God's Righteousness

A few months ago, I was working on an idea for a Beyond Today program. My voice still struggled a little bit with my voice. Some days it's better. Sometimes I still struggle.

But I was doing research into what many mainstream churches are teaching about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I was a little surprised at the diversity of explanations. The explanations for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ have been pretty common, especially in the Protestant world, for 500 years. But it's not anymore. It's very diverse.

Some of the arguments were Jesus was not sacrificed by the Father because that would make the Father a child molester, abuser of his own child. Jesus didn't die for our sins because, you know, we're basically good people. We've done some bad things but not worth his death. And there were all these different explanations about why Jesus had to die. The number one conclusion was he died just to show us what love is.

That I'll come here and be killed by you people and still love you. And that was the reason he died. I want to go through something very simple today, and that is what is the character of God that leads to the death of his son. What is the character of God that leads to the death of his son? I mean, we know he was resurrected, but the issue here is his death, a brutal, terrible, torturous death. And God not only allowed it, but God participated in setting the whole thing up. In fact, Jesus himself participated in setting the whole thing up.

For centuries before it happened, there's all kinds of prophecies about exactly what was going to happen. So what is the character of God that does that? Some conclusions in this postmodern woke Christianity is that if you believe that God actually participated in this, then you believe God is a monster. Is God a monster? But then you have to wonder why would God do things this way? Isn't there another way he could have done it? I remember years and years ago wondering that when I was younger, couldn't he have come up with an easier way to do this? Actually, when we understand what God did, we understand who God is.

We get a glimpse into who God is. The very core character of how he thinks, how he feels. And this all has to do with the righteousness of God. I gave a sermon here about six months ago about righteousness, talking about how we must become righteous. And I mentioned in that sermon that the word righteous just means to be right, both in Hebrew and Greek.

You're either right or you're wrong. You're righteous or you're unrighteous. When you go through the Old and New Testaments, you will see those words use righteous and righteousness as an application of the very nature of God. He is right, and he is never wrong. As we go through this, you're going to see understanding this core character of God is necessary for faith. So when we talk about the righteousness of God, we're talking about God says, I am right. Now he is either right or he's wrong.

So if we accept that God is God, then we have to understand all the scriptures about his righteousness are telling us, he is right, and he's always right, and he's never wrong. It's interesting that righteousness is actually a legal term, especially in Hebrew.

It means that you're making a right decision based on moral principles or the law. If you say stealing is wrong, you are declaring righteousness. You are right. If you say stealing is okay, you are unrighteous because you're declaring something that's wrong. So in its simplest form, it really has to do with legalities. And you'll see righteous use and righteousness used many times in terms of judgments. Someone makes a decision, and that decision is either a righteous decision or an unrighteous decision. So if we decide to cheat somebody at work, that is an unrighteous decision because cheating is wrong.

If we decide to go ahead sometimes and take a wrong for the good of somebody else, we may be doing the righteous thing even though we're the one getting the wrong action against. So it's a primary legal term, but in the concept of God, it is the understanding that He is right. He is right. I mentioned in that sermon that in John Wickliffe's earliest translations of the Bible into English, righteousness was translated right wiseness. Now that's an archaic word.

We don't use it today, but it meant you make right decisions, right wiseness. That's what it meant. So righteousness means God always makes right decisions. Whatever decision He makes is good and is the right one.

Let's go look at a place where the Bible, Moses specifically, explains in His way what righteousness is, the righteousness of God. Because today we're not talking about the righteousness that we learn and we receive from God and we learn from God, as I did in that other sermon. This is His righteousness. What makes Him right? What makes Him right? And why can we believe that He is right? What about Him? Not just because, well, this says it, but yeah, but what about Him and who He is? Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32.

Very interesting verse here.

It's part of the song of Moses. So this is a song that Moses wrote that was sung by the male population of Israel. There was another song that the women sang that was written by a woman. But notice what it says here in verse 4. He is the rock.

Now they're moving through the desert at the time and there's giant mountains made out of rock. And Moses says God's like one of those mountains. He's a rock. He's stable. He's not moveable. He's not like the sand. You know, the sand gets shifted constantly. Different shapes, different movements. He's a rock. He is solid and He is stable. And then he says, His work is perfect. So when we talk about God, we tend to talk about Him in human terms. If we're going to understand God's righteousness, that He's always right, then we have to understand anything He does is perfect. There's no flaws in it. Now we have difficulty with that because everything we do has a flaw in it. No human being ever does anything perfect.

But here Moses looks at God, he says, He's like one of these solid mountains here. And everything He does is perfect. For all His ways are justice. Remember, righteousness and justice are connected. They actually are in many times used. There's a similar word use, connected word that is used to go back and forth between righteousness and justice. This is important to understand God. We have to understand that He's right. We have to understand that He's perfect. We have to understand that He's always just. Now that's going to leave us in a problem sooner or later. As we work through this, we're going to find out that we end up in a problem in our relationship with God. He says, For all His ways are justice, a God of truth, because He's absolute goodness. Everything He does is true. There's no falsehood in Him. And without injustice, He's always just and right in His legal decorations. Because injustice and justice has to do with legalities. When it comes down to He establishes a law and He applies that law the same to everyone. There's no bribes. There's nothing you can do to God to get Him to somehow give you a favor over somebody else because what? He likes you better? You give Him something that nobody else gives Him? What do you do to get God to be unjust? And the point is, He's always just. And it's really important in understanding the character of God. Righteous and upright is He. So He's always right. But that little verse there is an amazing assimilation of all these concepts about God.

He's stable. He's unmovable. He doesn't change. The way He is now is the way He's going to be tomorrow. You never have to get up tomorrow and worry. Has God changed the definitions of right and wrong? Has God changed the way He's going to do certain things?

We know that He's perfect and all His ways are just. There's no injustice in Him. He is a God of truth. He's never going to tell you something that's not true. And that He's righteous. He's right. That's a remarkable summation of God. But it's really hard for us to understand that. It is really difficult for us to say, okay, what does that really mean? And if you look through, excuse me, the Old and New Testament, what you find is these qualities are mentioned over and over and over again. And another quality that's mentioned in with these qualities is that He is a God of love. He's a God of love. So I want you to look at this slide. We can get this up here. This is this is a simple, this is it. This is what we're going to talk about today. If I'm going to understand why God is right, then I have to understand a God who is complete goodness.

I say, well, I don't know. And you know, one of the things God's question about all the time in postmodern Christianity is why would He kill all the people in Sodom, including the unborn children? What kind of monster would kill babies?

What kind of monster would do that? Even Abraham argued with him over it, right? And there's that argument. Why did God tell the Israelites to go in and kill an entire tribe of the Canaanites? Now, He didn't tell them to kill everyone. He told them to shove some people out. I have to get a sermon on that someday. There's a reason why, and it has to do with how evil those people would become. But how can He be totally goodness and seem to do things that are evil, that are wrong? Why doesn't God heal everybody? Why does God let bad things happen to good people? He can't be total goodness and have this happening. And yet, the Bible says God is totally good.

The second thing is, we just read, He is a God of justice. In other words, when He says, Thou shalt not murder, He means it. Thou shalt not murder. And if you murder, there is a penalty that's involved. There's always justice.

You can't have, you can't go before God and have God say, you know what, what you did was wrong and terrible. But you know, today, I just in a good mood, and I'm going to say it's okay. God never does that.

See, there's parts of God we don't really understand. And this is all scriptural. We're going to go through a few of them. He never says, you know what, I'm feeling good today. I don't care if you robbed the convenience store and shot the guy. It's okay. I forgive you today. He never does that. But if you're starting to go through this, we already have some problems. We're not always good. We always want justice for the other person, but it's hard to want justice for ourselves. God is always just. And then God is always love. Now, if you try to figure this out, I mean, really think about this. You're going to be in conflict. Inside yourself, you will be in conflict. And there's a reason why. Because none of us are perfect goodness, perfect justice, and perfect love. And as we try to be those things, we're in conflict with ourselves. We have anxiety. We have confusion. We don't know how to work out the problems. How can I love somebody but be totally just? How can I be totally good and not be totally just? How does this work?

We have problems all the time in our lives as we try to be righteous like God. And we try to balance three concepts. But these aren't concepts to God. Perfect goodness, perfect justice, and perfect love is who He is. It's who He is by nature. And you know what's interesting? He never has a conflict over this. Ever! Any situation, He's right because He acts with complete goodness, complete justice, and complete love. And you say, well, no, it can't be in this case. And He says, yes, it is. He's completely good, completely just, and completely loving in every action He takes and every inner action He has with us. And all I can tell you is I spent a lot of time studying God's righteousness over a long time now. And I can't explain it because it's bigger than me. I can only tell you what it is. Because you get a glimpse into God. You get a glimpse into a being that isn't like us. And He has no internal conflicts at all. No internal conflicts. So, okay, if God is total goodness, okay, maybe I can accept that. He's total goodness. Well, what does it mean to be total justice? Well, let's look at a few places. Look at Psalm chapter 5. We're going to keep coming back to this diagram. Like I said, this is a very simple sermon. It's simple, but not totally understandable. Because we're looking into, in our own little, small way, we're looking into the mind of God.

Psalm 5. Because we're looking at why He's right. How can He be right all the time?

Psalm 5 verse 4. Now here, David looks at, now he's like Moses. Moses had an understanding of God and wrote it down into a song. David did too. And he writes down a clear understanding of a certain aspect of God. He says, you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness.

If you are perfect goodness, you have a problem with evil. I don't mean just a problem like, oh, I don't like evil. I mean, you hate evil. You call it an abomination, which in Hebrew simply means something that is so disgusting you can't even look at it.

God looks at evil and it is offensive to Him. This isn't sort of like, oh, He doesn't like it when someone rapes somebody. No, you have to understand, God has an immediate reaction to that. Wherever it's happening all over the world today, it's happening, and He has an immediate reaction to it.

He has a reaction to evil because He hates it. Because He's perfect good. How could you have perfect goodness and say, okay, evil's not that bad? Then you're not perfectly good. And if God isn't perfectly good, we're doomed. We're really doomed. So He says, for you are not a God who takes pleasure and wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with you. He won't live with it. He puts up with it. There comes a time in history or in the future where there'll be no evil. Any human being who does not repent is thrown in the lake of fire. How could He do that? Goodness and justice.

Satan and the demons are removed from His presence forever. Why?

Goodness and justice. He will put up with evil. He will not live with it forever. He will not. This is an aspect of God we have to understand. How good He is and how repulsive sometimes our behavior and even our thoughts are to Him.

Nor shall evil dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity. You shall destroy those who speak falsehood, the Lord of whores, the blood-thirsty and deceitful man. These are strong words. We can say, well, God hates the sin but loves the sinner, but that's not what this says. He says He hates those who are blood-thirsty. Oh, then God just has got to kill all of them, right? They all go to the lake of fire. And now we're using human terms. We keep using human thoughts, human emotions, and applying them to God. God had no problem having David write this. I abhor people who do that. He just said, that doesn't say I abhor the things they do. I abhor them when they do that.

Proverbs. Let's look at another place. Proverbs 6. Here now we have Solomon writing about the same thing. He said, well, maybe they weren't as understanding as the New Testament. The way we get into the New Testament is basically the same thing. An understanding of the goodness of God and the justice of God. And of course, then we get to the love of God and how this works. It doesn't work in a way that you and I would ever think of. It doesn't. We may be used to it because we've been told it before, but this isn't a human way of thinking how the way God is because there is no conflict in him. He doesn't sit down sometimes and say, oh, what do I do now? I want to be loving, but justice is what is deserved. Now I want to be good, but maybe their maybe their badness isn't that bad. He doesn't have those problems. He doesn't have those thoughts. He doesn't have internal struggles about these things. He is who he is, which if you understand that, you'll be glad he's God and you and I aren't because none of us are not without all this conflict.

So in verse 16, six things the Lord hates, yet seven are an abomination to him. They're putrefying to him. They make him sick. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift to run running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren. Now this is not just the actions. It's the person who doesn't. In the New Testament, Paul says there are certain people, if they don't repent, they're going to go to the lake of fire and he lists them. Murderers, this person, that person, the other person. They're all going to go to the lake of fire if they don't repent. In other words, God doesn't. There isn't some, I call it a legal fiction. Okay, I have laws, I carry out those laws, and I tell you what's just and unjust, and what you did is absolutely appalling, but it's okay. No, that's not how God is. It's absolutely appalling, and I hate it, he says. And I, I use the word hate because it's the word it's used, I hate you for doing it. Now don't put a human term in there about hatred. This is the way God looks at things. Because you know, God says he's angry, but he's not angry all the time. He hates things, but because of who he is, he has a remedy to that. That's what you and I don't have. We don't have any remedies to our emotions. God never loses control of emotion. He's never killed anybody because he lost his temper. He's never done anything that wasn't exact, perfect.

Just, just where these three things are balanced. Perfect balance between goodness, justice, and love, and all three are perfect, and all three of these aspects of his righteousness are carried out all the time. It is so genius and so great. You and I have no idea the God we worship, or how he sees life, how he sees us. See, we can come to conclusion with, oh God hates all of us, he must have us all dead. No. But God does hate what we do. And sometimes he even says, I hate people. I hate what they are. Now, you and I hate somebody. We have a problem, because we wish to destroy them. You know what God wants to do when he hates somebody? He wishes to change them. Totally different motivation. Now you're beginning to understand love. Love. That he actually loves his creation, in spite of the fact that his creation is rebellious against him, and we are his enemies. That's what humanity doesn't understand. In our natural state, we're the enemy of God. From his viewpoint, we're his enemy. Now a human being is saying, I'm perfectly good, I have perfect justice, you're evil, you're bad, you're gone. Right? And that's not what he does. Because he doesn't think the way we do. But don't, we can't step back from his absolute goodness and his absolute justice. He hates evil. And he hates it in us. And the problem is, what kind of remedy do we have to that problem? In the Bible studies, the Wednesday night Bible studies, we've been going through the book of Romans, and this is part of the core of what we've been going through. Romans 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 is about what is God's remedy. And we just went through Abraham this Wednesday night. And why Paul uses his, has an example there. And it's remarkable why Paul uses this example. Because he has to explain, when did God say to Abraham, you're right with me. That's what justify means. When God justifies somebody, it's literally God saying, you are right with me. So Paul's using an argument there. I don't want to go there too much, but it's a fascinating argument. He says to the Christians in Rome, part Jews, part Gentiles, and the Jews are saying, you have to be circumcised. You must be circumcised to be a Christian. And he says, no, let's just follow the example of Abraham. Well, every Jew is going to say, good, let's follow the example of Abraham. He said, in Genesis it says that he was declared righteous before God because he believed.

And if you go look at the story, it's quite a bit later that he says, now go be circumcised. So his argument is, how could he be declared righteous before he was circumcised?

Which was an interesting problem I had. And what he was saying is, God, because he was working with Abraham, because Abraham kept doing what God asked him to do and Abraham kept following, and he kept submitting. At one point he said, you're right with me. And that's what justify means. There's a point in your life where God said to you, you're right with me. We have to talk about, okay, how does he do that? But he did it before you were baptized, or you could never have been baptized, because you never could have been brought to the point of baptism. It's like Abraham, he would have never been circumcised, except he was already right with God. And then he's coming along and says, I want you to be circumcised. He said, okay. I mean, that's a big thing to be asked to do, right? Not only that, but all your servants, all your children, everybody, your whole tribe has to be circumcised. It's a wonder they didn't rise up and kill him. They all said, okay, if the God of Abraham requires this, we will do it. So, when and how does God say, you're right with me? Now, we can lose justification, by the way. That's why we don't believe in what's saved, always saved. In fact, you're justified before you receive God's Spirit, or you can't have a relationship with him. If you're right with God, it means you can have a relationship. God says, you can come before me. You and I have no right to go before totally good, totally just, and totally loving God. We have no right to do that, unless He gives it to us. Understand that. Well, I went to God, He went ahead, He let me come because I'm such a good person. No! God gives you the privilege of coming before Him, because we are the opposite of total goodness, total justice, and total love. His greatness is what we have to look at. And when we really get it as much as we can, like Abraham got it, it changes the way we react with God, and react to God, and respond to God. Let's go to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3.

This is what I covered in the Bible study last month, and then covered much of chapter 4 here this week.

Romans 3 verse 19.

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 may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be declared righteous, justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now, this has been misused over and over again to say you don't have to keep the law. Now, by the way, for every every Protestant scholar who knows Greek, I've never read one who says that's what that means. I've read commentaries that says that what it means. But no, no, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is, how does God say to you, you are right with me? Is it because you come as a law keeper? Well, the problem is, as you'll say later, we've all sinned. So how do you come and say, you're just counting up sins versus good deeds? That's all we're doing. I have more good deeds than sins, so therefore I get to come to you, right? God says, no, I'm perfect.

So you get to come to me because you're only 10% perfect and 90% bad. Okay, and we can have an equal relationship now? That's how this works?

He says, no, it's the law that tells us what the difference between righteousness and unrighteousness. And later through the book of Romans, we'll get to that in the next couple months as we continue to go through this. He actually says that. Righteousness is defined by the law. It tells us what righteousness is and what unrighteousness is and our behavior towards God. Look at what he said in verse 31. Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary, we establish the law. He says, you really don't understand the law until you have faith in God. Then God says, come here, you can come before me. I declare you right with me. It doesn't mean you're righteous yet. It means he just declares you right. You're right. You can come to me and say, well, okay, then I've earned some kind of rightness. Hmm. I'm now right. So I'm going to go tell my wife, you know what? I've been talking to God today and I'm right. So you better listen to me. What does this mean? Verse 21. He says, but now the righteousness of God, apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. He said, now let me tell you something about God's righteousness that goes beyond the law, but is taught to us in the law and the prophets. There was the Old Testament tells us about this. It's all there.

But he says it goes beyond you and my relationship with the law. Now we just read, he said, we established the law. Paul expects Christians, Romans 6, 7, and 8, says it to obey the law. That's not the issue. The issue is how in the world do we declare right before a God who is total goodness, total justice, and total love? How do we get that right? Where does it come from? He says, let me tell you something about the righteousness of God. Here's how God is right. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, who all, on all who believe, for there's no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Here's the problem. The law tells us where we're unrighteous. It may tell us where we're righteous, but it also tells us when we're unrighteous. At that point we're sinners. At that point our nature is corrupted. At that point we have no right to go before God. And because he is totally just, the death penalty is there over us. You say, oh, that law's mean. No, it's God. He's the judge who says you deserve death. God says every one of us deserve death because our nature is that corrupted of itself. Now, it can change, but by itself his justice requires our lives.

See, we think, well, the law does that. No, God does that. He requires our lives because he's totally good and he's totally just. And we can't understand that because we're neither. We're not even close to those things, but that we don't understand the third one. He is totally loving. And he can't use one to erase the other one because then it's not complete, is it? He's not a complete being if he wipes out part of who he is. There's no division inside God's mind. It's all together. Like I said, there's none of the conflict and anxiety and problems we have. It's just not there. He goes on being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He says, now let me explain how God does this, Paul says. God's love doesn't erase justice and it doesn't erase goodness.

It does something else. Whom God sent Jesus Christ sent forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate whose righteousness? God's righteousness. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is to show us how right God is. It's to show us how good God is, how just God is, and how loving God is. Propitiation is an interesting word. In the pagan world, it meant the sacrifice, the song, the dance, whatever you had to do to appease the gods. It's never used that way in relationship to God. God appeases himself. It's very fascinating because this word in the way it's used in ancient Greek and paganism, it's totally different. We must do something. You want rain? You do the rain dance, and you kill some kind of animal, and then you get rain. You appease the gods. Here, God appeases himself. God takes care of goodness. God takes care of justice. And God takes care of love within who he is. This is an external thing. It's who he does and what he does because of who he is. Because this is his character. This is his righteousness. All this together.

Whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. Because in his forbearance, God has passed over the sins that were previously committed. To demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So here's what he does.

He satisfies his goodness by looking at us and saying, you're not very good. He satisfies his justice by saying, you deserve death. You cannot live forever. Understand, God will not let us live forever as corrupted beings.

We will either be changed because he's built into us the righteousness to be his child, or he will put us in the lake of fire. He will not let us spend eternity in torture. He just won't. Saint may end up that way, but we don't.

So what does he do? His love says, but I want my creation to be my children. That's his love. I want my children, or my creation to be my children. So what does he do? Christ is a planned substitute for us. He becomes justice. He now becomes goodness. And God says, you're right. With me.

We're justified.

That's a little big, isn't it?

That is really big. I mean, we talk about this all the time, but understand what's going on in the mind of God. It said, he did this to show us he's right. He did this to please himself. Propitiation. This is the way God pleased himself. What do you mean, pleased himself? He made sure his goodness is protected, his justice is protected, his love is protected. And you know what he did? He suffered for us in order to do that. Jesus became a willing sacrifice. He even said, nobody can take my life. I give my life. What was the point he's making? I'm coming as your substitute out of love because justice will be served. Because God is good. And that's not inconsistent. God suffered for us to show us even what love is. In fact, it's the ultimate act of love. It's the ultimate act of love.

And so he says, you are now righteous. Now I've got to make you righteous, he says. And the sermon I gave six months ago was about how we have to become righteous. How that's a whole process of God developing that in us.

But is God's righteousness that is developed in us? Now we submit to that. He doesn't take away a free will. We can say no. But this is what God has called us to do. This is what he has called us to be.

That's why we repent. We change our mind. And what is our faith? Our faith is in this process. Our faith is that God is so good, so just, and so loving. And Jesus Christ, who is also God, comes. And is this sacrifice so that the entire righteous is of God is completed? We just read three places and there he says it's his righteousness that does this. Because God is right. It is done right. And it's done right for us. And it's a terrible suffering on the part of the Father and the Son for this to happen. Terrible suffering for this to happen.

That's God. We really don't understand it. Romans chapter 5. Paul continues on here in Romans 5.

I mean, we talk about this. We know the mechanics of it. But I just didn't want to do the mechanics today. I want to show you, as much as we can get this little glimpse into why God does it, it's because it's who he is. And it's not like us.

Now, when we read here what Paul writes, we see the impact of what he's trying to say. Verse 6. For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. His death wasn't just to show us what love is. His death wasn't just because some bad people killed him. His death was for what is required of us by him. By Christ and God.

Because they both have the same goodness, justice, and love. What is required of us is our lives. And what he did was died for us. And said, I give you a new life. I give you a new chance. I fulfill justice because I am good. Jesus is totally good, too. So he fulfills justice. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love towards us. He's committing an act of justice. And in doing so, showing how much he loves us. That's why Christ said, I do this for you. Nobody can take my life. I give it up. I'm going to let them kill me. Why? Because he loves us. And we are already condemned.

We're already condemned.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us. That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He died before us before we even repented. He died for us before God said, you're righteous, Kabir. Because we can't come here to God. And thus we accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And say, please let that death be for me. Let that death be for me. Much more than, have it now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. The resurrected Jesus Christ is who God is using to take his church and prepare us for his second coming, which was the song which was sung about his second coming, to prepare him for his second coming, to be changed into the literal children of God, to be righteous. For if we were enemies, verse 10, for if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. If he died and was not resurrected, we're doomed still.

And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we now we have received the reconciliation.

There was no way for us to be reconciled to God because his righteousness required our deaths. So to show us goodness, justice, and love, Christ came and fulfilled all three of these. Total goodness, total justice, total love. He said, there, that's what God is.

And we have to believe in this enough to go to God and say, I accept that sacrifice. What do you want me to do? Because I can't pay you for that. I have nothing to give you for that. But I wish to become your child. That's what we do. That faith in that is when he says, you're right with me. Come here. You're right with me.

Now we can talk. And he begins that process of converting us.

1 Peter 2.

1 Peter 2. And I'm just hitting a couple of New Testament scriptures to show that this concept is just constant throughout the New Testament. The Old Testament, but the New Testament also. 1 Peter 2. Verse 21.

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us. That's the thing. This costs God and Christ a lot. But that's their character. Their righteousness is, we do for you what you can't do.

We'll do for you what you can't do. Now come. Come be part of the family. 2 Peter 2.

Leaving us an example that you should follow whose steps who committed no sin, nor was the seed found in his mouth. He did not die for his sin.

He died for ours. Who when he was revealed, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. Isn't this interesting? He committed himself to God, who is doing what? Righteous judgment. What is righteous judgment on Christ? Christ hadn't sinned. His righteous judgment is, I'm taking your sacrifice and giving it to them. And he says he's trusting. He committed himself to God. This saves them all who wants it.

Righteousness has this legal quality to it. Who himself wore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep gone astray, but now we turn to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Now we want to be righteous.

We are motivated to live by God's way. We're motivated to have faith. We're motivated to follow the law. We're motivated to do these things, to become righteous, because why? Because this is the God we worship.

This is Jesus Christ.

And this is how they act with us.

Listen for the final scripture. Good Isaiah 52. We always read Isaiah 52 around the time of the Passover. I want to pick out a few places and show you how part of this seems bizarre until you realize what we just realized.

Isaiah 52, verse 13.

Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, and shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visitor was marred beyond any other man. And he swore more than the sons of men. Now this is obviously a Messianic prophecy and applies directly to the life and death of Jesus. So he sprinkled many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths as him. For what not had been told them, they shall see. What they had not heard, they shall consider. Let's get down to verse 4 here in chapter 53.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. What is our responsibility in the death of Jesus Christ? He would not have died if it wasn't for our sins. Because there was no need to. Why did he do this? Because he wants to take our griefs and our sorrows and our confusion and our craziness and all the things we struggle with that he does not. Because why? Well, when you're perfect goodness and justice and love. That's why Jesus is you know, that last prayer, he basically tells God, I want to come home. This is nuts down here. Please bring me back to what I was with you before.

I mean, he was experiencing life as a human being. Not like he had experienced it as God.

He did this to take upon himself and to take upon himself our sorrows. Yet we have seen him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. Yes. We are responsible in that he would not have had to die except for us. And we can't get lost in humanity and say that. He did it for humanity. But he did it for each one of us. We have to accept that personal sacrifice that he willingly did because it's in his nature to do so. Christ sacrificed himself willingly because it's in his nature to do so. It's who he is.

He was ruined for our iniquities and to chastise him for our peace was upon him by his stripes were he healed.

Our peace with God is made through what he did. But once again, it makes no sense unless you see the greatness of God.

And it makes perfect sense to God.

It made perfect sense to Jesus Christ.

Because there's no conflict with these concepts within them. And it all is united together into one character.

Verse 10.

Yet it pleased the Lord. What? It pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief when you make his soul an offering for sin. How could that please God to sacrifice Christ?

How could Christ, it says in the New Testament, that he did what he did for joy. How could he suffer that for joy? Because it wasn't joyful while he was going through it. How could this be pleasing to God when God was agonizing as he watched what was happening? It's very simple.

Because now, the goodness, justice, and love of God was all coming together in a total expression of who God is.

In that sacrifice, we have the total expression of who God is and who Christ is. And it pleased God. I'm saving these children. Because I will suffer for them. And Christ will suffer for them.

And the justice of God was appeased. The penalty we deserve was wiped out.

We were now right before God.

Because of his righteousness, not because of ours.

It should be helpful to us what we can grasp hold of. And we only get glimpses into God, little glimpses into God, and then it's sort of overwhelming. And then he gives us another glimpse some point along the road. But it should give us comfort to know that God isn't plagued by constant internal conflicts like we are.

There's no doubt. He doesn't wake up one morning because he never wakes up. You know, because he's always awake. But, you know, he doesn't all of a sudden look at the angels and say, you think I'm doing this okay?

He doesn't at some point look at Christ and say, maybe we should come up with another plan. Christ never says, you know, Christ only said, if it's possible, let's not do it this way, right? When he was facing death. But he knew this was the way it had to be done. But he was a human being at the time. And he felt like a human being. But he knew this is the only way this can be done.

Because if he wasn't sacrificed, no human being would survive.

Because God would say, nobody survives. Because we are wicked. We're a mixture of good and evil. That's not acceptable to him. He is angry with sin. He can say, I hate the sinners, but he'll die for them.

Isn't that amazing?

God can be angry and love you so much, he can say, I hate you, I hate what you're doing, so I'll die for you so that you don't have to die. That's not what we think. That is a total emotional control that's beyond us.

That's objectivity that's way beyond us, right? I can't be that objective. He can. He can put the good of others out there and suffer for others. God suffered for others. Christ suffered for others.

And he can do that, not because he has to. It's because that's who he is. It is his nature to do so. It is nature to suffer for us.

And his goal isn't just to declare us righteous, but to literally make us righteous through his Holy Spirit so that he will develop in us his character. He will develop in us some of himself, so that we're sort of like him. None of us will be totally like him or like Christ, but we'll be like them enough to become part of the family and live forever.

And if nothing else, if you could go home today and just think, this is beyond me. Because if you figured this out, please let me know. This is so genius. It's so incredible that if you can just get a glimpse into this, I guarantee you, tomorrow, you'll have a little more faith. You know what God will do.