Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Romans 5 | Date: May 29, 2022 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

We pray in His name. Amen. The New Testament doctrine of justification grows out of the Old Testament doctrine of divine judgment. Now this is important. The title of my message this morning is “Justified Already.” Justified Already. Keep that in mind. That will be important. But again, the New Testament doctrine of justification grows out of the Old Testament doctrine of divine judgment. It’s a huge theme in the Old Testament, particularly in the prophets, that God will one day call the world into account. The wicked will be punished. The righteous will be vindicated.

All of the temporal judgments that we see in the Old Testament—God’s judgment on the nations, the judgment of the flood, the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, the judgment on Egypt, the judgment on the nations that we find prophesied in the prophets—all of those temporal judgments that we find in the Old Testament are all prospective of a final judgment when God will call the world into account and all the wicked will be punished. Often that doctrine of divine judgment is associated with the Day of the Lord, a prominent theme in the prophets that we have looked at before. The scene is the end of the world, the end of history, when God comes in judgment, calling the world into account. We find it in the prophets often; in some minor prophets, it’s a familiar theme, the Day of the Lord.

We find it in the New Testament as well. Jesus speaking, for example, of those towns of Galilee that had heard Him preach, saw His miracles, and yet they rejected Him. And He makes reference to the day of judgment when He says, “It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in that day than it will be for you.” Paul makes reference to this in the book of Acts when he’s on Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17, when he speaks of that day that God has fixed in which the world will be judged with justice.

This doctrine of divine judgment is the background to the doctrine of justification. The necessity of divine judgment lies in the righteous character of God and in our relationship to Him. We are His creatures, we are accountable to Him, and one day we will be called into account. In the end, justice must be served. God is a righteous judge and justice will be served. And that, in a nutshell, is the doctrine of divine judgment. All the world will be held accountable before God at the end of history. We find some graphic language for that in the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation; both use the metaphor of the open books. The dead will be raised and they will stand before God in judgment. The books will be opened and judgment will be rendered accordingly. A sobering teaching that we find really throughout the scriptures.

A Divided Outcome In Judgment

Many of the passages that speak of this doctrine of divine judgment specify that there will be a divided outcome in judgment. There’ll be a separation of the righteous from the unrighteous. Let me give you just a sampling of that from the Old Testament. You needn’t turn to it; I’ll just read some for you.

Psalm 37: In Psalm 37, we have the psalmist dealing with the problem of evil. The wicked seem to prosper. They seem to get the upper hand. And so the psalmist now is counseling the righteous, “Fret not because of evildoers,” and so on. Be patient, God will make it right. And in Psalm 37 verses 9 to 11, we read, “The evildoers shall be cut off. But those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while, the wicked will be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.” A separation will happen in this day of judgment, a separation of the righteous from the unrighteous.

We find it again in Isaiah chapter 65, beginning with verse 9. God says, “I will bring forth offspring from Jacob and from Judah, possessors of my mountains. My chosen shall possess it. My servants shall dwell there. Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks and the Valley of Achor, a place for herds to lie down for my people who have sought me. But you,” here’s the contrast, “but you who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, I will destine you to the sword and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter. Because when I called, you did not answer. When I spoke, you did not listen, but you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what I did not delight in. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame. Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.”

And then in Daniel chapter 12 verses 1 to 3, “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people and there shall be a time of trouble such as has never been since there was a nation until that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book of life, and many of those who sleep in the dust of earth shall wake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.”

Well, passages like this could be multiplied, that there’ll be this separation in the end, this division of humanity among the righteous and the unrighteous. This is the end-time judgment, and there are these two outcomes that come. For the one, there’ll be condemnation. For the other, there will be vindication or justification. Jesus makes reference to this in Matthew chapter 25 in the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep on the right, the goats on the left go to be condemned. All that, I say in a nutshell, is the doctrine of divine judgment.

Romans And Divine Judgment

Romans, that we have been looking at, this epistle to the Romans, has a heavy concern with divine judgment. In Romans chapters one to three, as we have seen, the apostle Paul establishes universal guilt of humanity, that every last man, woman, and child is guilty before God. Some have received special revelation through Moses. They’ve received the law and they’ve seen it objectively: “Thou shalt,” “thou shalt not.” Others have not seen that objective revelation given, but they have the law of God written on their heart. But universally, all of us know better than we have done. Each of us has rebelled against what we know to be right. And the justice of God in judgment is thereby established. And that’s an important theme as well, associated with the doctrine of judgment, that God is just in His judgment.

And so in chapters one to three, through Romans, Paul establishes the universal guilt of mankind and God’s righteousness in condemning them. And then the last part of chapter three of Romans, he picks up with the doctrine of justification. In between, in chapter 2, verses 5 to 16, we have a summary of this doctrine of divine judgment. If you’d like to turn back to see that, you can see it. I’m just going to glance through it quickly. You’ll see a summary of this “day of judgment” theme.

Romans 2 beginning with verse 5: In verses 5 and following, we have the principle of divine judgment, and that is it will be exact retribution. Verse 6, “He’ll render to each one according to his works.” What you have done, you will be judged for. This is one of those passages, I think, that establishes degrees of punishment in hell. Here we have the principle of judgment: exact retribution. He will render to each one according to his work.

And then verses 9 and 10, we again have the two outcomes of the judgment. Verse 9, “There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good.” The separation of humanity into the righteous and the unrighteous and the differing outcomes between them.

And then we have in verses 12 and following, we have stated and emphasized the standard of judgment, and that standard is God’s law. Again, it may be some for whom the law was given formally and others for whom it’s written on their hearts, but each of us has rebelled against what we know and judgment will be rendered accordingly.

And then verse 16, we have the scope of divine judgment, and that is it will take into account everything, even the secret things and every detail. Verse 16, “On that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” If you take this seriously at all, it is a sobering, a horrifying kind of scene that is presented when we, the creature, stand before the Creator and God judges according to works, and justice is finally meted out. That’s the point then: justice is finally served, sinners must be punished, and only the righteous will be vindicated.

Two Ways This Informs Justification

Now all of that is the background, and it informs for us this New Testament doctrine of justification in two important ways. Now, I’ve mentioned one of these before, so I won’t spend much time on it, but all of this informs justification in two ways.

Number one, it shows that justification is a judicial concept. God, in pronouncing us righteous, is not functioning like a doctor who’s examined us and says, “Yeah, they’re good people, they’re well now.” It’s a pronouncement of a judge who examines the case and makes a pronouncement accordingly. It’s a courtroom atmosphere. It’s a judicial concept. Justification is God looking at the accused and pronouncing the sentence of the court, the verdict of the court: “righteous.”

And the other way this informs the New Testament doctrine of justification—and this is what we’re going to emphasize the rest of the time—I want you to see this, that justification is (let me use the big term first) justification is an eschatological concept. That is, it’s associated with the end-time judgment. Justification is associated with the end-time judgment. We’re going to explore this, so hang on to that. It looks to the final judgment resulting in condemnation on the one hand and justification on the other. So justification, once again, is properly associated with the final judgment when God looks at the accused and pronounces either “condemned” or “vindicated.”

And we have some clues to that here in Romans. If you want to look back at chapter two, for example, again, verse 13, notice: “It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” There’s the future tense. It’s looking ahead to a final judgment and the doers of the law will be justified. If you look at chapter eight, verse 33, again we have the future tense. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? Who shall condemn us?” There it’s looking ahead to the final judgment when we stand before God and the verdict is rendered. Justification is associated with the end-time judgment.

Now you have other passages—we won’t take time to turn to them since we’re not there—but if you would like to jot down Galatians chapter 5 and verse 5, Paul says, “We ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” The hope of righteousness, that is, looking ahead to the time of judgment. I am looking ahead to that time when I will be vindicated, justified—the hope of righteousness. Paul says it again in 2 Timothy 4 in verse 5, where he speaks of the “crown of righteousness,” which God will give in that day to all of those who love His appearing. The crown of righteousness, that is justification. God pronounces us righteous and it will be given to us in that day.

So the hope of the faithful, the people of God throughout the scriptures, is that in that day, God’s people, who in this day are despised by the world and condemned by the world, in that day will be vindicated and God will pronounce them just and righteous and they will be vindicated.

The Ground Of Our Justification

Now the question arises at that point—I hope you follow me through this because this has just massively important implications we’ll get to in a minute. The question arises now: how in the world is it that anyone on that last day could ever be pronounced righteous by God, the judge? Paul has spent the first three chapters of Romans pressing the point that every last one of us is guilty before God. “There’s none righteous, not even one.” And Paul has worked that over and over again in Romans 1, 2, and then the first part of chapter 3 as well. How is it that anyone in that day can be vindicated before God?

And the answer is what we find in the last part of Romans chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, 6, 7, and 8, where he deals with the means of justification and then the implications of it. And the means of justification—remember we saw that packed paragraph in chapter 3—is that God justifies freely as a gift. That is, He gives you the righteousness that He requires of you, and yet He does it in a righteous way. And He does it in a righteous way by giving us instead our substitute, who does everything for us that God requires of us. And in Jesus, we have one who is perfect before God, offers Himself in sacrifice to God for our sin. The word Paul uses is he’s “propitiation” for our sins. He’s satisfied the demands of divine justice in taking the wrath of our sin to Himself. And because of His substitutionary death, rendering satisfaction to divine justice, we are redeemed from the curse of the law, and being redeemed, God is free to justify us justly.

And that’s Paul’s whole argument in Romans chapter three. God justifies us freely by grace through our substitute who has done for us everything that God requires of us. And we now are joined to Him by faith; and joined to Him by faith, we have all of the salvation that He embodies, and we have in Him all that God has required of us. That’s Romans 3 verses 24 and following.

We get to chapter four, and Paul gives the illustration of Abraham. Even Abraham wasn’t justified by works; he’s justified by faith. He gives the illustration of David. “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity.” God doesn’t count sin against His people; He counts it against their substitute. And because of Him, they are credited with righteousness that is foreign to them but given to them through their union with Christ. And Paul sums that up in Romans 4 verse 25: “He was delivered over for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

All of that to say that the ground of our justification before God in that day, that day of judgment, the ground of our vindication before God will not lie in anything we have done. It will lie solely in what Christ has done for us, fulfilling all the demands of divine justice in our place. And so God pronounces us righteous because of our substitute and what He has done for us.

And so what we’ve seen the last couple of weeks: one, justification is God’s judicial declaration of righteousness. Number two, justification is never grounded in our merit. Number three, justification is always by grace. Number four, justification is in keeping with divine justice. God has not cut any corners in saving sinners. And in justifying ungodly people, God has not cut any corners. But all of justice has been satisfied through Christ. And then we saw the last time or two that we are justified by faith—merely a receiving of Christ and in Him all that God requires of us. And then we saw last time, chapter five and verse one, as a consequence of our justification by faith, we have peace with God.

Justified Already

All right, we’ve seen all of that. Now we see the end-time connotations of it. That’s the background of this doctrine of justification. What is surprising now—this is what I’ve been eager to bring—what is surprising is the timing of our justification. Our justification, keep in mind, justification is associated with the end-time judgment. But what is surprising, and we find this in Romans and throughout the New Testament, is that justification is the present status of every believer in Jesus.

So in chapter three, verse 24, “we are justified by his grace.” And now Romans five again, look at verse one, very explicit: “Since we have been justified by his grace.” “Since we have been”—this is the present, the past experience. Coming to Christ in faith, that judgment has been pronounced; we are justified. Verse nine is even more explicit. And notice he builds the argument on it here, verse nine: “Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”

So here he reasons from the present to the future. The verdict has already been pronounced. We are now justified by faith. And if we are now justified by faith, then surely much more in that end-time judgment, we shall be saved from the wrath to come. Because that verdict has already been pronounced. And a final judgment, in other words, has been brought forward, and in Christ, judgment has been meted out, and the verdict for us has been stated: we are righteous, we’re justified by virtue of our association with Christ, and we share in His vindication. And joined to Him, we are justified, and the verdict has been pronounced already. Justification is the present enjoyment of what properly belongs to the end times. Hang on to that, extremely important. We’ll see more of it as we go along. Justification is the present enjoyment of what properly belongs to the end-time judgment.

Now, in a way, this is in keeping with a lot of what we have seen along the way in this series. In the synoptic gospels, for example—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—characteristic of the synoptic gospels is the proclamation that the kingdom of God has come. That takes us all the way back to the beginning of history. Authority has been usurped by Satan, it has become Satan’s world, and God now throughout history is going to—the point is to reestablish His rule in history. And it’s going to culminate in this end time with the resurrection of the dead and God comes to judge the world to be called into account before Him.

The surprising thing in the synoptic gospels is that that kingdom has already come. In Jesus, the King has come and He’s inaugurated the kingdom. Now it hasn’t come in its fullness; it still waits its consummation, but the kingdom has come, it’s been inaugurated. And in this time period, in this age, the kingdom doesn’t come with a bang and a clash and the world brought into judgment before God. In this age, the kingdom advances through the sowers sowing the seed, and the seed that falls on good ground, it springs up and bears fruit, and the kingdom advances in that way. In this age, the kingdom is like the mustard seed that falls in the ground. It grows and it becomes this huge plant. That’s how the kingdom advances. It’s sort of secret, almost unnoticed by the world, but it’s advancing. It’s an inaugurated form. It’s still being opposed. One day it’ll be complete, but the kingdom is here. It has been inaugurated. That’s Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Huge emphasis in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

We get to John. John doesn’t speak as much about the kingdom coming; John speaks of eternal life. And again, that’s an end-time concept, eternal life. That’s the life of the resurrection that will come when you’re raised from the dead and you enjoy eternal life forever with God in His kingdom. A surprising thing that we find in the gospel of John in particular is that eternal life is the present possession of every believer in Jesus. Whoever hears my word, believes on Him that has sent me, has eternal life, and has passed from death unto life, and shall not come into judgment, because already passed from death. It’s already happened; it’s been inaugurated. The fullness is yet to come, but it’s already here. That’s the gospel of John.

So in the synoptics, we have the inauguration of the kingdom. In John, we have eternal life already. We come to Paul; he still speaks of the kingdom and he still speaks of eternal life, but Paul’s emphasis is justification. And that also is an end-time concept. We stand before God in judgment and the verdict is rendered: guilty or not guilty, condemned or not condemned, acquitted, and so on. And joined to Christ, the whole emphasis of it here is that in Jesus Christ, that verdict of the heavenly court has already been pronounced. Joined to Christ by faith, we share in His vindication. This is the significance of our union with Christ now, that we share in all that He has accomplished, and in His vindication, we are vindicated as well. And so for us, that dreadful end-time event of final judgment has been brought forward into history. The verdict’s already been pronounced, and we are righteous.

Let me show you one more verse of that, and that’s Romans chapter eight. Very familiar verse, and I want you to see it. Romans eight, verse one: “There is therefore now,” see that word? “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” What’s the significance of the “now”? Paul is thinking of justification in terms of its proper context, the end-time judgment. Already, now, there’s no condemnation. Theologians, of course, like to say this in the most sophisticated ways they possibly can. And one famous theologian has looked at all of this and he comes to Romans chapter eight and verse one. And he says, “This is the now of eschatological realization.” Don’t you love that? And if you can just remember to say that, you’ll sound like you know a lot. The “now” of eschatological realization. I’m waiting to say that or not. The point is he’s looking at the end-time judgment when God pronounces His people righteous, no condemnation. And Paul is saying, now that’s the case already.

Now, this is one of the major differences between Roman Catholic theology and reformed theology. In Roman Catholic theology, the pronouncement of justification, the verdict of justification, is left in question until the final judgment. Robert Bellarmine, the most outstanding Roman Catholic theologian of the Counter-Reformation, influential at the Council of Trent and so on—Robert Bellarmine said that the greatest heresy of the Protestants is—what would you fill in the blank? The greatest heresy of the Protestants is their doctrine of assurance. How in the world could you ever presume? What awful presumption for you to presume that you’ve already arrived there at that end time. It’s left in question until the end judgment. You can’t know that. Reformers understood better: that that verdict belonging at the end of history has been brought forward and is now the experience and the status of every believer in Christ. Justified already.

The Value Of This Doctrine

Now the value of this—I’ve been trying to do this with all of this fine-tuned theology. What is the value of it? The implications of this are just enormous. It’s a massive—it gives us a massive ground of confidence before God. This has massive implications with regard to the security of the believer, with regard to assurance of salvation. Romans 5 verse 9 again: “Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” Again, he reasons from the present to the future, that this present justification is tied tightly in this verse to the final judgment. Our present justification is tied to the final judgment, and our assurance and our confidence with regard to the future judgment, the final judgment of God, is grounded in the fact that the judge’s pronouncement has already been given.

Now this answers the question then—I suppose most of you have, if you haven’t asked this question, puzzled over this question, you’re the exception—but most of us have puzzled over the question: what about our subsequent sins? So I come to Christ in faith and I receive in Him forgiveness, justification from all my sins. But now tomorrow I sin again, and next month there’s a whole lot more, and the year after that there’s a whole lot more. What about all of those sins coming after coming to Christ? I’m forgiven of all my sins, but what about the sins committed later?

And you see the answer here is really obvious. The answer is found in the big picture. This is large perspective here. That final verdict has already been rendered to all of us in Christ. He has been vindicated before God. We are joined to Him by faith now. And in Him, we already enjoy God’s pronouncement: righteous, not guilty, no condemnation. And so Paul reasons, if that’s already happened, well, the end-time judgment has already happened. And if I’ve been justified now, I’m going to be saved from the wrath to come. That verdict has already been rendered. Our present justification is no less than the final pronouncement of God in judgment given ahead of time.

Now, if you’re thinking, you’re thinking: that’s just—that’s just too good to be true. And in fact, a doctrine like that is open to all kinds of abuse. “Huh, I’m safe. Already been justified. Sin doesn’t matter. I can sin all I want. It doesn’t matter anymore.” And isn’t it interesting that that’s the topic Paul takes up in the next chapter. The gospel offers just this kind of freeness in Christ, inaugurated eschatology. And if this were the classroom, I’d be exploring this further now with the students and say, the doctrine of the end times is tied to the doctrine of salvation. The doctrine of salvation is tied to the doctrine of end times; you can’t separate them. And I would say the doctrine of end times and doctrine of salvation are tied to the doctrine of Christ, and the doctrine of Christ is really all of the other. Explore how that works.

What’s important is the upshot of all of that. And the upshot of it all is that this is just a massive ground of confidence and assurance before God. Is it presumptuous for us to say, “I have been saved, I’m already saved”? Is it presumptuous for us to say that when I stand before God in judgment, I have every confidence that He will acquit me? Paul is laboring here to tell us that no, that is not presumptuous; that is precisely what we have in Jesus. By virtue of our union with Christ by faith, we have already stood the judgment and the verdict has been rendered and we are safe in Christ forever. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father,