When The Judge Gives The Sentence

“…knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law
but by faith in Jesus Christ,
even we have believed in Christ Jesus,
that we might be justified by faith in Christ
and not by the works of the law;
for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.”
Galatians 2:16

WHY can’t a person be justified by the works of the law?

Many, many people are smugly confident of their salvation because they feel they have kept the laws of God to the best of their ability. But the Scriptures tell us that we are NOT saved by having kept the laws of God, BECAUSE we live in a fallen human nature and our fallen human nature is not CAPABLE of keeping the laws of God. All of us sin. And once you sin, the law is broken and you can no longer claim that you’ve kept the law. The law is like a glass – once it’s broken, it’s broken, period. There is no remedy for it.

When a man stands before a judge because he committed murder or rape, he can’t change the sentence by telling the judge what good things he’s done. The man’s good deeds won’t change the sentence. And so it is with each of us. When we stand before the Judge of all, telling him what good things we’ve done will not change the sentence, will not change the judgment due on the sins we have committed.

But there IS a provision made for those who place their trust in the sinless Son of God. Jesus Christ stands in our place before that judge. He bore in himself the sentence due us when he hung on that cross and was crucified for our sins, and then the gift of righteousness which man could never achieve on his own – is imparted to the sinner who believes and receives it. Someone else took the judgment in our place, therefore we no longer have the threat of judgment on us, Jesus took it all hanging on a cross, tortured and crucified – for each of us. Now if we were to incur judgment on something that was already judged, that would be an insult to the tremendous price Jesus Christ paid to redeem us.

Does this mean, then, that you simply put your faith in him and then go on to sin freely? Of course not. It means that once you’ve put your faith in him and have been born again by his Spirit, he puts his Spirit in your heart and you receive a new life, a new mind, a new desire to walk in the Spirit so that you will no longer fulfill the lusts of the flesh. You are, then, relying on his Spirit in you to create in you a clean heart and to renew in you a right spirit, something you cannot achieve on your own. That’s what being “born again” is all about. When you are born again you become a new creation (2nd Corithians 5:17) and thus begins a new life.

All who are born are born as infants, and that’s the case in the new birth experience. A person isn’t born again as a spiritual adult, no, he’s born as an infant and begins the maturation process as God changes him “from glory to glory” (2nd Corinthians 3:18).

Do not insult the great sacrifice accomplished for you by Jesus Christ. Turn to him and become HIS, and you will receive in him a whole new life as he puts his Holy Spirit within you and begins the maturation process.

Pray with me:
Father God I’ve tried to be a good person, but there’s just no way I can rise to the righteousness demanded by the law of God. And this is the plight of all of us – we were born in a fallen human nature and that makes it impossible to fulfill the laws of God. I humble myself before you Lord, and confess my sinfulness. Please reveal your salvation to me and bring me under the atonement of your Son who bore the judgment on my sins on my behalf. Grant me that salvation, I pray. I want that new life you speak of. I desire to be born again according to your Word. Please receive me and put your Spirit within me so that I can have the assurance of salvation, and it is in Jesus’s Name I ask it. Amen.

More:
What Does It Mean – To Be Born Again?

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