Forensic Justification: Righteousness Through Faith in Christ

R.C. SPROUL: I wonder if we will ever forget the image that we watched on television of a white Ford Bronco making its way steadily north on a California freeway while behind it was an entire fleet of Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars and state troopers all following a national hero who was being charged with murder in the first degree. [00:00:01]

Now obviously there are a lot of things that are different between O.J. Simpson and Martin Luther, and between a Ford Bronco and a covered wagon, but there was something strangely similar about these two incidents. In the O. J. Simpson murder hearings, investigation, and trial there was a word that is commonplace in courtrooms and in criminal cases that people heard so often that it has now become a familiar word in our language. And it is the word forensic. [00:02:14]

Well, the cardinal issue of the 16th Century debate was the question, "How can an unjust person be justified in the presence of God?" How does the work of Christ and His ministry relate to the rank and file individual who is now living centuries after Jesus lived? In simple terms the issue was, what is the Gospel? What is the good news? What is it that Jesus came to do? [00:04:42]

I think we all understand that the worst possible trouble we could ever encounter would be to come before a court, come into a tribunal of ultimate judgment. It's one thing to be sitting in a cell in Los Angeles on trial for your life. It's another thing to stand before the Imperial Diet of Worms where Luther stood in the 16th Century. [00:07:26]

Now imagine being summoned into that environment, to be called into the courtroom of God to be judged by the standard of His perfection. A few years ago I spoke at a national conference of Christian booksellers. Some 6,000 people were there, all involved in the business of religious literature, and I didn't know what to speak about, and I decided, frankly, to speak on this question: "What does it mean to be saved?" [00:08:41]

I said, and that's the question I'm here to ask. Saved from what? And I said to them, what the New Testament says is the "what" from which we are saved is God. And they looked at me in utter bafflement. "No, no, no, no, no, no, Professor Sproul. It's not that we're saved from God; we're saved by God. God is our salvation. God has sent Jesus into the world to be our Savior, so it's God who is the one who is doing the saving. [00:09:56]

The scariest thing as far as I'm concerned in the whole universe is a holy God, who requires to pass the bar of judgment absolute perfection. Have we forgotten His law -- you must be holy even as I am holy. Are you holy? I'm not. Against the standard of God, I am not just. And if I have to stand in that courtroom, all of the forensic evidence, all of the DNA, all of the criminal apparatus screams that I am guilty. How can I stand? [00:11:23]

Forensic justification is that justification that comes when God Himself declares that you are just. The only way you can ever be justified is if God says you are justified. You can say to Him, hey, I've never sinned, or I tried to live a good life, or I did this, or I did that. What you need to have happen is for God to give a verdict that says to you, "You are just in My sight." [00:13:09]

Well, the Biblical concept here that is central to redemption is the concept of imputation. Imputation -- that may be a strange word to you. To impute something is to count it or reckon it or transfer it legally to somebody else's account. We remember in the drama of religion in the Old Testament, on the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, when the high priest would come and offer the sacrifice on the altar. [00:16:05]

And so the most astonishing thing to me about the life of Jesus is not that He was raised from the dead, but that He was completely sinless. He lived a life of perfect obedience, which you and I cannot do for five minutes. And so on the basis of that there is a twofold imputation. On the one hand, I think every Sunday school child understands to some degree that on the cross God transferred the guilt of His people to Christ. [00:18:49]

So, what is the grounds for your justification? Luther said it this way: That the righteousness by which we are justified is the righteousness is extra nos. It is apart from us. It is outside us. It's not your own righteousness; although it becomes your own once God declares it to be yours. In His sight it is yours. The imagery that the Bible uses is an imagery of nakedness. [00:21:15]

Let me leave you with this thought. When Martin Luther said that justification is by faith alone what Luther was saying is that justification is by the righteousness of Christ, and by the righteousness of Christ alone. This is the message of grace. This is the provision that God has made for you, and He has made none other, that if you would confess your sins and bow your knee and put your personal trust and reliance on Christ's righteousness instead of your own, then God promises to each of us the total remission of sin. That's the Gospel. [00:27:07]