the other 40% as a gift from God. It all has to come from God. You come into the human race, and you are under the condemnation of God. That's bad enough. Then you come past the age of accountability, and what do you do? You start sinning in your own right. Everybody knows he's a sinner. That certainly puts the nail in the coffin of your eternal doom. And if that's not enough, Paul tells us that God has declared us all under sin. God as the judge makes an official decree that every human being is under sin, and condemned.

A Threefold Condemnation

This gift of absolute righteousness, to one who is under such a condemnation of sin, is the only way out. If God let you out any other way, then God would be guilty of sinning. Do you understand? If God would let you go to heaven on the basis of your goodness, He Himself would be guilty of sin. But God didn't do that. He came up with a plan to do just this – to give you a way out by doing it all Himself, and therefore, He can declare you to be fully justified in His sight. Justified means that you possess the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:26 puts it this way: "For the demonstration, that is, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Do you see what that verse is saying? God has demonstrated His own righteousness, that He did not excuse your sin, and that He did not ask you to cooperate in getting yourself saved. God could not maintain His own justice if he did that. How can God be just and fair and sinless in saving you? There is only one way – by justifying you on the basis of someone who has paid for your sins, and then giving you the result of that atonement as a free gift. You are not involved anywhere along the line.

That's why you can never lose your salvation, because your grubby, little, dirty hands can never get on it to foul up a salvation that you had nothing to do with. Only God produced your salvation. That's why you go to sleep at night, and if you never wake up again on this side of eternity, you don't have to worry. You don't have to wonder if you're going to make it. Have you ever heard that pitiful response?

Have you ever said, "Jim, are you going to heaven?" And Jim responds, "Oh, I sure hope so. I've done my best. I've tried." What do you know about Jim? "Jim, get your asbestos clothing, because you're going to need it." You're not sure you're going to heaven? I know what your problem is. You think that you haven't done something that you need to do so that God will be satisfied to let you into heaven. If you think that, you're trying to get into heaven on the wrong basis. You're out of it. You're gone. If you think that you've done the best you can, and all you have is a hope, then you're doomed. A person who understands that salvation is an act of God from one end to the other will immediately say to you, "You betcha." You might say, "Are you sinless, Jim?" He can say, "No, I'm not sinless, but Christ is sinless, and my salvation depends upon what He did. And when I sin, I confess, and I make it right. I cease and desist, and I get back in fellowship with God, but that never affected my relationship to Him as Father.

We can look at the prodigal son in the historical record. And, only an idiot would look at the prodigal son and say, when he was with the pigs in sin, that he was no longer the son; and that man who had given him birth was no longer his father. Any reasonable person would say, "Yeah, he was really out of it. He was deep in sin, tut that man was still his father. He was still in the family."

That's how it is with Christians. Yes, Christians can be horrid people and terrible people, but then God disciplines. He'll bring you to your knees, and I have seen, as I'm sure you have, some really horrid Christians. And on more than one occasion, I have seen Christians who have been jerked out of this life by their hair roots, and all of a sudden they're gone. And down inside of me, I can't help wondering whether there I have seen an example of the sin unto death.

Many years ago, we had a man in this church who would attend. His wife was a faithful attender, but he was indifferent. He was resistant. He was a good guy. He was good enough. One Sunday evening, we had talked about this subject of the gospel. So, I came to the end of the service, and I turned it over to Ron Blue, who would come up and lead a closing hymn. Some of you will remember Ron Blue, who is now going to be the head of Central American Mission. Ron got up and said, "I just feel, before the Lord, that I want to add a word of emphasis to what Dr. Danish has said concerning the issue of accepting Christ as Savior." And he gave a little bit of an additional emphasis from a little different angle – that this is important, and you should not ignore this. That man was in the service that night. We dismissed, and I stood up here, and saw that man walk to that door right there, and for a moment, he stopped, and he turned, and looked back. What was in his mind? What was he wondering about? By Tuesday morning, he was dead. That was the last I ever saw of him, and he was on the other side – a resister to the end.

How many times do you think that he thought about that service in this gymnasium that his wife bugged him to coming to, and he heard the double-headed emphasis upon taking the gospel seriously? God wants you in heaven, but you go there on His basis, and you must not perform any religious ritual; you must not add anything to what Christ has done; and, you must never listen to the liars who tell you that your good works; your Lord supper; your water baptism; your good life; your finances; or, anything else are going to take you to heaven. That will take you to hell no matter what you think about Jesus Christ.

The whole tribulation world will not understand this. We have a lot of problem with people understanding this today. That's why God sent this angel – one last declaration to all mankind about the gospel of the grace of God: salvation – absolutely free.

The plan was for the payment for the sins of mankind, because the sins of mankind were all imputed to Jesus Christ when he hung on that cross from 12:00 noon to 3 o'clock in the afternoon when He died. Now, because He paid for all the sins of mankind (past, present, and future) there is no sin that will take you into hell. Do you understand God is not dealing with sin anymore? He's not interested in your sin. He's not concerned with discussing sin with you. If you're a child of God, you come under discipline for sin until you turn around. If you're not a believer, your sin will bring you disease, destruction, and other things. But the sin problem is solved. The only thing that God is concerned with you is: will you accept the salvation gift that Christ has provided? Would you let Him impute to you the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that you are as good as Christ in his eyes? It is a free gifts to people who will accept it.

A Free Gift

The gift of God is eternal life. There's no other way to get it except as a gift. So, if you throw in your ritual; throw in your human agency; or, throw in something you can do, and no matter how much you believe in Christ as Savior, you will be in the lake of fire. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that (salvation), not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as the result of works, so that no one should boast." No one will ever stand in God's presence, and smugly boast of how much they deserve to be there.

You tell me what Romans 3:22 means when it says, "Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction." Here he's talking about no matter who you are (Jew; gentile; or, whatever your background), there's no distinction. Everybody goes to heaven the same way. What's the key word? By believing something. That's all. What do you believe? You believe that Christ paid for your sins, and that He will give you eternal life on that basis, because now He is free to do that. Until Christ died, God the Father was not free to give you salvation as a gift. The price of death had to be paid.

Absolute Righteousness

So, the divine declaration is that a believing sinner possesses the absolute righteousness of God, and I tell you that that is no fiction. You are now as good as Jesus Christ positionally. When you die and go into heaven (in His presence), you will be as good as Jesus Christ in your experience. Now you do sin, but in God's sight, in your position, you are as good as Christ. You have His absolute righteousness. This is not something in the future. You have eternal life right now. You have absolute righteousness right now, as shocking as that might seem for the way some people live. But that is the truth. It's not a fiction. It's actually the case because Christ has paid for our sins. And when He paid for them, He satisfied the one thing in God the Father that had to be satisfied so that He could open the door of heaven to you. God's justice had to be satisfied. God has to be fair. His own character cannot allow somebody whose sins have not been covered by Christ to enter heaven.

Propitiation

God the Son has become the satisfaction to God the Father, with His justice satisfied toward our sin for all the world. The righteousness that God gives you, that takes him into heaven, you cannot increase that. It's a different kind of righteousness. Nor can you decrease it by your badness. That's where people stumble. They think that the righteousness that God gives them can be decreased so that they're disqualified from heaven by how they live. No. The righteousness that God gives, the absolute righteousness of Christ that a believer receives, can never be increased by anything you do that's good, and it can never be decreased by anything you do that's bad. You have nothing to do with it. It's all of God.

Justification

Some of you folks have lived through a war. You had family members who were overseas at a distance who were in the service. They were usually represented at home in some prominent place by a picture. Can you imagine what it would be like to come home after a war, and you walk in and your wife says, "Oh, I'm so happy to see you," and she runs over and grabs a picture and hugs it? Right away, you know that she has become a little flaky because of the war effort or something. Why would she go with the symbol when the reality is now there?

God does not deal with a fiction. We have the reality of eternal life – absolute righteousness through Christ Jesus. And when we have the Savior, we do not grasp a symbol like water baptism, and say, "This is where the reality is." No, that's just a picture. The reality was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And when you have that, which everybody does at the moment of salvation, you're in the family of God forever.

What happens is that your sins are forgiven when you trust in Christ. You have now been removed from all condemnation. We call that the negative side of salvation. Your sins are forgiven. Your moral guilt is removed, but that won't take you into heaven. Forgiven sin will not take you into heaven. You have to have something else that only God can give you as a gift. You must have the absolute righteousness of Christ, and that's imputed to you. That's called justification. That's the positive act – the positive side of salvation. The negative side is that your sins are forgiven. The positive side is that you're given the absolute righteousness of God. With that combination, you're headed for heaven.

The grace basis of all this makes it fair to everybody. It doesn't matter who you are. God does it equally for everyone. It would be very unfair for God to base heaven upon how good you are. Some people can find being good easily. I mean, when you look at someone like Ruthanne Wilhoit, she's a goody-two-shoes from way back. But you take a look at some guy like Bob Short, and things are going to go pretty hard there. That would be very unfair. Some people are just naturally nice and good. Others are horrid. God says, "That's irrelevant. I'm going to do it, and it's going to be done right.

Those who insist on adding something to this which God has done are neutralizing the basis upon which they may be saved. I cannot stress that enough. And just to be sure that you don't think I'm making that up, I want to read to you Romans 4:4-5. Now, forget what your religious leaders have told you, and open your mind to what God is saying. In Romans 4:4-5, Paul says, "Now to the one who works (for his salvation, or for anything), his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due." When you receive your weekly salary from your employer, you do not take him by the hand, and kiss his hand, and thank him for his gift. No. You say, "Thank you," and you're a little upset if it isn't on time. Why? Because it's yours. You have earned it. You have a right to claim it. It's a wage.

Notice verse 5: "But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness." So, Paul says, "If you work for your salvation, you get what you earn (human righteousness), which takes you right into the lake of fire. But if you accept what God has done through Christ as a gift, and you simply believe in Christ – that He is honest in telling you that He will save you, then God will justify you. He will give you absolute righteousness." That's what the Bible says. This is not a fiction.

This book of Romans was written to make it very clear how to go to heaven. And in Romans 11:6, this same principle is again emphasized. If you add something in a ritual to what Christ has done, and you will end up in hell. Paul says, "But if it is by grace (speaking of salvation), it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace." They are mutually exclusive. You can't say, "I'm going to have 60% of my human works, and 40% of God's grace to get me into heaven." God says, "I'll save you on grace, and you cannot include works. They're mutually exclusive. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace.

God's righteousness is kept absolutely intact on the basis of what He has done. He does not commit a falsehood by taking you into heaven when you do not deserve that. He has brought you in on the basis that is absolutely genuine, because He has provided the ground for that.

There is one other thing. This magnificent salvation that the angel refers to as this eternal gospel, and he preaches it to everybody who lives on earth – every kind of person. And he says, "This you must do." Why must I do this? Because this is how I will demonstrate my respect for God. This is how I will show that I have a reverence for Him and for what He says.

It is very contemptuous of us as human beings to sit down and think our own way through this issue of salvation, and then come up with a system that we say is the way God works. A lot of people do that, and they will find to their regret that God does not operate on the way you think He should operate.

So, here's the message. There is a heaven, and there is a hell, and all of us are headed for that terrible place. God, being what He is, had to be honest and fair with Himself. He could not violate His own holiness and His own righteousness by ignoring sin. The penalty had to be paid. That penalty has now been paid so that personal sin is no longer an issue. Now the only issue is: what will you do with Jesus Christ, who has received your sin so that you could receive His righteousness? Now you must decide. I will accept that absolute righteousness. I'll take it on God's only basis as a gift. I won't try to pay for it. Yes, I want to live a godly life. I want to learn the principles of Scripture by which I should live, but I'm not going to try to pay Him for what He has done in my behalf. Therefore, my salvation, my eternal well-being, will be absolutely certain.

The grace basis of salvation is fair and equal, and if you pursue a human righteousness, it is not only a waste of time, but it's extremely dangerous. That's what I've been trying to tell you. It's extremely dangerous for you to add anything to what Christ has done. If you insist on doing so, and if you refuse to abandon all your human efforts to be saved, then God's magnificent grace cannot apply to you, and you will spend eternity in the lake of fire.

So, what should you do? Should you respect Him? Should you turn to the Bible, and say, "Let's see what it says?" But you say, "Oh I've read verses in the Bible that tell me that I have to do this and that to be saved." One of the favorite, of course, is that I have to have water baptism.

Baptisms

Holy Spirit Baptism

So, do not be deceived by somebody who gets hung up on an idea that the Bible does not confirm. If you know anything about the gospel of John, you will know that in John 20:30, John tells us why he wrote his gospel. He says, "Many other signs, therefore, Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book." John said, "I've told you a lot of the things that Jesus did: miracles and signs to confirm who He was, what He was doing.

Now notice verse 31: "But these (the things that I have told you about the work of Christ) have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name." Throughout this gospel, which was written exclusively and explicitly to tell you how to go to heaven, John explains how to find eternal life. Something like 125 times, he tells you how to go to heaven, and it is always to believe that what Christ did on the cross covers your sin. Never once does he say, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and have water baptism, and you go into heaven."

Wouldn't it be a criminal act for God the Holy Spirit to give us a book that He tells us is designed to lead us to understand how to go to heaven, and then tell us that all we have to do is believe in Christ as Savior, and not remind us that we have a ritual to perform, or we're not in? Now, I'm not coming down too hard on this. There are preachers that have point blank been asked: "If I do not have water baptism, and I trust in Christ as Savior, will I go to heaven?" And I have had them say to me, "No, you will not go to heaven." And the thing about it is that when you read the Bible, you discover that Paul says, "If you add a human work, you've denied God the grace basis, and your water baptism is the very thing that will keep you out of heaven.

Now, talk about the devil being smart, and taking the true gospel and giving it a twist that leads you off astray into the lake of fire. There's the example.

So, this angel is proclaiming throughout the tribulation world: "One more time, folks: this is your last opportunity before the Second Coming of Christ when your destiny will be determined. I'm telling you the eternal gospel of the free grace of God one more time. Believe it, or be lost." And the same message applies to us. Believe it or be lost.

It is amazing how many people you and I know (how many relatives we have) that we must have an uneasy feeling that they are never going to see heaven shores, and they're never going to see the Marines in heaven who guard those golden streets, because they have put themselves into a position where they're going to be doomed forever. Why? Because they turn their back on what the gracious Creator God has provided for them.

What is the message of God? What is the message of this angel at this point in time? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. Period. Over; out; nothing more. Accept that, and you will live. Reject that, and you will have the eternal death in the presence of Satan in the lake of fire. Which will it be for you?

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

Back to the Revelation index