With Our Words, We Justify Ourselves

This morning, I was thinking about the various things we do with words: we use them to divide what, otherwise, ought to be united (the Body of Christ, for example, likes to divide over words and definitions, when Jesus and the New Testament authors repeatedly call for unity), but we also use them to self-justify. This led me to consider the proverb (non-biblical): It is said that “he who will be his own Counselor, shall be sure to have a Fool for his Client.” From our very first sin, we have been such fools:

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:8-13)

Note how Adam blamed his wife AND God (“the woman YOU gave me”) and Eve blamed the Serpent, but both ate the fruit without much coercion. They immediately began to justify themselves when pressed by God for truth, blaming others for what they have done. Man’s history has been one of self-justification ever since. We’ve developed gods, so-called systems of justice, political means and other forms of self-justification. Some of us even go so far as to call God, the Eternal Designer of all things, unfair and unjust based solely on our own arbitrary justifications for the way we live in HIS creation. HE is the designer and author of all things, HE gets to determine the Law, and HE gets to execute the judgement HE designed for the breaking of said law.

When we stand before a perfect and Holy God, we will not get to plead our case, or justify our actions: we will be compared to the Perfect Law of God, and every single person who does will fail utterly before it. We have no hope in ourselves or in self-justification. We only have hope by being justified in Christ Jesus. And we are justified in Jesus, not through anything we’ve done, but because He lived perfectly according to all of God’s righteous requirements, and died in place of the sinners, offering His life as a ransom to the demands of the Law. He rose again offering New Life, so that those who believe, when they stand before God, will not be judged based on the Law, but will be considered based on the perfection of Jesus Christ. They are justified by Him. I cannot save myself, and neither can you. I would rather be on the side of Christ than stand before God in my own defense.

Romans 5

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.