God's Righteousness

What I want to talk about today is actually something that I was working on for a Beyond Today program. And it's something that's becoming more and more common in the woke Christianity. And you've heard me talk about how there's just a brand new Christianity that's formed. And it's fast becoming a majority of people in this country that believe it. It's, well, in England also. It's actually a whole lot worse there. But in this new Christianity that's being formed, there's new definitions to the Bible. Totally new definitions. And one of them that is really promoted is that God never sacrificed Jesus Christ because that would make Him a monster to sacrifice His Son. So He was never sacrificed. And Jesus just came to show us what love is and how people who are really loving, sometimes people hate and kill Him. That's why He came. Now that may sound strange to you, and that would sound strange to any Protestant 20 years ago. It is now becoming a very common belief. And that's one of the reasons why that movement supports LGBTQ is because Jesus loves, Jesus died to show, just show us how much He loves us, and so everything can be accepted. I want to talk about, did Jesus, did God sacrifice Jesus? Of course, we'd all say, well, yes, He did. We would have, you know, we would go to scriptures to show that He did. But what I want to talk about is why. Why would He do that and what's our place in that? I'm going to start with talking about the concept of righteousness. Now, we talk about righteousness all the time, right? We go through the scripture, we talk about the righteousness of God, we talk about how we're supposed to be righteous, we talk about what self-righteousness is and how that's actually against God. So we're going to talk about righteousness, which literally means being right. In the Bible, when you are righteous, you're right. If you're unrighteous, you're wrong. I mean, that's the simplicity of it. Now, it has a lot of more subtle meanings to it, but the simplicity of righteousness in the Bible is whether you're right or wrong. There's right behavior, righteous behavior. There's wrong behavior, unrighteous behavior. It's used all the time through the Bible, but that's its simple concept. So when it talks about God, and many times when you see righteousness in a sentence in the Bible that talks about God, it has to do with His judgments, His decisions, His justice, that when it comes to judgments, He's right. When it comes to justice, He's right. When it comes to His decisions, He's right. Of course, even in the New Woke Christianity, that's questioned because they now have an entire narrative about the life of Jesus showing that He was learning how to be a good man and how to be loving through all of His experiences that He had to go through as a human being. Because He was basically a prejudiced, sexist Jew that had to be taught by God what was right. So they'd even redefine righteousness. That's why when you watch, if you watch sometimes sermons on YouTube, or you see news stories, and you see arguments between people that are pro-abortion, anti-abortion who are Christians, the arguments don't make sense to you. And it's because they're non-biblical. It's a redefining of what the Bible actually says. Now that doesn't mean all Protestants are headed down that road, but the majority are. As I've said before, when the Methodist Church loses over half its people in less than two years because they've redefined the Bible, something's happened when now the Southern Baptists are splitting because they've redefined the Bible.

So we're going to look at God's righteousness, that He is right. In fact, what's very fascinating about righteousness, it is used as a legal term. In fact, it's tied into the concept of justice over and over and over again. Righteousness and justice are tied together. If a person is right, they will make just decisions. It's very interesting if you go back to John Wycliffe, one of the first translations of the Bible into English. They translated righteousness, it's an archaic word now, right-wise-ness. In other words, it was right-wise decision-making. Righteousness is deciding. It's making judgments that are right. And I find it fascinating, I mean, we over here write wiseness today. It's not a, it's not, it's an archaic word. Right-wise-ness. And that sort of encapsulates the real, whether it's Hebrew or Greek, meaning of righteousness. It's making right decisions. It's doing what's right. The question now comes down to, can we trust God to always be right? Because if God is revealed over and over again throughout the scripture as being righteous, it means He is right. He doesn't do anything wrong. And this becomes a very big sticking point in New World Christianity because we know God would not have killed pregnant women in Sodom because He would not commit abortions. That's how we're, that's how these discussions get into. So He couldn't have done that.

So how do we know that the Bible is right when it said God actually did kill those people, and what He did was right? How's that not wrong? So how do we find the righteousness of God? Well, let's look at an Old Testament explanation of the righteousness of God, and we're going to be looking at going back and forth between the Old and New Testament. Let's go to Deuteronomy 32. There are certain concepts that we find Moses and David, especially in the Old Testament, understood about the righteousness of God. And here we have what is called the Song of Moses. It was an actual song that was written by Moses to be sung and praise of God. Let's look at verse 4.

He's describing God, and of course, especially in Hebrew poetry, descriptions are put into physical things that create an emotion. So, you know, at one point God has wings, well, he literally does not have wings. And your wife's hair really isn't like a flock of goats skipping a Mount Gilead, okay? It's not really like that. But it was these images are used to evoke an emotion. He says, verse 4, he is the rock, his word is or work is perfect. So here's the concept of righteousness. He's always right. He's immovable. He's stable. He's not wondering what to do all the time. He's not making stuff up as he goes along. He's a rock, and what he does is perfect. This is the basis of faith, by the way, as we go through this. The basis of faith in God is that God is righteous. If we don't believe God is righteous, we will have a very difficult time having faith. Because how can you trust him? If he's capricious, or he simply makes things up as he goes along, or one day he does something because he feels a certain way, the next day he says, I feel differently today. I'm going to do something different. How in the world do you trust God? How does that work? Does that rain? Wow. My wife's been praying for rain. You can blame it on her.

He is the rock. His work is perfect. For all his ways are justice. Righteousness, goodness, perfection, and justice are all concepts that can't be separated. They can't be separated, biblically, in discussion of God. This puts us in a very difficult situation, as we'll see in a little bit. God is perfect in his righteousness. He's perfect in his justice. What is a totally, perfectly good God? How does he define justice? If he's perfect in justice. He says a God of truth and without injustice. It is not possible in the nature of God for him to be unjust. Righteous and upright is he. So he's always right. So this is a description of God. He's always truthful. He's always righteous. He's always just. He never moves. He isn't confused about what he's going to do next. He's never in a state of internal conflict. And that's real important to understand, because you and I don't even can even begin to understand that in ourselves. We're constantly in some state of internal conflict, right? That's why we have anxiety and fear and worry and all these other things. Internal conflict. God never has internal conflict. He's like a rock.

How does that equate into the relationship we have with him? Because it's interactive. How can we have an interactive relationship with a God who is that stable? There's another thing that's brought up in the scripture that I'm not going to go to right now, because we all know it. But there are lots of passages in the Old New Testament to talk about the love of God as being perfect. God's love is perfect.

So I want to show you something here on the screen. Let's talk about this for a minute. Because we're breaking this down into a very simple concept. God's righteousness. He is always right. There are many times in life where we wonder, how could this be right? We all think that. The other night, it was real late at night, and I turned on the television, and I turned on YouTube. And what popped up, why it popped up, I have no idea, was videos of little children that were deaf, and they were able to give them the ability to hear. And suddenly, the looks on their faces, and they just start uncontrollably laughing, or uncontrollably crying as they start hugging people. They could hear for the first time. And there was a thought that went through my mind. God, how is it fair that children are born without hearing? We all wonder from time to time. Now, I knew the answer, but I still had the gut feeling to that. When we talk about God's righteousness, that He's right, there's three things. Now, these are broad categories. You could bring this into all kinds of things. Goodness. God is always good. God is never unjust. God is never evil. And we have to believe that, because evil happens in our lives, and God allows it. And the question is, why doesn't God always stop evil? If He's always good. So we must believe in God's absolute goodness. That's where the Deuteronomy talks about His absolute truth. He always tells the truth. He's absolutely good. He also, His response to evil, since He hates evil, is that He has absolute justice. And this is important for us to understand, or we'll never understand, God's forgiveness. Because this now comes God's absolute love. Now, we can talk about this in some intellectual discussion, but the truth is, as a human being, you have no way, I have no way, to be absolutely good, absolutely just, and absolute love. Because if I'm absolute justice and absolute good, I have to punish everybody. If I'm absolute love and I give up justice, I've changed my nature. If you're God, you can't do away with your essential natures who you are. And God doesn't have internal conflicts, so God doesn't have any conflict between these things. You and I are in constant conflict between goodness, well, I know that's the right thing to do, but God will forgive me. Only that God is absolute justice. Why were you forgiving me? Well, he loves me. And then we use love as an expedient way to disobey God. You see what we do? We confuse these things constantly. God never does. So God is absolute goodness. If we believe that, then we can trust Him because His decisions are going to be what's right for us, even if they're decisions that make no sense to us at the time. But what does absolute justice mean? Remember it said in Deuteronomy, there's no unjustice in Him. He can't be, he can't be bribed. He can't be fickle. Oh, yeah, I'll do this, and tomorrow I'll do it a different way. He can't be fickle. No, He does change. He can't be fickle. No, He does change His ways. He interacts with people, but that's because of people, not because of Him. Let's look at what David says in Psalm 5. Psalm chapter 5. So we have an absolutely good God. How does He interact with evil?

Psalm 5 verse 4. Once again, David has this remarkable understanding of God. This is why David kept repenting. This is why David committed terrible sins, kept repenting, and kept changing. He keeps changing throughout his life. You can see it. And the reason why is, is because he's getting this understanding of who God is. As I've said before, we can understand the doctrines, but if we don't have some understanding, and whatever understanding we have of God is very limited, but if we don't have some understanding of God, if this is just information, it's not going to develop the relationship that God wants to have with us. Teachings from the Bible, doctrine, is to bring us to God, not just make us smarter, is to bring us to God. David says, For you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness.

He does not like it whenever we think or do or feel something that's against him. That's not the way, that's not in conjunction with his absolute goodness. Nor shall evil dwell with you. God will not live forever with evil. That's something we need to understand. That's why there is, by the way, a lake of fire. And that's why there is a time when Satan the demons are removed from God forever.

God will not dwell with evil. He puts up with it. God is currently putting up with evil. But in the context of eternity, he won't live with it. He just won't. Now think about this. Absolute goodness, absolute justice. The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity. It doesn't say you hate iniquity. It says you hate the workers of iniquity. Now, we have to be real careful here not to substitute our concept of hate into God. But it is saying something about God. God's justice is, I will not live forever with evil. He won't. He just won't. It's against his nature because he has absolute goodness. Absolute goodness says, I cannot live with evil. I can put up with it, but I won't live with it. He says, you shall destroy those who speak falsehood. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

Whoa. You know, we always say God loves the sinner and hates the sin. And there's some truth to that, but it's not as simple as that. Because you and I have become sinned. Sin has become part of our nature, and he hates it. So how does a God of absolute goodness now live with absolute justice? He says, I abhor what you are. This is tough, and this is a message that's rejected by much of Christianity now. Now there's the other end of this that makes God a monster. He just hates everybody. That's not true either. How do we... the only way we can put this together is to get a little glimpse into who God actually is. And there's actually a scripture in the New Testament that explains all this. Look at Proverbs 6. So now we're left in a dilemma, okay? We're left in a dilemma.

Part of the attempt to deal with this dilemma is to say that both Moses and David are wrong in what they're saying. Well, then I don't know how you figure out what's... then the whole Bible's subjective. I'm picking shoes, but I want to believe. Proverbs 6, 16.

Oh, I forgot. Never left Psalms here. Proverbs 6.

These six things the Lord hates. He has seven are an abomination to him. That word abomination is very, very important. And it means repugnant. He's like, this is something that actually I am disgusted with. It is a very deep word.

I mean, it would be like in English just saying, saying, that makes me sick. So this is a very graphic word that's used here. He says, a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running the evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren.

This list really gets long in the New Testament, by the way, by the Apostle Paul. He makes the entire list. These people, if they don't repent, can't be part of the kingdom of God. God will not give them eternal life if they don't repent, because his justice requires it, because his absolute goodness and he will not live for eternity with evil around him. He just won't. Now, if that's the only message, this is sort of hopeless, isn't it? Holy… I mean, if we really accept this message, it seems hopeless. God is absolute goodness, absolute justice. This was the movement back in the 1800s in the United States. It was called the Great Awakening, and they got people just going to these tent meetings, and this new sort of religious fervor went all across the United States, and it was because, if you don't repent, you're going to hell, because the absolute God of goodness and the absolute God of justice has already put you there, so you've got to repent so you don't go there. That's not the message, either. But it was an attempt to deal with this reality. The totally good God hates evil, and you and I do evil, and we've actually become evil. It's part of who we are.

Well, the answer is, if we keep the law perfectly. That would make sense, because we do know that Paul, you know, I'm going through this series of Bible studies on Romans. We're going to get to, in a couple Bible studies, where Paul says he understands righteousness because the the law tells him, ah, it's unrighteous to murder. Because he even says, I would not have known that it was right to not covet, except the law told me. So, if the righteousness, or if the law tells us what is righteous and unrighteous behavior, then if we could just keep the law perfectly, we'll be okay. And as Paul says, does this mean we shouldn't keep the law? No, he says we should keep the law. We're required to keep the law. We're actually required to become righteous, but that's another, that's a whole other sermon. We're talking about the righteousness of God here. So, what is this problem? How do we get between the link between goodness and justice? Well, let's go to Romans 3. Romans chapter 3.

I'm just touching on something today. This is a huge subject.

Romans 3.

And let's go to verse 19. Now, we know that whatever the law says, now this, we're breaking in the middle of a thought, but I just want to bring out two comments he makes here. Now, we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. He says, okay, what the law tells us is we're already guilty before God. God's justice is upon us. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. So he says, the law tells us what righteousness is. And you can say, well, I've kept all of them but three. Well, justice of God requires a penalty for that. God's justice doesn't say, you know what? But I forgive you, you were having a bad day. I know you got drunk and drove your car drunk and killed somebody. But, you know, I just just write that one off. You were just having a bad day. God doesn't do that.

The law describes right and wrong behavior.

We can't make God's forgiveness a legal fiction. God is judge, and He makes righteous judgments. And that means it has to be an objective standard. God does not judge us by His feelings.

It says, I'm angry with you, but no one goes to the lake of fire simply because God is angry with them. There are objective standards, and in those objective standards, we will get the love.

Now, He has to explain in verse 31 of this chapter. And in chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, we've been going through these in the Bible studies. And He clearly has to keep going back and saying, there are people misunderstanding what I'm saying. He's saying, you can't receive salvation by simply doing the law perfectly, because once you understand the law, you find out, uh-oh, I've broken it. And God has standards of justice. And He doesn't just say, it's okay.

That's why verse 31, He says, do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary, we establish the law. He says, now we know what the law is. The law is an expression of the righteousness of God. He'll say that later in this book. It's an expression of how God is right. When God says, do not murder, it's because God knows murder is wrong. It's part of His goodness. And if you murder somebody, He requires that of you. There's a requirement for your unrighteousness.

So we still have a problem.

Fortunately for us, God's always in control of His responses. As I said before, He never has internal conflicts. Oh, what am I going to do with that person? You ever feel like, oh, I messed up again. God's probably saying, I don't know what to do with that person. I just give up on him. That just never happens. Or God's angry with me because of what I've done. So God's going to throw me away. No, He doesn't. But God also doesn't say, oh, it's okay. His goodness and justice won't let that happen.

So how come He's not in conflict all the time over us? You know, why is He always looking over at Jesus and saying, why did we do this for these people? Why isn't Jesus looking at the Father sometimes and saying, I wish I wouldn't have died for these people. They're not worth it. None of that happens. Why? Because He's totally good and totally just. And He doesn't just say, it's okay. So what do we do? He says, you can't be saved by the law, but you have to keep the law. In fact, the law tells us, boy, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. You can't become righteous enough. You and I can't become right enough for God to say, yeah, I don't think I'm going to be just with you. I'm going to change my definitions of justice. Because according to the Scripture, every single one of us, under the judgment of God, deserved death. I mean, isn't that what we do at every Passover? We take what represents the blood and body of Jesus Christ as what? As a substitute for us. How does that work? Romans chapter 3.

We were just there when I shut my Bible. Let's go back. Romans 3.

And let's pick up now in verse 21.

Because you have to understand this to understand this passage, which is really what the whole sermon's about, is simply going through how this passage is the foundation for understanding the righteousness of God. This is what I covered, a part of what I covered, in one of my presentations at the Tacoma Men's Conference that I was at last month out in Washington. And I had an interesting experience with the group as we went through this. Verse 21 says, But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, be it witnessed by the law and the prophets. He said the fact that God is right and always right, is being shown to us, not by the law. Now, he has to say that. I'm not saying the law's done away with. The law tells us what righteousness is. So you know what the law does? It condemns us.

Every time we study the law, I'm enthralled by the law of God. Because it shows the mind of God. And every time I study really deeply into the spirit of the law, it's like, oh man, I'm not doing this right all the time. So how is God right? He says, I want to set the law aside for a minute and just look at how God's right. He's right in the law because he tells us what righteousness is. And that's an argument all through this letter that he wrote. He says that this is actually told to us all throughout the Old Testament. And it is. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all, and in all who believe, for there's no difference. Now he's talking here because the church in Rome had real difficulty between the Jews and the Gentiles. A lot of Gentiles had come into the church. The Jews said, you have to become just like us before you can follow Jesus. You know, you have to be circumcised. You have to do certain ceremonies. And he says, no, you don't. Because here's what the law shows us about the righteousness of God. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. He says, what it does is it all brings us to the same point. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. We all end up before God with nothing to bargain with. We all end up before God with no hope. We all end up before God facing the greatness of a totally good God who is totally just and according to his righteousness, we die. That's what we're faced with. That's the part of God we don't want to talk about. That's why he loves the sinner but hates the sin, which is true. But it's sometimes used to twist this to, so God hates the sin in you but he loves you, so don't worry about it. No. The sin in us before the righteous law of God has condemned us to death.

No. He has condemned us to death. It's his decision as the good God. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Justified is another legal term. It literally means to be declared right. So, if you go before the law, you know, if you want to be for the elders in the church, you went before the elders or the judges in the Old Testament, and you brought your case, and they said, you are justified. You are right. The problem is we're brought before God and we have no arguments. We have no way to justify ourselves because we are sinners. And we have to believe in this system of goodness, justice, and love, that what God is doing, he looks at us and says, you're all right with me. You are justified. You can come talk to me. You can come before me. Now, being justified doesn't always mean you're saved yet. It hasn't mean you'll receive God's Spirit yet. I mean, none of us are saved until Christ comes back. But you haven't received God's Spirit yet. It means you're allowed to come. He says, you're all right. You're all right with me. How does that happen? Has he given up his justice? Has he said, yeah, you're condemned to death, but nah, you're all right with me? That doesn't work that way, not the justice of God, because it would compromise his goodness. He can't compromise with anything of who he is because it's all whole. This is all—God is complete. There's a complete integrity within God. There's a complete oneness.

So, he goes on, being justified freely by his grace—in other words, it's something he gives us—through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood. Propitiation in Greek is used in the Greek Bible differently than the word is used in typical Greek of the day. The propitiation is what you did for the gods to accept you. So, to get the attention of the God, you might have to do a sacrifice. You have to go to a special ceremony. You have to do a dance. I mean, there are all kinds of things they did. Pagan religions were filled with ceremonies. All kinds of ceremonies to please the gods. And maybe, you know, if you get to the right God—and that's why there was a God for everything. There was a God or goddess for everything. If you had a toothache, you went to a very specific God. If you were pregnant, you went to a very specific goddess. And you would do things to appease them so that you would bring up propitiation. The way it's used in the New Testament is never what we do to get the attention of God. It's never what we do to appease Him because He's angry with us. It's used—and this is what makes it so unique—to what God does to bring us to Him. Because with His goodness and His justice, there's nothing we can do.

God has a propitiation, something that's done to please Him so that you and I, He gets to say, you're right, child. Come here. You're right with me. He doesn't say you're perfect. He doesn't say you're completely righteous. He says, you're right, you can come to me. You are justified.

And it's a privilege, and it comes through—verse 25—whom God is talking about Jesus Christ, sent forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate what? When I did this at that conference—because it was a very interactive conference, and we were having a discussion, and I was reading through this, and I said, as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate, and I said, what? And the entire crowd said, His righteousness—because they were reading it, and they all said it out loud. I was sort of stunned. Not ours. God is right. How does God prove His total goodness, total justice, and total love through being a propitiation? Not one that we bring, but one that He does. He appeases Himself. He takes care of making sure that nothing in Him is compromised. His goodness is justice or His love, and the only way is for Him to do something for us. There is no other way.

That's why Paul says you have to keep the law, but keep it all your life, and you'll never measure up. You can't be justified by it. Because it comes down to, we go to God already condemned because of who God is, His absolute belief in goodness, His absolute desire for goodness. And I want to say, inability, because you say, well, God is possible for Him to do everything. No, it's not possible for Him to go against His nature. If it is, He's not God. So it's not possible for Him, which should make us so happy. It's not possible for Him to be capricious. It's not possible for Him to have a bad day. It's not possible for Him to say, you know what, you I'm going to save even though you're evil, and you I'm going to put in hell because even though you're good, which is what the Calvinists believe.

God just looks down and arbitrarily says, you're going to heaven and you're going to hell. That's not Him either. That's not justice. That's not goodness. No, we have to participate in this. We have to do something. And He says, the very first step in this, and it's just the first step, by the way. If you were at the Bible study last week, I went through chapter 4, where He shows how Abraham went through step after step after step. As God developed faith in him over just issue after issue, problem after problem in life, as God developed faith in him. He developed him into a righteous man. He became righteous because God developed it in him, not because He had it. But His first step was just like ours. And that's why Paul argues in this passage that Abraham was justified by God before he was circumcised. And you go back and look at the Old Testament. It was before he was circumcised. God said, I'm going to do great things in your life, leave your country, and do what I say. And it says, Abraham believed and did it. And in Genesis it says, and he was declared righteous by God. What God said, okay son, you can come talk to me. I came to you and I said, this is what He responded to God's calling. And God said, come on, you're responding, you're justified. And that's why He brings that out here. Because before he was circumcised is when He said, yes, Lord. And God said, good, you and I can talk.

He says, let's go back to verse 25, whom God set forth as a propitiation. Okay, God's now pleasing Himself. He's doing what has to be done that we can't do for His sake. Because He's righteous. Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness. Because in His forbearance, God passed over the sins that were previously committed. To demonstrate at the present time, once again, what? His righteousness. That He might be just. Justice. He might be right before His own law. And the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So they work together. They come together in a way, these three aspects. You know, when we talk about truth, that's part of goodness. When we talk about mercy, that's part of love. So we repent and we have a change of mind. And it's a fascinating process. God's goodness leads to His justice that leads to Him sacrificing Jesus Christ. It leads Jesus Christ to be willing to be sacrificed. Think about that.

You know, He said at one point, if there's a different way to do this, let's not do this. Because He realized what He was going to go through. He never said, we don't love them enough to do this. He never said, you know what, let's not pay the penalty for Him. Let's just forgive Him. Because that's not in God's nature. Because He's too good. So we don't understand that because we're not that level of goodness. We live with the evil within us. We have conflict all the time between good and evil. He has no conflict between good and evil. None. He never balked at the fact He was doing this for us. God never stepped back from the fact that He was doing this for us.

That's God's law. And He never compromised the other aspects of His righteousness. That's why He's always right. In fact, Paul says, you want to understand how right God is? Consider the fact that you, before His law, deserve death. Christ comes and dies for you to show you how right God is.

If He would have died for us, we would have said, I guess sin doesn't really matter. God just forgives it. I can do whatever I want. No, the price paid was horrendous by both the Father and the Son for us to be brought into where God says, you're right with me. Now, you can lose that rightness with God. Go back out into the world and just live Satan's lifestyle. And you can lose. God might say, at some point, you're not right with me anymore. You can't come talk to me. It's amazing to me how many people God will interact with, who really don't even know who they are. They only have a vague idea of who He is sometimes. He interacts with a lot of people. But then there's a difference between being justified for relationship and being justified for salvation. Those are two different things. That involves sanctification, where God actually lives in you and makes you holy.

But this, if we could somehow get a glimpse into this is how God thinks. It really changes everything. It really changes everything. But He is always right. He is always right, even though we don't understand it. Romans chapter 5. I'm just looking at a couple more scriptures here. Then we eat, right? Then we have the Bible study.

It's very important I get that right.

Romans chapter 5, verse 6.

Now we can understand what this scripture means. For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for us while we were absolutely unrighteous. And there was no way to be righteous enough for Him to say, I'm going to die for that person because they're so righteous. We were all criminals. Before God, we were all criminals, and the penalty of being a criminal was death. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrated His own love. Now we're into that love aspect of His nature. His own love toward us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having been justified, once again, declared right by God. Okay, you're right. You can come before me. I give you a rightness you don't have. I give you something you don't have so that I, a propitiation, has been made so that you can come and you and I can have a relationship. Much more having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved and wrapped through Him. For if when we were enemies, understand when God called you, His viewpoint of you is, you're an enemy. And I, in Christ's viewpoint, is I got to go die for my enemies or they have no hope. That's beyond my thinking. I have to go die for my enemies, for the criminals. I have to go die for the people that do things that just make me sick, sacrifice their children to pagan idols, rape, murder, steal. You look at all the things in the Bible that God says are either an abomination, the New Testament says you can't go into the kingdom if you don't repent of those things. It's basically human behavior.

We were the enemies of God and you are not the enemies of God anymore. And it's because Christ became the propitiation and you and I didn't have to come up with one. How do you come up with a propitiation for the death penalty?

And this is all the nature of God. This is why Christ was slain from the foundation of the world. From the very beginning, God said, this is how we'll have to show them what righteousness is.

We'll show them what it is by living it out. We will suffer for them to show them what it is.

For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more have Him been reconciled, we will be saved by His life because Christ is resurrected and He lives in us through God's Spirit. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have not received the reconciliation.

We've received this reconciliation.

This makes—there's a scripture we usually don't read except the Passover time, and I want to go there, Isaiah 52, because I'm going to end with this. I'm going to read all of it.

Isaiah 52. If we could just start getting glimpses into the greatness of God, there's a lot of things in this life that just won't seem as important. We know Isaiah 52 and 53, starting in verse 13 of 52, is one of the most detailed messianic prophecies in the Bible. And it's interesting, in the Jewish world, they look at this and say that the servant here is Israel. Israel or the people of God are the ones who are tortured and beaten up and bad things happen to, but God's going to bring them back.

If you talk to Jews who do come into Christianity, it's almost always because they look at Isaiah 52 and 53 and say, no, no, no, this is talking about the Messiah. And they actually see that Jesus is the Christ. He starts in verse 13, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man, and as formed more than the sons of men. He shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him, for what has not been told them, then they shall see, or had not been told them, they shall see. And what they had not heard, they shall consider. So then what we have is this remarkable description, like David has in Psalm when he writes about the crucifixion. We have this remarkable description of what Jesus Christ was going to go through. But there's a few statements in here that seem unbelievable, unless you understand what we've been going through. Verse 4, he says of chapter 53, Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Everything we carry, whether it's our depressions, our lack of faith, our struggles, our sins, everything we carry, he took on himself. That's what the propitiation is. So that God is pleased through him, that God's own righteousness is shown.

Yet we stand him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. Peter actually quotes this in one of his books, one of his letters. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. Now that means physical healing and spiritual healing. It's interesting, in the New Testament, Peter says, he quotes this, by his stripes we were healed. This healing is happening today with pouring out of God's Holy Spirit.

Our iniquities he took upon himself, because we can't pay that price. The only way you can be a propitiation for God is to present yourself to God for eternal death. There is no other way. That's God. We have to understand he's that good and that just... and we have to understand he's low-loving that he doesn't ask us to do that. I don't get that sometimes. I think, how could he be that way? It's so amazing. It's so genius. He says to us, I love you so much, but I won't compromise with who I am. Therefore, Christ will do this for you.

So that our iniquities, so that we can have peace with God. You and I can't have peace with God without this. You know, when you're not having peace with God and you're struggling, maybe it's just because of stress, maybe it's because of something that's happened at work, maybe it's because of your own sin.

If you're not having peace with God, go remember the price that's paid by God for us to have peace with Him. What price did you and I pay to have peace with God? We wouldn't even know it if He didn't reveal Himself to us. He did that because He is goodness, justice, and love. Because He's righteous. He's right. And since we can't do it, He's going to not do it easy. Oh yeah, I forgive you. He's going to do it in total completeness of who He is.

And I tell you what, if this doesn't motivate us to obey God's law, I don't know what will. If this doesn't motivate us to obey God, which is Paul's argument in Romans. Verse 10.

Now, you've got to wrap your mind around this. I struggle with this decades ago. What does this mean? Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. What do you mean? The Father's pleased? To have Christ beaten and murdered in the most brutal fashion? No. It pleased Him to have this process because it's His righteousness. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ, too, that is being shown.

If we want to be right with Him, we either sacrifice our lives forever or we accept the sacrifice for us. There's only the two ways. There is no other way. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him and He put Him to grief. When you make your soul an offering for sin, He was... if we wouldn't have sinned, He would have had to die. So the idea that God did not sacrifice Him or that Jesus did not see Himself as a sacrifice for sin goes against the Scripture. It is the nature of God not to take His creation and let us die.

We have to have a choice. And for that to happen, we have to have a relationship with Him. For that to happen, we have to be made right. And only He can do that. And He did it this way because that's His love. How do we not respond to Him to understand that love? How do we not do that? How do we not respond to Him when we understand His goodness or His justice and what we deserve?

And yet, right now, when you go before God, He doesn't say to you, you deserve to die. What are you doing here? When you go before God because you've been justified and because if you've been baptized, you have received God's Spirit. When you go before God, He says, come, you are right. You are justified. You are right with Me. You are right with God. You go to God and say, well, I messed up again today. And He says, I know. Come here. You're right with Me. Let's fix this. He doesn't say, oh, you sinned.

It's okay. No. He reminds you of the price paid. And this says, let Me do what I can do if we'll just let Him because He won't make us do it. That's what's amazing. He has the power to possess us and make us into pets, right? He teaches some dog tricks. He doesn't do that. We choose. And every time we come before Him and say, Father, please forgive me, He says, you're right with me.

Come here. That's why every time you pray, you should say, forgive me for my sins. He says, you're right with me. Come here. Because I did this for you. Remember what we read in Romans. He did it to reveal what? His righteousness. To reveal who He is. To reveal who Jesus Christ is. So He's offered as a sin offering. He goes on and talks about how He's going to reward, of course, Jesus at the resurrection, which He did. He says at the end of verse 12, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

See, this can't be Israel. The rabbis are wrong. It has to be Jesus Christ. Remember, God is never plagued by constant internal conflicts like us.

He just isn't. He's perfect goodness. He's always right. His righteousness is perfect goodness. He doesn't get up one day and say, eh, I'm going to let you suffer just because I like people to suffer. He never does that. Now, He lets us suffer because we live under the rule of Satan at this time. But remember, Satan only rules for a short period of time, and the reason why is he will not dwell with evil. That's why you know Satan's time is short. Whatever time it was from Eden to now, it's short. In the terms of eternity, it's nothing. God says, eh, I'll let it ever a little bit, but I will not dwell with it. Because he is perfect goodness, perfect justice, and perfect love, he can be angry with you and me, still love us, and still take care of us. He can be angry, right? I mean, there's times I thought, man, God must be angry with me.

But you know that if you get on your knees and you go before God and say, you're probably upset with me, He's going to say, you're justified. He's going to say, you're all right with me. Come here. He might say, boy, I tell you what, that was a stupid thing. And you know, the repercussions of that, that's going to hurt, man. It's just going to hurt. So you're just going to have to bear it. Okay? He'll do that like any good father does, right? With a son or a daughter. That's why Jesus Christ was sacrificed as a propitiation so that pleased God and it pleased Christ to do this because we can't.

His goal isn't, by the way, just to declare us righteous. His goal is to make us righteous. And that's why the Christian life is a constant internal struggle because you have two natures inside of you. Once you receive God's nature, the Holy Spirit. And if you're not baptized, God's Spirit's already working with you, so you're going to be having some conflicts. Because there's two natures here. Your own corrupted human nature and God's nature. And they're a conflict. And when you finally repent and you're baptized, God puts His nature in you. That's what Peter says. He says the Holy Spirit is God putting His nature, divine nature in us. And what happens now? Boy, you're a conflicted person. There's a battle going on. God never has that battle. Thank God. I think that's okay to say that there. Thank God He doesn't have that battle. He never has conflict. All these things work perfectly together. And there is a purpose. And the purpose is at the great white throne judgment after the lake of fire, after Satan is removed and there is no more evil. He is going to have a family. And that family will reflect His righteousness.