\n\nWho Will Be Justified Before God?
I recently asked a local religious leader who would be justified before
God at the judgment seat of Christ (John 5:21-22)? To which he replied,
\u201cI believe all good people will be in heaven.\u201d To which I said, \u201cWhat is
the basis or root cause of goodness?\u201d The religious man said, \u201cHe
thought that the standard to which we would gain eternal heaven was
based upon how many goods works we produced.\u201d This man, like most
religious lost people have no concept what God Almighty requires (Gal.
3:10). Because God is Holy and all men sinful, the best we can produce
will never satisfy His demand (Isa. 64:6). The scriptures plainly and
powerfully proclaim that, \u201cthere is none good, no not one\u201d (Rom.
3:9-12). Certainly, any thinking person would see that creature merit
and righteousness is excluded in the scheme of God\u2019s salvation. The only
way any guilty sinner can be justified before God is to have a perfect
justifying righteousness provided by God Himself without any
contribution from the sinner (Rom. 4:1-7). This indeed is the good news
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is based upon His
performance not ours (Psalm 57:2). No wonder the apostle said, \u201cYea
doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of
all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be
found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith: (Phil. 3:8-9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If any man thinks that he is justified before God by his good works he
is tragically and dreadfully mistaken (2Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5). What a
horrible rebuke of the effectual, substitutionary sacrifice and perfect
obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, to entertain thoughts of self glory,
self righteousness and self salvation (Phil. 2:6-9; Luke 16:15). Paul
made this very argument to the Galatians church. \u201cI do not frustrate the
grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead
in vain\u201d (Gal. 2:21).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lord Jesus Christ alone is all any sinner needs to stand in God\u2019s
presence justified. Those in Christ by sovereign adoption, effectual
calling, powerful regeneration and saving faith have no other hope
(2Thes. 2:13-16) nor ground on which to stand. Some might ask, \u201cIs the
Lord Jesus Christ enough?\u201d If the Lord Jesus Christ is all you have, God
says that is enough! Here is one of many scriptures that tell us this
blessed truth, \u201cFor in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all
principality and power\u201d (Col. 2:9-10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom Harding
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Who Will Be Justified Before God?I recently asked a local religious leader who would be justified before God at the judgment seat of Christ (John 5:21-22)? To which he replied, \u201cI believe all good people will be in heaven.\u201d To which I said, \u201cWhat is the basis or root cause of goodness?\u201d The religious man said, \u201cHe thought that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,116,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-tom-harding","category-justification-2","category-justification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5291,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290\/revisions\/5291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}